In Tasteful Outcast, Finch responds to Freud’s observation in Civilization and Its Discontents that “no one talks about the purpose of the life of animals, unless it is that they are meant to serve human beings.” By ‘branding’ Cuyp’s cow as a consumer product, Finch positions the animal as a subject rather than a passive object. He invites us to ask: why shouldn’t animals have purpose beyond servitude? The branded cow becomes a metaphor not only for commodification, but also for a quiet resistance to being reduced to abstraction.