June 9th, 2009 Graig
I was made aware of Survivorman (Les Stroud) about 4 years ago by a coworker and became immediately fascinated by his show. If you don’t know, Stroud drops himself and only himself, into a plausible survival situation (”broken down snowmobile in the northern Alberta wilderness”, “in a life raft in the ocean” for example). He has minimal supplies (he always has his knife, but otherwise, not much else unless it’s an expected part of the scenario), and a hundred pounds of camera equipment which he sets up himself. He spends time with locals beforehand to learn about the area and what the land can provide in terms of food, water, shelter, and dangers, then spends seven days alone looking for rescue (his team will track him down by the seventh day). Some episodes Stroud simply survives the experience, unable to do much to escape his misery, and others he forges his own path to rescue. It’s an interesting, educational, often gripping, and entertaining show that is unique amongst the droves of reality TV.
Man vs. Wild stars Bear Grylls, a Christian Bale-esque British ex-Special Forces pretty boy who gets choppered out to well-scouted remote locations with a camera crew, no less, producing a glossy, manufactured “survival” show where, frequently, pre-planned stunts are used to heighten drama. If you read Gryll’s biography, yeah, he’s got the credentials, but he’s also got an egocentric swagger that just makes him kinda dickish. That the episode that I caught featured him with Will Ferrell proved that his show isn’t about survival, but the glamour of the “wild”. It was so pretentious and so fake in it’s storytelling that I couldn’t continue watching it beyond the first commercial break. The boldface lying he does on camera about his situation (”it’s minus 20 degrees out here”, he states, and he’s not wearing a hat, nor can you see his or Ferrell’s breath… having lived in -20 weather over 20 years of my life, you’re not surviving anything for more than a half hour without a hat).
I’ve exposed myself minutely to this program a few times before, witnessing the sheen and polish the show has was unsettling given how he butchers nature, sometimes in flippant revelry (hail the conquering British hero!) with zero respect, and zero necessity. He’s not killing an animal because he needs to eat it, he’s doing it to show that he can. I’m not sure how far craft services trails behind the camera crew, but you just know they’re there.
It’s a total bullshit show, and even Will Ferrell’s amusing antics couldn’t sate my disgust of the show’s presentation. You know how Disney created the myth of the suicidal lemmings, tossing the little buggers over the cliffside in the famous “nature” program? This isn’t far off from that. It’s marginal entertainment passing itself off as something educational.
Note the disclaimer from the website:
Bear Grylls and the crew receive support when they are in potentially life threatening situations, as required by health and safety regulations.
On some occasions, situations are presented to Bear so he can demonstrate survival techniques.
I’m not saying that Survivorman’s a better show, I’m saying that it’s more truthful in its presentation. Stroud, in his Canadianness, also has as much concern about the land as he does himself. There’s an undercurrent of environmentalism to his show, not just about survival, not just about the self, but unification of man and nature, symbiosis. Survivorman is the yoga to Man vs. Wild’s kickboxing. I haven’t seen enough of Grylls’ program to know, but I don’t get the sense he’s in it for much but himself.
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