Growing up, shows like 'Wild America' with Marty Stouffer were my favorite programs. Showcasing the wilderness and the creatures in their habitats, they sparked in me a deep and abiding love for all the things of Nature. In recent years, it seems that the PC movement has even corrupted these shows. No longer are the facts of life, both the wonders of life-giving and the gruesome workings of predation have gone the way of the Dodo.
As a youth shows on the Serengeti would thrill me, divulging every natural act which appalls and is forbidden under the mantle of mankind's day to day affairs. The stark reality of a float of crocodiles simultaneously death-rolling together to make a meal of a wildebeest end up on the editing room floor. No more blood and guts dripping from the mouths of a majestic Lion, framed against the setting sun with mane blowing in the evening breeze.
Have we grown so PC that these natural, necessary facts of everyday animal life are deemed unfit for viewer consumption? These displays of reality were what led to my fascination with the multitudinous realities of life- and death. No longer do we allow even our planet's most magnificent beasts to be viewed in their natural setting.
Is this solely an American phenomenon?
Where has all the 'wild' gone?
-
Kelly Jones
- Posts: 2665
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:51 pm
- Location: Australia
- Contact:
Re: Where has all the 'wild' gone?
It's fear, as well as efficiency.
The same "phenomenon" has driven humanity for centuries to have nice mowed monocultural green lawns, put up unnecessary fences everywhere, and prefer flat smooth tourist pathways through wilderness forests.
But there is a lot to be said for fence-like behaviour when it comes to telecommunications, utilities, emergency situations, etc.
-
The same "phenomenon" has driven humanity for centuries to have nice mowed monocultural green lawns, put up unnecessary fences everywhere, and prefer flat smooth tourist pathways through wilderness forests.
But there is a lot to be said for fence-like behaviour when it comes to telecommunications, utilities, emergency situations, etc.
-
There was a lot of stuff being produced in the 90's. The BBC produced some of the best nature shows I've ever seen.Is this solely an American phenomenon?
Since 911 the commercial market has become saturated with Iraq war and other political material pointing out all the human wrongs. For relief from such depressing material many people have turned to trivia, such as the reporting of which star (or non-star in the case of many folk like Hilton) has flashed more cunt than others.
Perhaps the media barons in cohort with the big polluters have deciced not to show nature shows because it may interfere with their immediate fuck-the-future profit interests - they simply do not want to show how much - and of what beauty - is still being destroyed as this may cause a reactionary conservationist trend towards lowering consumption of natural resources (not just of the consumption of energy, which is all that gets in the news these days).
Send a letter to your free public TV stations to complain about the lack of nature shows. Those who will influence the future are not seeing enough of them, apart from daytime "pop" type nature shows that are very thin on detail.
-
BMcGilly07
- Posts: 280
- Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:33 pm
-
BMcGilly07
- Posts: 280
- Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:33 pm
Yeah, both shows are good. Although, that Bear Grylls is going to get a lot of lost amateurs killed if they try to employ the dangerous techniques he employs. He hardly explains how he does what he does, merely executing the motions for effect. Planet Earth was beautifully done, but even in there you didn't glimpse any Thompson Gazelle guts or humping Bison.
