I’m writing this as I watch Shark Week on The Discovery Channel. As mentioned in my previous post, this awesome week of shark related programming is making me feel better about anything in my life that’s been bothering me. I am currently watching a documentary called “Sharks: Are They Hunting Us?” which seems like a silly question to dedicate a full hour of programming to after most documentaries that have aired on the same network this week have hammered home the point that “no, they don’t hunt us, but if they mistake a person for a seal, then that individual is pretty well fucked.” This documentary is structured around the host, an animal behaviorist and all around nut job named Dave Salmoni, preparing- and working up the nerve- to do a free dive with Great White Sharks, hoping to prove that if he is not eaten by them, then he will have answer to his program’s titular question. He has already “proven” that lions are not man eaters by hanging out in Africa and getting as close as five feet away from them with nothing but a stick to defend himself, and, well…not getting eaten. Seems dubiously scientific, but makes for great television.
MythBusters is up next, in a two hour episode dealing with all kinds of shark myths depicted in “Jaws.” The prospect of Jamie and Adam taking apart the coolest parts of one of my favorite movies has me conflicted- I don’t love the movie for it’s realism- but seeing the guys build stuff to test scenes from the movie in the real world will be pretty badass. I just hope that the next time I watch “Jaws,” I’m not taken out of it by the thought “well, Jamie and Adam already busted the myth that a Great White could pull a dock off it’s moorings and out into the ocean.” But the one thing they won’t be taking into account is if a super shark like the one from the movie could do all the things they will be testing. Because the shark from the movie isn’t just any old Great White- he’s Jaws. Also, I hope next year Adam and Jamie test myths from the Jaws sequels, such as would a shark ever have a personal vendetta against specific humans, like the shark in “Jaws: The Revenge.”
My favorite Shark factoid I’ve learned this week was from the program “Sharks: What You Need to Know,” a random collection of Shark trivia that is kinda like the Discovery Channel version of “pop-up video.” It turns out that Sharks are predators even in the womb- fetal Sharks will actually eat their siblings to survive. The program showed footage from a shark womb-cam, with a baby shark eating a smaller shark fetus. It was one of the most horrifying images I’d seen since the guy in my film class brought in a video of his illegal piranhas, whom he had decided to starve because he wanted to get rid of them, eating each other alive in desperation. This is a true story.
Anyway, in a time when I’m feeling insecure, scared, and unsure about my future, as the second month of my unemployment is slipping by, and as global events seem to speed us closer to World War 3 and rising oceans caused by global warming, it’s nice to have Shark Week to make me feel better, to re-assure me that, no matter how bad it may get out there…at least I’m not a fetal Shark.
And tomorrow night is “Prehistoric Shark Night.” That should be badass.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment