Bear Grylls = Badass
If you were to stand within earshot of my apartment Friday at 9 p.m. you would probably hear the screaming and yelling of male college students. And while my roomates and I may be preparing to go out, we cant leave for the bars until after Bear Grylls is done being a badass. Whether he is scaling a rock face without rope, eating raw fish or surviving off of live maggots he found inside of a dead fox, he will do anything he can to survive in the wilderness.
Man vs. Wild is possibly the most entertaining show the Discovery Channel has to offer. In this show, a grizzled wilderman named Bear Grylls parachutes from a moving airplane into some of the most extreme locations on the planet. The appropriately named "Bear" served with the Special Air Services, a special forces unit of the British army, and was trained as a survival expert.
While the show is still relatively new, it is gathering wide acclaim as one of the discovery channels premier shows. Like Steve Irwin or Steve Corwin, Grylls is always extremely enthusiastic when on camera, but adds a new element to the show that other adventure series do not offer. As each episode shows, Bear is often depicted as literally surviving in the wilderness. When on screen he is often struggling and complaining about how he hasn't eaten in days and how much he wishes he could just get home.
However, while it is becoming popular among college students for the outragoues things he does to survive in the many different remote locations he is placed in, (i.e. urinating on his shirt and wrapping it around his face in the Moabi desert) people are beginning to question how much of the show is real.
I dont consider myself a gullible person. People who watch this show have to understand that yes, Bear brought a film crew with him. And yes, the film crew, which follows and documents his journey from airplane to rescue probably have power bars and trail mix on them. You can also argue that while he has no chance of actually dying (because he is surrounded by other people) that is not what the show is about. If you get too caught up in the fact that he isn't in as much f danger as he claims to be, you miss what the show is actually about. Learning what it takes to survive anywhere.
When searching the message boards for the show I expected to find other people who share the same views that I do. And while there are plenty of Man vs. Wild fans with things like :
"Bear is sooooo coooool"
There are people who are convinced that the show is just a hoax. One example would be a post where someone questioned the snow cave that Bear built in the Alps.
Ok people, don’t ever build a snow cave like Bear did if you don’t want to freeze to death overnight. He built this “cave” by making a trench in the snow then he carved out a sleeping bench into the side of the trench leaving a little roof over his head. This “shelter” was completely exposed to the outside air on the trench side, and would offer almost NO protection. I’m sure it was done this way so the cameras could get a good view of him and the sleeping area he made. Somehow he just completely neglected to mention his "snow cave" was for TV demonstration only. There is no way he actually spent the night in this disaster. For a snow cave to work, you have to make a small tunnel into the snow bank and hollow it out from the inside so you are completely surround by a thick layer of insulting snow. Oh, and there is that trivial issue of keeping your ventilation holes open so you don’t suffocate under a foot of “new” snow. Just more Bear BS…Ok people, don’t ever build a snow cave like Bear did if you don’t want to freeze to death overnight. He built this “cave” by making a trench in the snow then he carved out a sleeping bench into the side of the trench leaving a little roof over his head. This “shelter” was completely exposed to the outside air on the trench side, and would offer almost NO protection. I’m sure it was done this way so the cameras could get a good view of him and the sleeping area he made. Somehow he just completely neglected to mention his "snow cave" was for TV demonstration only. There is no way he actually spent the night in this disaster. For a snow cave to work, you have to make a small tunnel into the snow bank and hollow it out from the inside so you are completely surround by a thick layer of insulting snow. Oh, and there is that trivial issue of keeping your ventilation holes open so you don’t suffocate under a foot of “new” snow. Just more Bear BS.
In my opinion, the show is amazing. But that is because I could care less whether or not it is real. Like professional wrestling, (which I hate) I am willing to sacrifice the reality of what I am seeing on television for how entertaining it is on a superficial level. If the Discovery Channel is willing to show me someone eating a raw zebra in the Sahara, or drinking mud in the desert, I will continue watching.
http://dsc.discovery.com/beyond/index.html?playerId=203711706&categoryId=318358451&lineupId=32538958
that is the web site where you can see Bear doing extreme things.
http://dsc.discovery.com/beyond/index.html?playerId=203711706&categoryId=318358451&lineupId=32538958
that is the web site where you can see Bear doing extreme things.
