TV and Nature, a dysfunctional mix?

Wonderful article on how the media, and especially TV nature programming is demeaning wildlife:

Steve Irwin's Death, 5 Years Later: How He Changed Nature TV - TIME

(Thanks to Peter Dickinson for listing this in his Zoo News Digest)

 

Thanks for posting this. What do you think about this Zooplantman?


In looking back at nature tv history do you think that this trend in wildlife wresting reality tv is much different from what Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler were doing on "Wild Kingdom" 40 years ago? I got some DVDs of the old shows out of nostalgia and found that most of the episodes were of Marlin and/or Jim going around the world chasing wildlife in jeeps, boats, and helicopters. They were doing pretty much what the people described in the article are doing. Certainly the volume of wildlife wrestlers (for lack of a better term) is much greater today because there is so much bandwidth to fill.

I LOVED "Wild Kingdom" growing up because I loved animals and it was the only place to regularly see it on tv. That finally changed when PBS put "Nature" on and there was a place to watch shows about animals in their natural habitats and ecosystems on a regular basis. Previously there were only occasional National Geographic specials and PBS documentaries that did this. After that the fakery and wildlife wrestling of "Wild Kingdom" seemed pretty dumpy. As do all of the wildlife wrestling reality shows discussed in this article.

My point is that the struggle between quality nature documentaries and wildlife wrestling reality shows is nothing new. Hopefully parents and educators can guide kids to the nature documentaries to supplement the stupid wildlife wrestling shows.

I'm still not sure what I think of Steve Irwin. When I first saw him I thought that he was a complete *****. Over time I came to appreciate that he was working to make people aware that reptiles, sharks, spiders, and other "monsters" are really cool animals that should be appreciated and conserved. In this role I think that he did much good. His methods got him killed though and he inspired a new gang of people discussed in this article pursuing his questionable methods.

 

David

Your comparison with Marlin Perkins makes some sense to me.
The writer's contrasting these hooligans with David Attenborough also makes sense.

Marlin Perkins, Frank Buck, et al worked at a time when environmentalism was an obscure backwater and the disappearance of wildlife was nothing like it is today. If they also took the "Man's dominion over dumb Nature" approach it is not the same as someone doing it today. We might dance and dine when the attacking army is on the other side of the planet, but when it is at our door we really need to change our behavior.

Now we have had Irwin and others parading their testosterone on TV and giving the show a conservationist soundtrack. But words are cheap and actions tell more. What is a kid to learn from these shows? The wonder of Nature -- which perhaps engenders respect-- aka Attenborough; or that chasing sting rays is really really cool -- which engenders.....?

 

I would really like to know the answer to the question you asked. What do kids (and adults) learn from these shows? I would think that some conservation-minded psychologist or education researcher or sociologist has studied this. Is this a query that could be sent out over an AZA education listserv or some other forum to try and find an answer?

This is an especially important to know since so much of our increasingly urbanized population's main interface with nature is through media...and zoos of course.

 

I suppose it has been studied

Steve Irwin's Influence on Wildlife Conservation - Brown - 2010 - Journal of Communication - Wiley Online Library

The Effect of Nature Documentaries on Students' Environmental Sensitivity: A Case Study

Reel nature: America's romance with ... - Google Books

http://whitehutchinson.com/children/articles/downloads/nature.pdf

Wildlife films - Google Books


for example

And then there are the opinions:
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/comment_wildlife-spectacle-as-voyeur-television_1052053

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Natur...The+case+of+MM&M+(Mad+Mike+and...-a0162520442

 

While there are many well-made nature programmes, I'm afraid there has been a tendency to dumb down in the last few years. I remember an Austin Stevens programme a few years ago. "There's a reticulated python, resting alongside the riverbank. I wonder what will happen if I tear it away from the bank. Jeez, it's putting its coils around me. I didn't expect it to be unhappy being pulled around for the camera." Surely, the animals should be shown more respect. It seems that many people want to watch conflicts between different species of animals with an idea that 'dangerous is good', until an animal kills a holiday maker, then all Hell breaks loose.

It's a pity that proof-readers aren't respected more. I have seen basic errors in several programmes, including those voiced by David Attenborough. I counted four in the first episode of 'The Life of Mammals' including the common statement "Apart from Australia, marsupials are only found in North and South America" - totally ignoring the species found in Indonesia. Why don't writers check their facts before broadcasting the programmes?

Other trends include the 'cutesy' shots of animals seeming to dance around, while music plays in the background. I'd prefer to see information on another species, rather than watching unnecessary space fillers. I also wonder why so many programmes have the 10 minute "This is how we made the film" section tagged on the end. Watching nine minutes of people sheltering from the rain and one minute of the elusive animal that was seen "just before we were about to give up and leave the camp" is often boring.

I could also do without films of rainforests being cut down and burnt. I would prefer it if the programme's makers tried to prevent the destruction, rather than filming it. Can you imagine the following scene: "The person's stopped breathing. Can anyone give CPR?" "I can, but I'm going to film the person dying instead." Wouldn't it be better to show how habitats can be saved, rather than watching them be destroyed?

 

I haven't seen "Wild Kingdom" for at least 30 years, but from memory Perkins and Fowler were often collecting wild animals for the St Louis Zoo, so they had to catch them and manhandle them to a certain degree. And at the time, that was the only regular wildlife show on television (in Australia at least) and so was the only show that could teach people about animals. As has already been stated, wildlife docos were few and far between. Until Attenborough and Life on Earth.

When I first saw Irwin on TV I also thought he was an idiot, overacting and sensationalising, andf playing up to the camera. Then I learnt through colleagues that knew him that he was actually like that in real life, in a state of perpetual awe and amazement.

But that number is infinitessimally small compared to the millions of people who came to appreciate and become interested in wildlife because of his programs.

I don't think Irwin ever suggested that chasing dangerous animals is really cool, and he always stated the dangers. But let me ask you this - when was the last time any of us saw a documentary on stingrays? I know I never have.

And it may sound morbid, but even his death was broadly educational. When it made the news a lot of my friends said to me "I didn't know stingrays could KILL you". Many of them didn't even know rays have barbs.

And finally, on the subject of manhandling wild animals being an example of "man demonstrating his dominion over nature" - yes, I don't like it either. But then, any zoo displaying animals behind bars is doing exactly that too, just in a less obvious way.



Hix

 

RIP. I didn't like his shows, because he more reinforced stereotypes than fought them. I think his tragic death ultimately proven the traditional message: don't provoke animals, especially dangerous ones.

I see these animal-wrestling programmes more as separate genre of films. They exist side to side with traditional documentaries like David Attenbrough, latter are incredibly popular (Life of Birds was showed prime-time in many countries) and only uneducated marketing people think animals must be "spiced-up" with extra drama.

 

One hopeful trend in nature TV is that the number of quality nature documentaries is on the rise along with the wildlife wrestling reality shows. Have there ever been any better nature documentaries made then "Blue Planet" and "Planet Earth"?

I don't watch any of these new wildlife wrestling shows and don't know much about them beyond what is in the article that started this thread. Does anybody here watch them and have specific critiques about what is good and bad about them? Has National Geographic completely sold out in producing some of these shows, or do the shows that they make have any redeeming value? I know that Zeb Hogan, one of the people cited in the article, is a very respected conservationist dedicated to conserving the giant freshwater fish of Southeast Asia.

Another interesting area to watch is how nature programs evolve on "new media" like Youtube and Twitter. Zooplantman has an excellent Twitter-feed on plant conservation. The San Diego Zoo is launching a "conservation channel" via a webpage dedicated to conservation news. As the web takes over some of the same functions that tv traditionally has maybe we can see forward thinking zoos step forward to make quality nature documentaries that gain an audience. Probably the talent needed to make great documentaries exists in the users of this site. Has anybody been following Chlidonias's trip to Asia, or read his previous log of his first trip? That would make an excellent and very entertaining documentary series.

 

"Life on Earth", "The Living Planet" and "The Trials of Life".

All by Attenborouogh/BBC Natural History Unit.



Hix

 

Yep, I'd put all of these in the same class. Some of the National Geographic specials are pretty classic too.

 

To the best of my knowledge, I believe DA wrote his own scripts for all the 'Life of..' programmes rather than just doing the voiceovers, though they do/did have a pool of researchers involved as well.

As one who was involved in this Industry (wildlife documentaries) for a number of years I can say every effort used to be made (on my part at least) to get all facts correct, but mistakes inevitably do occassionally slip through.

 

@Pertinax: What is your opinion on the current state of wildlife documentaries and wildlife television in general? Do you think the quality of nature television is generally getting better or worse?

 

It is strange perhaps that I no longer make a real point of watching wildlife series or documentaries. When I do see one, such as a quite recent and very interesting 'one-off' on the Story of the Galapagos Tortise 'Lonesome George' then I'd say the standard is much the same as it used to be as far as the 'quality' ones go (principally from the BBC), though there is a noticeable trend nowadays to include more people e.g. scientific (at least that's what they're presented as) expeditions discovering new places and 'hidden worlds' with hitherto unseen wildlife. I don't see any real harm in that, they're simply looking for new ways of presentation, but by focusing on the scientists and/or cameraman's role in the 'story' it does fill up a higher precentage of the film with people -its a lot easier than filling the whole 50 minutes with animals!

The Steve Irwin/ wildlife 'wrangler' genre of filming is very different. In the UK it was very popular for a few years but I think less so nowadays. These are programmes that I don't watch- I just find it too embarassing to see people capering about with crocodiles or hassling Lions for the flimsiest of reasons!