Bear Grylls Scandal

Bear Grylls Scandal - by David Hobbs

The recent "scandal" surrounding Discovery Channel's Bear Grylls and his use of a hotel during a few
episodes when it was implied he was roughing it has me scratching my head. Headlines such as "'Wild' Grylls
Not So Manly After All?" - Reuters, or Don Kaplan's New York Post article titled "Grylls Thrills Bogus:
Expert" - in which the writer claims that Grylls is "barely the man he seems to be on TV" pepper the news. I
charge these detractors with the following… let's have a seat at your local zoo, scoop up a nice handful of
elephant dung and squeeze the water out of it directly into your mouth. Then swallow. While you're at it, drink a
few mouthfuls of your urine. Now what's your opinion again, tough guy?

According to most polls I've seen, I'm in the minority in thinking that Grylls use of a hotel on "at least two
occassions" makes him no less of a manly tough guy but I'm sticking to my guns. It's simply an extension of the
kind of show he does - one in which a sizable number of crew and a substantial supply of expensive equipment
must be considered. While detractors may validly argue that it is deceptive for Grylls to cozy up with cable
television when the footage implies he's sleeping neck deep in alligator-invested swamp, I don't think deception
is the intent. I feel entertainment is the primary focus of Man vs. Wild and the show's ratings seem to support
that opinion.

The very nature of a television show with the kind of mass appeal Bear enjoys almost implies liberties being
taken by the producers, film crew and host. I believe this is why Man vs Wild rates with a broader audience
than Survivor Man. Each covers wilderness survival but Grylls has the benefit of a camera crew following and
capturing his every move. Those fast action camera angles don't happen by magic. They are often the product
of some advance setup and planning.

Survivor Man, by contrast, features a lone survivor - Les Stroud - dropped in the middle of inhospitable
settings with only the equipment on his back and the vast majority of that equipment consists of camera gear. In
case that wasn't clear, he's alone. No crew. No producer. No makeup artist. Stroud is in the middle of
nowhere with seven days to survive (contrast that with Bear going 3 days) and help is likely much further off for
him than it is for Grylls. Les rarely has the benefit of anything beyond the multi-tool he carries and some
generally odd items which he can sometimes improvise into useful survival tools.

The fact is, Les Stroud is more an everyman. He's like us. He doesn't have any claim to Special Forces training.
He's just a guy who found himself on a path in life that led to experiences well suited to the kind of show he
does. Stroud puts us in plausible survival situations and gently directs us down a path towards making it out
alive and I find his show much more personally realistic to survival (we're not all the kind of shape Bear Grylls
is). But is Survivor Man as good as Man vs Wild? For me it is every bit as good and often more realistic.

As an avid rock climber, I see the things Grylls climbs on his show and think the man is insane and marginally
irresponsible for airing such footage. Some of the terrain he scales is more likely to result in a person in a
survival situation getting injured or killed than it is to see them to safety. Yes, extreme times call for extreme
measures and I'd rather die falling off a cliff than starving to death at the top of one, but few of us are going to
ever find ourselves at the top of a mesa with no reasonable way down. We had to get to the top somehow!
And by the time we're so weak that we have no choice but to climb down, we're in even more danger of falling
off and dying. But it's exciting to watch isn't it? Painful though it is to admit, there's more excitement in watching
Grylls commit to a potentially fatal down-climb than there is watching Stroud try to cut an ice hole with one arm
bandaged to his chest in a simulated injury after a plane crash. But which situation are you more likely to
encounter, a failed parachute landing that left you stranded on top of a mesa or a plane crash that left you
stranded in the wilderness? The questions you have to ask as a viewer are "why am I watching this? What do I
hope to gain? Do I want to be wow'd first and instructed second or the reverse?"

Catering to ever-shortening attention spans, Man vs. Wild, while based in realism and informative, is suited for
entertainment. It is fast paced, the crew is right there giving you those memorable camera angles, and it certainly
looks (and is) brutally dangerous. But you have to remember there are other people with Grylls and ratings and
entertainment are more a central theme of his show. You will learn, you will benefit if you bother to retain any of
it, but it is entertainment-focused.

Survivor Man, while entertaining and engaging, is geared toward teaching. Stroud is every bit a tough guy like
Grylls but the show moves at a slower pace. Remember, every long camera angle you see required Stroud to
first walk someplace, set up the camera, walk away and then back towards it to give you that cool shot. It
means doing everything twice! You will be entertained, you will be impressed with Stroud, but the show is
biased towards realism and that realism (no crew to setup camera's or take live action shots) naturally results in
a slightly less exciting pace.

Both shows are great. Both men are tough as nails, manly and likely more resilient than the vast majority of their
viewers (the New York Post's Don Kaplan included). Just use a little common sense when watching and, if it
isn't too much of a stretch, oh critical viewers, how about cutting Bear some slack. Anybody who squeezes
drinking water out of elephant poop, eats grubs and live fish and can start a fire by rubbing two wet
salamanders together is more than entitled to a night or two in a hotel room during some of his filming. Ok, I
made up the part about the salamanders.