David Attenborough

[felineflutter]

To be find his nature programmes too distressing to watch and children should be spared from watching them?

Ok so little flamingo with salt stuck to legs so couldn't keep up with his/her peers in search of water? DS still asking did he make it? Penguin being bopped around like a volleyball and his little face in the killer whales jaw. Luckily DS didn't watch this episode and probably won't watch the rest of the series.

I get this is life but surely they could skip the gruesome bits? We know animals eat other animals but I don't want to see the inside of an abattoir for entertainment either?

I hate the anthropomorphism

If you had watched the flamingos one properly, you would have both seen the bit where the cameraman rescued it.

Ds 6 hates anything to do with animals dying but he's very clued up and interested in animals and which are predators,carnivores etc so its hard to judge what would interest him and what would upset him.I suppose you just have to go with what you feel is suitable and pre warn them if you think its going to have a bad ending

@squashyhat

Utterly ridiculous. Nature is not all fluffy wuffy Disney bunnies you know.

Exactly, too many people want to sanitise the world to the extreme.

If you had watched the flamingo one properly, you would have both seen the bit where the cameraman rescued it. At least when it was originally filmed and shown, anyhow. As was done with penguins more recently.

@Hangingover

You should write to him OP, tell him to make nature a bit nicer for your DC

Ooh I'm sort of with you OP. I absolutely believe in being honest with children about the realities of life (in an age appropriate way).

But some of the DA programmes (much as I love DA) do seem to focus on the gory and also the tragic.

The one that got me was some penguins sliding into an icy pit during a blizzard. One of the mother penguins tried and tried to push her baby up the side but couldn't, so in the end she saved herself. The shots of the baby climbing up and shouting to its mum but repeatedly sliding back into the pit were so harrowing.

I mean I get that this sort of thing happens in nature, but I do wonder if they are over-represented in nature shows and whether life is only that harrowing a small proportion of the time. I hope so anyway!!

My 4 year old has watched David Attenborough docs since he started watching TV and I've always watched them when he was tiny (so in the background)
He has a sound understanding of the circle of life and death. We often see dead animals (rural) and he isnt bothered about it.
If your child cant handle the shows then don't watch them but don't expect others to sanitise tv for you.
Attenborough has done wonders for raising awareness about the natural world among young people, that should be applauded. Nature is cruel, dangerous, harsh and beautiful. It is what it is

In the country I'm from, children are invited to watch the chicken / goat/ cow being killed, skinned and cooked. That is after having cared for the animal in the days before. Everyone, incl children, should know where their food comes from. If you can't see it, you shouldn't eat it.

DA shows are a breeze.

Most of us watched this stuff as kids but (and I am as hard as nails) I cannot watch anything like this now - that is since I saw a monkey being pursued through the trees by chimps. It was so brutal and horrific that the only 'natural world' stuff I will watch is Gardener's world!!!

If you can't see it, you shouldn't eat it

My DM used to go out of her way to shield me from what meat was because I was an animal lover and asked a lot of awkward questions about chicken and milk in particular. I used to think it was so I wouldn't get upset but I suspect she dreaded me wanting to be vegetarian!

@EatDessertFirst

I think children should be aware of the natural world, even the bad bits. If you think its not suitable, don't let them watch it. Its just standard parenting isn't it?

I agree with that.

Documentaries are not made for your entertainment. People watch them to learn about the world around them and that includes all the non fluffy and nasty bits.

DA became famous and well respected for depicting nature as it is; sometimes awe inspiringly beautiful, sometimes brutal and soul destroying, always fragile.

He became famous for his early work, which did not include these modern films selecting lots of short clips glorifying the brutality of it all. Seems to me that there’s too much focus now on pretty - and sensationalist - camera work, rather than real education.

I usually sob through most nature documentaries or hide behind a pillow. My daughter is clearly quite like me, we still watch them. I guess I go with there is much beauty and horror in life and that we should appreciate all of it.

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes

DA became famous and well respected for depicting nature as it is; sometimes awe inspiringly beautiful, sometimes brutal and soul destroying, always fragile.

He became famous for his early work, which did not include these modern films selecting lots of short clips glorifying the brutality of it all. Seems to me that there’s too much focus now on pretty - and sensationalist - camera work, rather than real education.

His early work was removing animals from the wild for entertainment in Zoos, largely with the actual work being done by 'The Natives'.

There was so much wrong with what was done in the name of entertainment then, compared to showing Orca hunting for their food in the way they've done for millions of years.

showed a lot of hunting but they weren't filmed or narrated in the almost lurid way they seem to be now. They focus on the suffering in a way that I don't remember these shows doing when I was younger. They used to be presented much more factually. Now it feels as though the animals are soap characters and every detail of their struggle lingered over.

Actually I think the op has a point. There are other aspects of life even among animals. I have noticed a tendency among wildlife films to focus more and more on the "sensational" hunt aspects. They deliberately select and show just the short "interesting" clips of events, whereas years ago there would have been a longer film on, e.g. lions or meerkats, showing them living all their lives, including the points where there was just a group lazing around. Whoever it was who complained about people romanticising life in the wild is of course correct: but we seem to have jumped to the other extreme. And why not show the increasing evidence we have built up now about tool use, or about building their homes instead?

Both of these.

I have been an enthusiastic watcher of wildlife programs for 40 years or so and I do think they have changed. They have become less generally informative and more sensationalised. I am perfectly well aware of the more unpleasant side of life in the wild having been fascinated by animals all my life, but I do not want to see these things in lurid, close up detail, filmed in as distressing a fashion as they are. It is almost as if (and I think DA is most at fault here) they are deliberately looking for ever more gruesome footage to inject something 'new' to hold our attention.

I agree with the OP. I have stopped watching these programs for this reason.

I think the reason it's so emotional these days is the presentation. The music, the suspense... it's all ramped up for dramatic viewing which is fine, but it's actually too much for me. I'm quite sensitive, I find it overwhelming.

I tend to read while it's on, so I'm not as drawn in to it. Makes it easier to cope with.

His early work was removing animals from the wild for entertainment in Zoos, largely with the actual work being done by 'The Natives'.

You might find Gerald Durrell’s works interesting. He made me take another look at zoos, a very long time ago. He once invited doubters to help clean up animals destined foff to them, but I forget which book it was in. Zoos have never been purely about entertainment and there are now species only surviving within them. It is also interesting comparing the horror of anything involving different cultural relations back then with the normality of class divisions now in Britain, although it’s a very difficult topic.

Real life isn't a Disney film though is it? It's endless cycle of birth, death and renewal and I think that in itself is amazing and beautiful; we all have to accept our place in the big scheme of things, sooner or later. Our current thirst for immortality reflects our failure to embrace this truth. These programmes are only presenting the natural order of things; whereas if you flick to the other channels (especially Netflix) every other programme is a detective/murder series. We seem to have such difficulties considering death unless it is presented in this manner and I think as a consequence we have lost touch with an essential part of what it means to be human.

What I’m suggesting is that the modern DA films are presenting death in the same manner.

@CHIRIBAYA

Real life isn't a Disney film though is it? It's endless cycle of birth, death and renewal and I think that in itself is amazing and beautiful; we all have to accept our place in the big scheme of things, sooner or later. Our current thirst for immortality reflects our failure to embrace this truth. These programmes are only presenting the natural order of things; whereas if you flick to the other channels (especially Netflix) every other programme is a detective/murder series. We seem to have such difficulties considering death unless it is presented in this manner and I think as a consequence we have lost touch with an essential part of what it means to be human.

Well said

"Nature, red in tooth and claw"
Tennyson
In Memoriam

Unless you're vegan it seems a bit odd to be so uncomfortable with killing for food. Not sure I'd show a young or sensitive child DA, shouldn't be an issue to an older or less sensitive child.

@YellowBeryl1

Unless you're vegan it seems a bit odd to be so uncomfortable with killing for food. Not sure I'd show a young or sensitive child DA, shouldn't be an issue to an older or less sensitive child.

I'd hope that vegans had more sense than to take umbrage at animals following their actual nature/instincts, rather than be expected to conform to human notions of acceptable behaviour.

Mind you, when I was a kid, most of the programmes had far less gratuitous anthropomorphism, more graphic bone crunching and far, far more in the way of mating.