Wildlife spectacle as voyeur television

Legendary crocodile hunter Steve Irwin died doing what he loved, diving the depths off the Australian coast searching for yet another creature and tempting fate. Even as the world mourns a man who did more than anyone else to bring wildlife to the drawing room, his methods have brought up important questions that have divided the naturalist community.

While some believe that his style popularised wildlife among the masses, for others it reduced wildlife to a sideshow for couch potatoes. That Steve had no scientific training was another criticism towards his cowboy approach masquerading as ecological knowledge.

By intruding into the space of diverse fauna across the world, Steve  trivialized the many complexities involved in the relationship between an animal and its ecology, thereby peddling a sort of eco-porn.

His was a brand of spectacle where enthusiasm made up for rigor, audacity substituted scrutiny and showmanship replaced information. When one grapples with a 350-pound anaconda in the remote Amazon basin, or gets up, close and personal with a 20 foot Nile crocodile, the line between wildlife documentation and circus-entertainment blurs. It was this that troubled serious and committed wildlife photographers and filmmakers and true lovers of ecology.

Steve of course was aware of the limitations of his stunts and had argued that all he was trying to do is to take away the unjustified fears that people have of wild animals they perceive as dangerous. However in realty, the effect was quite the opposite. Animals that in their natural surrounding would most likely leave humans alone were portrayed as dangerous beasts that can be ‘tackled’. The fact that Steve was seeking and provoking the animals was left unsaid. This important fact was never put into context by the producers of his dramatic documentaries.  A lot of this change has to do with the changing nature of those who fund wildlife programming. The transformation happened with pay television taking roots in the developed economies. The sober, scholastic approach best underlined by the work of David Attenborough for the BBC was replaced by an emphasis on production quality and viewer interactive stunts. This meant that the "color" of the story became the overriding priority for the producer. To achieve this color, many a time wildlife encounters were simply set up. Tigers, surrounded by trekkers astride elephants, were seen huddling for the camera with bait tied all around. Similarly, fights were deliberately provoked between wild African elephants. The audience of course only saw the action and not the artifice. In a famous case it was reported that Britain-based John Downer Productions had used a plastic Solomon fish to film grizzlies in the Alaskan wilds. But as long as the bears bared their fangs, who cared if the fish was fake.

Even as the world mourns Steve's death, it is perhaps time for all involved, the channels, the production companies but most important of all the viewer to choose between wildlife as informed documentation or the sexed-up version, which, while pleasing to the eye, is not the 'real thing.' The wild is a primeval, lonely space that can be best understood on its own terms. It is time for the mass media and its audience to respect those terms.