Fury over Cecil the lion also sparks race conversation

Maria Puente | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Killing of Cecil the lion sparks big protests, debate A Minnesota dentist has temporarily closed his office following massive protests for his involvement in the killing of a beloved lion in Zimbabwe.

Cecil, we hardly knew ye...

The assassinated lion of Zimbabwe, killed recently under dubious circumstances by an American dentist, is being mourned with passion and fury by celebrities on social media. And the dentist is the focus of such an outpouring of contempt and hostility, he's been forced into hiding.

Meanwhile, however, a backlash is also building on Twitter from those who wonder: Where is the celebrity passion for Sandra Bland or the "Black Lives Matter" movement?

Leave it to the usually wisecracking talk-show host, Jimmy Kimmel, to sum up the anger and shame millions of Americans feel over the death of Cecil, a lion beloved in one of Zimbabwe's national parks and in Britain, where conservation scientists had been tracking him for years.

Kimmel was so upset on his show Tuesday night, he choked up even as he was telling excoriating jokes and urging viewers to donate to the Oxford wildlife conservation group that had been studying Cecil and his endangered kind.

Kimmel was unsparing of the Minnesota hunter/dentist, referring to him as a "jackhole," as "vomitous," and...ahem...inadequate.

"Why are you shooting a lion in the first place...how is that fun?," Kimmel demanded, addressing Walter Palmer, who paid more than $50,000 to kill Cecil with a crossbow, under circumstances now being investigated by Zimbabwe authorities as a possible poaching crime.

(The Minneapolis dentist, who has protested in vain he didn't know Cecil was a protected lion, shut down his practice and disappeared as threats and protesters multiplied on Twitter and outside his office.)

"Is it that difficult for you to get an erection that you need to kill things? They have a pill for that, it works great. Just take that and save yourself from a lifetime of being the most hated man in America who never advertised Jell-o pudding on television," Kimmel sneered.

And he was not the only one sneering and fuming. Outrage spread across Twitter in a twinkling after the news about the lion exploded Wednesday. There is already an online petition, with over 400,000 signatures so far, demanding "justice" for Cecil from Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

Celebrity animal lovers, of which there are scores, have been tweeting, including known activists such as Ricky Gervais and Kaley Cuoco Sweeting.

And ordinary schmoes were heartbroken, too.

Like ordinary people, celebs respond to animal stories, and it has the added advantage of being less controversial than, say, race issues, says veteran Hollywood watcher Howard Bragman, CEO of Fifteen Minutes Public Relations.

"Animal activism has always been a staple of Hollywood activism, it's really in the DNA," says Bragman. "Celebrities have found when they step into some of the race issues, they’ve gotten their hands slapped for perceived insensitivity, even when they were trying to do and say the right thing. They realize that animal activism is a win-win. In most cases, nobody objects and particularly in this specific case."

Some tweeters, however, wish more celeb passion could be directed at the "Black Lives Matter" campaign and the recent case of Sandra Bland, who was jailed after a traffic stop in Texas and ended up dead in her cell.

By contrast, one online petition demanding justice for Bland has a little more than 6,000 signatures at the moment.

Bragman believes many celebrities probably do feel strongly about Bland and all the other recent cases of African Americans ending up dead after encounters with cops. But they may not feel safe enough to speak out, and usually their publicists and advisers are counseling against it.

"A lot of race issues are much more nuanced and tend to be controversial," he says. "(Cecil) is pretty black-and-white. "Unless a celebrity is really, really passionate about a cause, a publicist is going to guide them to be...careful about alienating people."

Most people on Twitter don't have this problem, so there was no holding back about the death of Cecil, whose pictures showed him to be a magnificent beast indeed.

Animal-rights groups jumped into the Twitter fray, too, using #CeciltheLion to make their case. "Cecil the lion is dead because Walter Palmer the dentist is a morally deadened human being," charged Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a leading animal-rights group, condemned the killing of Cecil and trumpeted the celebrities tweeting about it.

But it had no problem calling for the death of the dentist.

"If, as has been reported, this dentist and his guides lured Cecil out of the park with food so as to shoot him on private property ... he needs to be extradited, charged, and, preferably, hanged," said the statement from PETA chief Ingrid Newkirk emailed to the Associated Press.

Contributing: Arienne Thompson