Posted: Sep 2nd 2010, 11:41 AM
OK. I'll start off by making this statement: Bear Grylls, the person is an accomplished survivalist. He passed selection with the
SAS, serving as a Reservist which I have absolutely the most respect for. He also was the youngest to climb
Mt. Everest, and he has many other insane accomplishments. So, before I begin, I just want everyone to know that I admire his achievements and his knowledge of the outdoors.
My beef is with his show, 'Man vs. Wild' which airs on The Discovery Channel. The show is supposed to be under the premise of survival after the worst possible scenario. It's the 'What if?' answer. However, having gone through several survival courses myself,
Mr. Grylls, or perhaps it's the studio monkeys, seems to engage in the most ludicrous and dangerous activities that would get the average person dispatched most effectively.
Examples
of ludicrous:
In one episode, he parachutes into the Australian Outback, a most formidable place to say the least. With luminous rain clouds in the background, he immediately starts drinking his own urine to stay off dehydration. For those of you that don't know it, yes, you can drink your own piss and recapture fluids; however, it is a last ditch event. The question arises: Why the heck wouldn't you wait and collect some nice fresh rain water first?
In that same episode, he hikes to a dried ravine and builds a shelter. Really? In a dried ravine with 60,000 foot thunderstorms over the highland??? So, when it starts raining, he is trapped in what becomes a flash flood and is forced to climb out over a 30-foot embankment by the toughest means necessary.
Another example of stupid survival behavior was just aired the other night. He drops from a helicopter on the outside of a reef off a small deserted island in Palau. He swims to the beach, which was plenty big for the helo to land (he claims it was not ~ dramatics). After setting up shelter and a sustainable fresh water supply, he leaves the island to cross shark infested water to another island across a tidal flat. They create a ton of drama around a few sharks swimming around him. From the dorsal fins, they look to be of the nurse shark variety looking for lobster. Hardly a threat to humans. When he gets to the next island, mind you he left behind shelter and water, he decides this island is no good either. He then crafts a bamboo sailboard and starts for the next island over. Rather than just using it as a paddle craft, he uses some stupid palm leaf sail and continuously falls into the 'shark riddled' water. Upon reaching the third island, he races down a runway chasing a plane that has a door open waiting for him to jump in.
I've watched him jump down 50 foot water falls into piranha infested pools, climb wet rock faces when he could have just walked around the end, and ventured into underground caves the size of a skinny man to eat a cricket when there were plenty of sources of food outside.
So, what is the point of the show? It can't possibly be to show people what to do in a survival situation, because his antics are staged and would get people killed. For anyone with any outdoorsmanship, the show is a farce. Has reality TV gone so far that it's no longer even grounded in reality? Are our lives that boring, that even the movies are fake enough that we now have to fake reality? For anyone thinking his stunts are not fake, ask yourself how a full camera crew seems to be with him at all times.
Now, Survivorman is another story. That guy carries his own little camera and does stuff to keep himself alive. He's not looking for theatrics. He's not looking for shock. He's showing how one can survive the outdoors.
Bear Grylls, while not a fake in his own accomplishments, is a fake in his 'reality' tv show.
