Exploiting Animals for Entertainment: A Display of Showmanship
Entertainment, education or unnecessary invasion of their space?
It is a fine line to walk between using a documentary or wildlife show as a way to become a celebrity or showman. Steve Irwin, alias Crocodile Hunter, achieved celebrity status. He died tragically.
His actions, although adored and respected, could be seen as nothing more than circus performers. They were just showmen whose antics promoted his zoo. This gave the wrong impression about how animals should behave and be treated. The media still labelled him as a conservationist, wildlife expert, TV personality, and an all-round good guy.
Animals that provoke good television
He seemed to have little empathy for animals, but went to great lengths to control them. By provoking them and taunting them in order to get their reaction under the pretense of showing them their natural behavior. This made for entertaining television as opposed to the animal simply sitting and contemplating the surroundings.
Steve Irwin was unfortunate because he provoked or invaded one animal’s space too many times and the animal took revenge. Or, did it simply react naturally to a perceived threat? This was an unnecessary tragedy caused by a desire to entertain and show off. This behaviour inspires others to create TV shows and encourages them to treat animals in a similar way.
The He-man in Natural History
The Radio Times in the UK described Steve Backshall, as a ‘he-man’ of natural history due to his how near can I get without being killed’ doctrine when approaching potentially deadly creatures. His method was to torture and aggravate them and then goad them into a response.
Many reality shows and pseudo-wildlife shows are presented by celebrities or heroic presenters and involve the killing of animals, stressing them out. We even have extreme fishing in which poor fish who have grown to enormous sizes over many years are portrayed as “monsters”, and are hunted, caught and then killed for perverse entertainment.