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Sdaji that's a pretty amusing story, in the way that the media blows things like this out of proportion, and I guess all you can do is laugh..I did anyway :D

It's interesting about this doco. About a week or so ago, there as a thing here on 10HD which was a documentory on bugs and crustations and what have you, and towards the end, they said something along the lines of "it has to do with parents. If they tell they're children that *insert bug/animal* are bad or dangerous and could harm them, then that's going to stick to their brains forever". So I guess this sort of doco just re-enforces that ideal that all snakes are evil killers. Get a whole heap of people tell their story that they were walking around and all of a sudden BAM a snake bit me in the eye and I almost died.

And to be honest, until a few months ago, I was still scared about snakes. But once you learn more about them, and listen and read, and be around them, then it goes, because it's only until you annoy is there a chance of them attacking.

But I'm looking forward to this doco, and we'll see if they're going to be Negative Nancy's throughout the whole thing that snakes are horrible, evil things. But I think someone should do a one about snakes and re-educate people on them, and stress that they're not all bad, and encourage people to learn more about them.
 
As Sean said, they weren't offering money.

I really don't deserve any congratulations; it's very easy to do nothing! Seriously, it takes virtually no effort at all! ;)

Smellie: A rational, objective television show about snakes which represents them accurately is never going to rate well against one which says "ARGH! OH MY GOD! DEATH! VENOM! AGGRESSION! AAAARRRRRGGHHHHH!!!! :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: OH MY GOD SNAKES WILL KILL US ALL! PAINFULLY! FEAR THEM! THEY'RE EVIL! PERIL! DEATH DEATH DEATH, PAIN AND WOE!"
 
like movies, people seem to want some violence.

good job on the rejection, even if you say it was nothing, probably gave you a sense of happiness.
 
hm...touche:p

But maybe they could show both sides of the story? So on all the commertials be like "Just when you think it's safe to go to the basement...*snakes jump out from everywhere and start biting and and killing everything that's alive, even grandma who was just sitting in the lounge room knitting*...The Snake Story" and have it to pull people in, then have it so you educate and whatnot, then have a segment that goes "But if you do piss them off..." and do all the violent stuff that everyone loves:D.

Just a thought was all...
I just think re-education is all we need, and not have it so if you see a snake you run away or you kill it, but just respect it and leave it alone.
 
Smellie: A rational, objective television show about snakes which represents them accurately is never going to rate well against one which says "ARGH! OH MY GOD! DEATH! VENOM! AGGRESSION! AAAARRRRRGGHHHHH!!!! :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: OH MY GOD SNAKES WILL KILL US ALL! PAINFULLY! FEAR THEM! THEY'RE EVIL! PERIL! DEATH DEATH DEATH, PAIN AND WOE!"

Ahem. Wasn't Life In Cold Blood on prime time a few months back? ;) Mr. Attenborough is hardly short of an audience or dvd sales.

Ultimately I think it's about the viewer. Any sensible person sees sensationalist rubbish for what it is. An irrational moron will eat up whatever you give them, whether it's anti-snake, anti-bug or OMGZORZ TERRORIZTZ! The fact that something is a doco doesn't, and shouldn't, give it credence in the minds of all that watch it.

The kids thing is an issue, though, and I think all parents have a responsibility to try to turn their crotch-goblins into rational members of "civilised" society that don't kill every non-mammal they encounter on the off chance it's one of them killer poison beasties.
 
I don't think you can compare the amount of time, money and finess of Attenborough's documentaries with that put into the 'hype hype hype' style. I'm not a big fan of Attenborough documentaries either because they are typically factually flawed and exaggerated, presenting speculation as fact and insulting the viewer by passing studio shoots as field shoots, and pretending that a series of different animals are all the same one, etc etc, but that said, they mop the floor with a documentary which relies on hype rather than hard work, and to his credit, Attenborough has not relied heavily on the "OH MY GOD! DANGER!" style. The footage in this hype one looks very impressive, and those hand bites are amazingly realistic, so I'm sure they've put a lot into it and that along with their willingness to milk peoples' irrational fears and morbid curiosity will no doubt make it appealing to a huge number of people.

It's interesting that if someone feeds their snake a live mouse everyone screams "Oh my god!", if they put it on YouTube they scream it even louder, but if it's in a documentary posing as nature people find it acceptable. For the record, I'm not jumping up and down about the live feeding, or the documentary as a whole, I just find peoples' inconsistencies and sheep mentalities very interesting.
 
Please dont try to tell me that Attenborough is the only one who passes off studio shots, they all do...as any good herper knows you cannot guarantee you will catch the target species every time you go out.

The rattlesnake bite on the hand is real, they guy was actually paid a very small sum of money to be bitten by a venomoid snake!
 
The rattlesnake bite on the hand is real, they guy was actually paid a very small sum of money to be bitten by a venomoid snake! ......................well what an idiot! no amount of money is worth taking that risk.........
 
I don't think you can compare the amount of time, money and finess of Attenborough's documentaries with that put into the 'hype hype hype' style. I'm not a big fan of Attenborough documentaries either because they are typically factually flawed and exaggerated, presenting speculation as fact and insulting the viewer by passing studio shoots as field shoots, and pretending that a series of different animals are all the same one, etc etc, but that said, they mop the floor with a documentary which relies on hype rather than hard work, and to his credit, Attenborough has not relied heavily on the "OH MY GOD! DANGER!" style. The footage in this hype one looks very impressive, and those hand bites are amazingly realistic, so I'm sure they've put a lot into it and that along with their willingness to milk peoples' irrational fears and morbid curiosity will no doubt make it appealing to a huge number of people.

It's interesting that if someone feeds their snake a live mouse everyone screams "Oh my god!", if they put it on YouTube they scream it even louder, but if it's in a documentary posing as nature people find it acceptable. For the record, I'm not jumping up and down about the live feeding, or the documentary as a whole, I just find peoples' inconsistencies and sheep mentalities very interesting.

I havnt ever heard anyone complaining about the misleading nature of some of the info in his shows, good to know im not the only one. I think you need to take into account these docos are made for the general public, not to educate those who have a good knowledge(although you can obviously still learn a lot from watching some of them).

Yes humans are quite interesting creatures, you just have to laugh at inconsistant sheep mentalities(not that anyone on APS would fit in that category). I didnt find the clip of the mouse getting killed disturbing, some clips on youtube are very disturbing and obviously done for the sake of cruelty, others are quite educational.
 
Thats only by your opinion Hix......i thought it was a valid addition to the thread, it was also in plain english & spell checked (esp for APS)....im sorry if you had difficulty reading it.
 
Don't worry! not all the media want to make people hate snakes! When I enter the media circuit i will try to bring people around ;)
 
Gee you sure know how to milk a story for the attention hey Sdjai...............*jokes*....;)

Milk it for all you can get.....
 
I've seen bits and pieces of a few episodes and thought some of the footage was amazing, especially the bite by the Stiletto Snake. The fella who is making the show is actually a good herpetologist, with very extensive knowledge and experience on venomous snakes.

In regards to the mouse being bitten. No problem there. This is certainly nothing that hasn't been done on numerous documentaries before. This would only trouble those for ethical reasons, which wouldn't include many herpers.

As a documentary, it isn't targeted to educate the public that snakes are peaceful creatures. It would be great if every documentary did paint snakes in this light. In fact I spend much of my time educating people about safely living with snakes. Very few documentary series with this purpose will ever make it to television with a host who's personality isn't going to be constantly criticised. It is more along the lines of Venom ER with a bit more hype. Admittedly, if hadn't of had some of this interesting footage, I don't think I would have watched it.

My review - watch it, as a herper, you'll find it very interesting. I did.

Cheers,

Macca
 
Thats only by your opinion Hix......i thought it was a valid addition to the thread, it was also in plain english & spell checked (esp for APS)....im sorry if you had difficulty reading it.
I didnt get to read it MM .put it up again :lol::lol::lol::lol:hix dont be a spoil sport ;)
 
I'm not a big fan of Attenborough documentaries either because they are typically factually flawed and exaggerated, presenting speculation as fact

I just find peoples' inconsistencies and sheep mentalities very interesting.

I was not aware of that in regards to the BBC doco's. Out of interest, specifically focusing on the "Life In Cold Blood" series, can you point out something that was presenting speculation as fact? My interest in animals does not enter into academics so I'm always interested to hear from someone who has actually studied them to find out if something I've believed is in fact incorrect.

Everyone is inconsistent sometimes I find. I definitely include myself in that unfortunately.
 
Sean: Oh goodness, they all pass of studio shoots as genuine wilderness footage, that's screamingly obvious and I didn't mean to imply that Attenborough was the only one who used that cheat, or that it's really all that malicious a lie. I should have guessed it was a venomoid bite! I was puzzled at how well done it was! It's so obvious now that I think about it.

My main problem with Attenborough style docos (informative rather than hype) is that that they put speculation across as fact, and are often not well researched (it's very common for them to put in very outdated information in them). At least with the hype hype hype ones you don't feel so betrayed by the misinformation as they are openly presenting an entertainment show rather than posing as an informative show. Of course, I'm nit picking and the Attenborough style docos, while far from perfect, are still 'good' overall, they generally don't blatantly exploit the animals for ratings, and they're certainly better than most of the crap on television.

DDALDD: I haven't actually watched Life in Cold Blood. When I watch documentaries I usually sit there rolling my eyes at the bad bits and thoroughly enjoying the good bits, but I don't take notes and can't give specific examples off the top of my head. I don't think I'm being too generous when I assume no one here is naive enough to fail to realise that documentaries are prone to exaggeration and presenting speculation as fact, as well as simply getting things plainly wrong. In their defense, putting a documentary together takes a lot of work and errors are inevitable. If they are wishy washy and say "We think these things evolved from lizards, but we're not really sure" and "We think Tyrannosaurus used its claws to disembowel prey, but maybe they were for picking off mites, or simply they were useless evolutionary remnants, to be honest we don't have any idea", people would find them boring, they wouldn't rate, and we'd be stuck watching Hollywood garbage.
 
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