Talk about "jumping the shark!" The Discovery Channel is at it again with yet another fake documentary about sharks. This one is so made up that we saved it for our Shark Friday, because who wants fake stuff mixed up with real documentaries?? This all comes on top of more and more shows focusing on shark attacks, rather than other aspects of these amazing animals during the channel's annual Shark Week. While Shark Week has always had a lighter side, which is fine and fun, focusing on shark attacks much more, than say providing at least one documentary on the actual plight of sharks and shark finning, is only adding to the problem. While they have, of course, had some cool stuff sprinkled in--gone are the days of producing new videos on subjects such as ancient sharks or exploring shark populations in certain regional waters like Florida or New Zealand; and there are no full documentaries on the mass killing of these animals by humans. Sure they had one documentary on shark attack victims coming together to save sharks and take on finning, but the bulk of the program focused on the actual attacks, with only the last 7 to 10 minutes devoted to the group as a whole. In some attack episodes, it's mentioned at the end that while fatal shark attacks in any given year rarely exceed 5 people, humans kill 70 to 100 million sharks a year--good effort, but no cigar. If they want to focus on shark attacks, then why not make a documentary juxtaposing humans victims with shark victims--they only need one per year! In this case, I've looked up the story; as near as I can tell some dude in the South African Navy did mistake a shark ONCE on a radar....in the 1970's! I love a good big fish horror movie as much as the next horror fan; but as author of Jaws, Peter Benchley kept reminding people, you bought his book in the fiction section--you purchased the movie from the horror or thriller section in brick and mortar stores, not the documentary section. You can Google the subject for more information, but over at Vox, they about this best article on the subject
 |
| Fake Scientist |
 |
| Fictional Headlines--touted as real fiction. |
 |
| More Fake Headlines |
No comments:
Post a Comment