The Heroic Bear

Another of the Animal Planet stories came to me. And I didn't see any of this one, because I was sitting on a couch and the TV was aimed the other direction.

It involved a she bear who took on a he bear in a fight to protect her baby bears. How little they were, I don't know, I guess it doesn't matter. I wasn't listening closely to the lead up on the story. But it appears that the he bear was trying to get the baby bears, and the mother fought him and threw him down an embankment of some sort.

They obviously had it on video, because whoever had witnessed it was going on what a great "shot" they got, like one in a million.

Here's where it got schmaltzy, and in my opinion ... objectionable. The mother bear was described as a "perfect mother" and even "heroic" in her "willingness" to protect those babes, "willing" to kill him or be killed to make sure they were OK.

What I object to is all that. Being a "perfect mother," being a "hero," having a "will" to give up her life for their sake. It seems to me that if you run an entire channel called ANIMAL PLANET that you ought to have some sense of ANIMALS, and not be projecting our own altruistic ideals on to them. At that level, it would seem, it's all instinct and circumstances, not heroism, not trying to live up to the standard of motherhood that we have as our sentiment, or the exercise of a will, i.e., judging a certain set of circumstances and saying it will take this or that kind of "will" to get a particular end accomplished.

It was so sentimental, so schmaltzy, that it became clear that the Animal Planet channel is simply the People Planet channel that happens to feature animals to make us feel good. Instinct is what their focus should be.