Just finished watching a National Geographic special about tigers in India.
I remember watching National Geographic specials when I was a kid. They were full of Men writ large, Men with a capitol M. And when I stood, for the first time, in their offices in Washinton DC, I felt as if I had a kinship with those adventurors, a grip on the spirit of adventure that drove Heyerdahl across the Pacific in a balsa raft.
Now, apparently, NatGeo produces specials which involve Dockers-clad anorexic twits overdramatizing how dangerous it is for Indians to go and gather wood or fetch water from the jungle. I guess I don’t watch a lot of TV but am I Rip Van Fucking Winkle? when the hell did all this stuff happen?
And where is MY Geographic? the one where Men were glad to risk life and limb for a story, a picture, and not make the story and the picture about the risking of life and limb?
-billy
P.S. This is NOT meant to be sexist, I know a lot of women were excellent contributors over the years too, and I acknowledge their accomplishments, this particlar rant just doesn’t happen to be about them.
I just finished reading another of Sir Richard Burton’s works today. He was sponsored by the British Royal Geographic Society. That’s what men used to be made of. Got a javelin thrust through his palette and left it in his cheek while he walked several miles to camp.
I suppose we’ve sanitized most of the danger in the natural world so it must be harder for the NG folks these days.
Sorry about the abbreviation, folks, didn’t mean to be confusing. I also didn’t want to spell it out and have it truncated and be even MORE confusing.
I’m with you, Riley, times have changed and I’m not sure for the better. The Old geographic is why I bought a Land Rover. No, not one of those cushymobiles you see on the interstate, one of the old suckers, with dented fenders and a big spare tyre on the bonnet.
Guess I’m just doomed to be an anachronisim. At least I can sit in my rover with my pipe and read Hemmingway.
ok, I’m just guessing here, but maybe the reason there is less of the whole macho type he-man antics on National Geographic is because, when they DID all the macho, he-man kinda stuff, they killed off quite a few of the animals they where doing stories on. I don’t want this to come out wrong (but i’m sure it will) they (macho he-men) didn’t realize what the ramifications of their actions would be. I mean, aren’t Tigers very high on the endangered species list?
This really is just a guess. I have absolutely no evidence to prove it. It just seems feasible.
Bill,
I think your confusing National Geographic with Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
National Geographic is Jacques Cousteau swimming peacefully through the water, seeking “the elusive sea cow.”
Wild Kingdom was Marlin Perkins and his buff and tan buddy Jim (and gee, wasn’t this mildly homoerotic) bouncing over the desert plains in their Jeep, chasing down a fleeing lion, shooting it with a tranquilizer gun, throwing a net over it, tagging it, loading it into the Jeep and transporting it to some location 50 miles distant so that it could run free among the wilderbeasts.
“And just as the mother lion protects its cubs, so to does Mutual of Omaha protect your family …”
Gawd, those wimps on Survivor couldn’t last a day trying to keep up with Marlin and Jim.
No, no, no. Marlin never did anything dangerous himself; he always sent Jim in to handle the rough stuff, while he tracked down the other animal being featured that week. Thus, you’d have Jim wading into the Amazon to wrestle the killer anaconda, while Marlin stampeded a herd of gazelles by flying over them in a helicopter.
. . . Which gives rise to one of my favorite (though probably made-up) quotes: “Today we’ll watch from the helicopter as Jim wrestles the giant alligator. Watch out, Jim!” In fact, that quote is hanging on my door, because I think it says volumes about people who “manage” but don’t do any actual work.
I was always slightly confused by the name of the show. Did they ever do any episodes in Nebraska?
I used to love all the nature shows, but nowadays after about fifteen minutes of decent footage they all just turn into “Nature’s great, people suck, blah blah blah”. I know people have had a huge, horrible impact on the world. But having these same tired old platitudes in every show is downright annoying.
As regards the OP, I don’t think they’ve wussed out. In my latest issue of Nat. Geo., there’s the continuing story of the guy walking across Africa. Across freakin’ Africa!!
A friend of mine is a doctor in south Africa. He estimates he’s walked across Africa several times in the normal course of his job. Well, not all across Africa, of course, only over and over in the nastiest, most inhospitable places(which is where the diseased folk in need of help are). Why is this a National Geographic special? it’s a guy’s job. If the guy was being chased across Africa by confused rhinoceri, ok, that’s a special. If he was out stalking down a lion with a camera and his bare fucking hands, that’s a special. Walking? I’m not impressed. I face more danger every day driving my 110 mile round trip commute to work. As do hundreds of thousands of people. Just in the Chicagoland area!
And let’s not talk about those brave souls in Miami or LA.
b.
The CD-Rom with every pre-1998 issue might be a good place to look. I haven’t really looked through it yet, though. Can you remember what the bare-breastedest issues were?
