Nature Is Going to Kill You
Filming for Shark Week's Perfect Predators. Doug Perrine/Seapics.com
Sharks have legs. In its 20th year, Discovery Channel's Shark Week had its biggest debut ever, drawing 3.9 million viewers to Ocean of Fear: The Worst Shark Attack Ever on Sunday night. There's the publicity pull of the big 20th anniversary, of course, but I suspect Shark Week has benefited from the popularity of a genre it spawned: the Nature Is Going to Kill You Show, represented by the likes of Deadliest Catch, the recently tarnished Man Vs. Wild, Ice Road Truckers and Survivorman, whose host Les Stroud is also hosting Shark Week.
I watched Stroud's special, Shark Feeding Frenzy, on Discovery last night. The title is not unlike a fetish-video title--Shoe Licking Fiesta, or whatnot--and the show pretty much followed the rules of Nature Is Going to Kill You porn down the line. The pseudo-scientific premise: let's see what we can get sharks to attack, why and how hard they'll do it. Among the delicacies sharks are partial to: turkey, license plates and Stroud's cameraman, who escaped an arm amputation only by wearing a suit of chainmail. This, in fact, was my number-one educational takeaway from Shark Feeding Frenzy: "It can never be completely safe to hand-feed sharks, even while wearing a chainmail suit." Noted.
I can't decide if it's ironic, or perfectly appropriate, that the Nature Is Going to Kill You Genre is getting so hot just as the pop culture focus on the environment is also peaking, from An Inconvenient Truth to The Simpsons Movie to Discovery's own huge Planet Earth documentary (Discovery Networks, by the way, will launch Planet Green, a channel about all things eco, next year). I mean on the one hand, it makes thematic sense: respecting the awesomeness of nature, communing with the Earth, recognizing that we are in danger of destroying ourselves by destroying our environment and so on. On the other hand: I'm supposed to want to save the oceans now? When the ocean would bite my friggin arm off if it got half a chance?
Having two young sons, however, I have many long years of Nature Will Kill You TV ahead of me. Tuned In Jr. and Tuned In Jr. Jr. have become fans of Bindi: The Jungle Girl, on Discovery Kids, starring Bindi Irwin, whose dad, Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, actually was killed by nature, in the form of a stingray. Disturbingly, it involves Bindi narrating footage of her late father getting dangerously close to wildlife, pretty much precisely the way he died.
Mind you I don't judge, I'm not questioning the show's ethics, and if Bindi wants to carry on her father's work, more power to her. That doesn't make it any less creepy to see footage of him with a shark and hearing her narrate, "Don't lean in too close!"--all the while trying not to let on to the kids how or why I'm weirded out by it.
Not that the kids will probably be any less interested in the shows once they find out what happened to Irwin--any more than his adult fans were, judging by the numbers for Shark Week. You can't blame us for curiosity, and you can't blame nature for trying to kill us. We're all doing what comes, well, naturally.
-
1
I watch a lot of Discovery's channels. That being said, I've just never given two hoots and a hollar (Okie talk) for shark week. I usually avoid it as it just does not interest me.
My son loves Deadliest Catch and my wife and I have gotten kind of hooked on it. Ice Road Truckers is a rip off of DC and sucks. There is not a single driver on the show that I like. They are all loud mouth jerks who can't seem to utter more than two words without throwing in a three or four f*cks. They might as well let the narrator talk and just show video.
You say Man vs. Wild is "tarnished". What do you mean by that? I don't care for the show or the host. Unlike Les Stroud who goes it alone and does his own filming, Bear does really, really stupid stuff to sensationalize the show. As a Boy Scout leader, I'm inclined to have the boys watch M vs W just to point out what NOT to do in a survival situation.
Survivorman is cool. The reruns were wearing thin and I'm glad to see new shows are coming soon.
But shark week.....I just don't care.
Oh yeah, even though it isn't a nature can kill you show, here is a shout out to Mike Rowe and Dirty Jobs. Too cool.
-
2
@Keith: "tarnished" -- an allusion to the reports that Bear Grylls stayed at resorts, had more help in filming than let on, etc. I should add in a link.
-
3
True. That is one of the reasons I enjoy Survivorman and respect Stroud. Bear is just a showboater with a crew. Even I could do that. Oh towel boy!!!
-
4
Okay, one more time professional wrestling is rigged! Reality tv has no more to do with reality than pornography has to do with sex. Once you introduce directors, cameramen, makeup artists, producers, fluffers, etc. into a situation it's no longer reality it's just t.v.
-
5
My favorite quote that I've seen so far regarding shark week comes from Slate: "It was therefore a horrible disappointment to turn on Ocean of Fear, the original film Discovery premiered last night, and catch Shark Week in the act of jumping itself."
Which, well, yes. The most cringe-worthy moment was a show titled "Smart Sharks: Swimming With Roboshark"--narrated by none other than *David Attenborough*. Oh, the humanity!
-
6
Oh, that's a great line. Damn you, Troy Patterson!
-
7
From the brilliant mind of the NBA's own Gilbert Arenas, he has this to say about sharks...
"A shark attack is if you’re chilling at home, sitting on your couch, and a shark comes in and bites you; now that’s a shark attack. Now, if you’re chilling in the water, that is called invasion of space. So I have never heard of a shark attack."
Hilarious. Check out the rest of his shark rant: http://www.nba.com/blog/gilbert_arenas.html
I love shark week and pretty much any animal show - I was hooked on Planet Earth. But I do admit that while watching the other night I looked at my finacee and said "I'm so glad there are people out there willing to do insanely stupid things for my entertainment and in the name of 'science.' "
-
8
Gotta love shark week. In their defense, the marketed shark attack porn is a little bait-and-switch (see what I did there? bait?) for the more reasonable and measured messages about sharks. Most of the message is conservationist, if anything.
-
9
Sharks are cool. Those who disagree will be thrown into shark-infested waters.
-
10
hi bindi would it be ok if I could be a wildlfe warrior with you pless! I will hlpe with do eney think. pless bini!
- poniewozik Good news: Jamie Oliver's Revolution to be Re-Televised. http://bit.ly/9WDgXv - 52 minutes ago
- poniewozik Why @moryan says bringing @neilhimself's 'Sandman' to TV is probably a bad idea. http://bit.ly/9Rvmxh - 1 hour ago
- poniewozik New post: The Discovery Gunman: TV as the Enemy, and as the Weapon. http://bit.ly/dreevK - 5 hours ago
Most Popular »
- The Crimes and Misdemeanors of Meghan McCain
- The Discovery Gunman: TV as the Enemy, and as the Weapon
- A Few Thoughts on the God-Awful State of Customer Service
- Is red-hot India too hot?
- Hits and Misses from Today's Apple Announcement
- 18 Android Apps To Get You Started
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer Offers Theater Mode, Wagering and More
- The 10 Tiny Details that Made Star Wars Matter
- Health Reform is Good for Small Business Employees
- The Obama Speech
- Tony Blair in 'A Journey': On U.S. Leaders Bush, Clinton
- Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers, Study Finds
- Why Israelis Don't Care About Peace with Palestinians
- How Barack Obama Became Mr. Unpopular
- Study: Young, Single, Childless Women Earn More Than Men
- The Science of Ambition: How Genes, Family Affect Success
- Arizona's Anti-Immigration Firebrands: Fueled by Out-of-Staters
- Cause of Death: Sloppy Doctors
- Why France Is Deporting 700 Roma, or Gypsies, to Romania
- How Can a Democracy Solve Tough Problems?
Quotes of the Day »
RSS
