Bitter Thoughts For Earth Day

"..as sincere as a dog...when it's the food on your lips with which it's in love." - - - Fiona Apple

Today I have been trying to remember why the Earth preview pisses me off so much. My memory is often flawed, because it tends to make up a lot of stuff to fill in the blanks. So I went onto Youtube and watched it again to make sure I was remembering what I thought I was.

It starts out with James Earl Jones narrating about how our planet is the only known planet that can support life. Okay. Fine. Then it shows a lot of gorgeous shots of stuff, which is very nice. I like a good, epic nature film every now and then. Nature is not only inspiring, but often comforting after dealing with too many human beings. But then it starts to turn sour when they cue the Sigur Ros song. But I can't fault the film for using good music. But I can sense that things are about to get warm and fuzzy. Whenever you hear that particular Sigur Ros song on a preview you know something warm and fuzzy will happen imminently. (The song incidentally is about jumping in puddles and getting your feet wet, or something like that). Sure enough, after a moment, subtitles begin appearing on the screen because film trailers are made under the assumption that they have to bombard all levels of ones brain with information in case the audience is brain damaged and can't understand what's going on without subtitles.

My bitterness from this preview, it turns out, stems from their usage of one single word on the subtitle that says something about "joining three families for an amazing journey". The word 'family' here pisses me off because it eludes to all the cuteness that has ruined nature films in recent years. There are no families in nature. At least not in the sense that we use the word family. Animals can be related through their genes, and they may stick together for pure survival reasons, but animals do not love, or feel emotion in the ways that we do. Their functioning is guided not by thoughts or feelings, but by pure instinct. When I watch a nature film, I want to see real nature, not some disney cartoon about the tender love between the noble beasts of the savannah.

When humans deteriorate to behaving like animals we usually lock them up in prison, or hospitals for the criminally insane. That is because nature is a brutal thing. Animals are not like us, and so why do we want them to behave like us. Brutal as it may be, the reasons animals are special are the ways that they are not like us. For example, when an animal kills it is not for greed, or envy, or betrayal, or corruption. It is just survival. Their existence is simple. There is no such thing as evil in nature. The primal tendencies of wild, dirty animals also reveal to us what is so special about being human: love, compassion, the ability to reason and seek meaning in life, etc.

I have not seen Earth yet, and so I withhold my judgement of the film itself. But I have noted that since the release of several, widely popular films about penguins, the trend has been to reduce nature to a series of cheap human cliches, which does a disservice not only to nature, but to humanity as well. It would take me too long to explain why, so I'll let you think about it. However, I will leave with this final thought:

Cougars are dangerous creatures, and when they find themselves wandering into your neighborhood, where they might be apt to eat your small children, it is best for everyone that they be removed to a safer place. Safer for them anyway. But the real truth is that if you can not co-exist with the nature around you than it is you who is in a place where you don't belong.

P.S. If you want to see a great documentary, I recommend Encounters At the End of the World, by Werner Herzog. There are even penguins in it.