Re: BBC Human Planet, episode 1: Oceans – Into the Blue
If you’re looking for an extreme tourist adventure, consider Compressor Diving in the Philippines. A little like the reverse of skydiving. Bite on the end of a leaky, tangled garden hose supplying blasty, rusty compressed air and dive to the bottom of the ocean. Experience the thrill of getting the bends and risking paralysis for life. But don’t worry, the stakes aren’t as high as they are for the groups of fishermen who do this several times everyday for weeks in order to feed their families…
Among the closing remarks is the phrase, “the fishermen go home happy with a boatload of fish.” It’s ok that they’re all poor as dirt and that we watch it on TV for fun… they go home happy. Almost zero politics and the word DANGER used too many times. What about the ethics of drifting around in your fancy scuba gear with an epic underwater camera, while the humans you’re filming wear shorts and sustain their existence with an apparatus we normally use to power jackhammers? You’d better hand over that tank when you’re done (as if there are no ethical problems with that either…).
I’m extra disappointed because I loved BBC Life, the nature documentary series. Like Human Planet, Life was visually mind-blowing, and obviously focused on specialized life strategies and extreme behaviours. Life took a unique approach compared to many nature docs. Sometimes the prey got away. Sometimes the gender roles imposed by human society were not over-emphasized. Sometimes the predator wasn’t made out to be a monster. Every being was portrayed as animate. It was absolutely not all sex and killing.
It seemed like in Life they were just saying, “wow”, instead of the sensationalization and romanticization that I saw in Human Planet’s first episode. Too bad their seemingly progressive approach doesn’t extend to humans. It’s turning out to be an Algo-Western/Northern-white-people-watch-the-exoticized-Other-do-crazy-stuff-on-our-HD-TV’s fest.
Not that I never romanticize our own ‘poverty’: “And then the Sound Recording student will stay up the entire night in a windowless room with minimal provisions, resorting to affordable drugs for a semblance of stamina. But his wage for the entire night will not even cover the cost of the coffee he relies on. He is pushing the limits of the human body. And when the job finally seems finished, the student faces an even greater danger – walking home. It’s nearly -10 C and his equipment is insufficient. Soon a chill will reach his body and he might shiver a little…”
Aaaaaand… I’m still going to keep watching it. But I’m going to keep asking questions.
