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We Were All Rooting For The Big Snake

We Were All Rooting For The Big Snake

A divided nation has finally united, if only for a while.

Everywhere you go, Americans are speaking out in a singular chorus of indignation and outrage. Social media is seething with denunciations of brazen deception and cruelty.

What in the world happened that has suddenly brought us all together?

It’s simple: Some bonehead tried to get himself eaten by a giant anaconda.

Four million people watched the heavily hyped broadcast on TV, and untold millions more viewed it on the Internet. Apparently, everybody was rooting for the snake.

But not only did “naturalist” Paul Rosolie fail to be swallowed as advertised, he wimped out of the extravaganza as soon as the anaconda started squeezing.

The reaction from viewers has been merciless and cutting. Some have suggested that the Discovery Channel, which aired the Eaten Alive debacle, should rename itself the Stupidity Channel.

It’s understandable why people feel so betrayed and let down. Rosolie had promised to feed himself to a wild, 25-foot anaconda while a camera crew recorded every crushing moment.

For a nation still struggling to recover from three live hours of Peter Pan, this was something to cheer for.

Unfortunately, nobody in Rosolie’s crew could locate a 25-foot wild anaconda, much less capture one. So instead they used a showbiz ringer, a tame smaller specimen that (like all anacondas) had virtually no interest in dining on a human.

Rosolie came to the feast in a “crush-proof” suit that looked like it had been discarded by an amateur bomb squad. To whet the reluctant reptile’s appetite, Rosolie basted himself with pig blood.

For a while he groped and nuzzled the desultory snake until it finally threw a few coils around him and began to chew. Rosolie soon whimpered that his arms hurt and yelled for help on his customized snake-helmet microphone.

The stunt was halted, and the backlash began almost immediately.

PETA complained that the anaconda had been recklessly exploited, and it’s true that eating something as bulky as an armor-plated man could have killed the animal. (A few years ago, a Burmese python in the Everglades died after gulping an alligator. The gator, which wasn’t getting paid by the Discovery Channel, also expired.)

While the welfare of the anaconda was a sincere concern of some viewers, the predominant theme of the griping was that the public got seriously cheated. We had our hearts set on watching a clown descend by choice into the belly of a huge jungle snake. The guy chickened out, and now we’re pissed.

Does this make us callous and shallow? Not necessarily.

We happen to live at a time when the dumbest behavior is often visually documented, and globally accessible. Thanks to smartphones, the Internet is swamped with videos of brainless acts by humans. Some of the humans are actually sober.

Popular TV programs showcase the “world’s dumbest” fill-in-the-blank. The Jackass series and its movie spinoffs impishly celebrated the concept.

The difference between Jackass and Eaten Alive is that Jackass didn’t pretend to be anything but inane. The goofball who stapled his own butt cheeks never denied it was idiotic. That was the whole point of doing it.

Paul Rosolie, on the other hand, seems stung that people have questioned not only his intelligence but his motive for staging the anaconda spectacle.

He claims his purpose was a noble one: to call attention to the plight of the South American rainforests. “The whole reason we did this show is because I’ve worked in the Amazon. I’ve seen it being destroyed,” Rosolie told Jimmy Kimmel.

And what better way to save an endangered habitat than to get yourself grotesquely devoured in prime time by one of the creatures that lives there?

Morbid curiosity isn’t the only reason so many people watched Eaten Alive. A set of values was at play, too.

Viewers wanted justice. Deep down we all believe that nature can rise up and punish foolish human behavior, and in this case the human behavior was preposterous.

The concept of smearing yourself with pig blood and feeding yourself to a snake is so perverse that it borders on farce. The only thing worse would have been for Rosolie to insert himself from the other end, like a human suppository.

Not that we’d want to give him any ideas.

Because you know he’ll be doing another show. Lock up your anacondas.

(Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for The Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL, 33132.)

Photo: Jeff Kubina via Flickr

Amish Country Bristles At ‘Mafia’ TV Show

Amish Country Bristles At ‘Mafia’ TV Show

By Amy Worden, The Philadelphia Inquirer

LANCASTER, Pa. — For a year, Lark and Michael McCarley simmered silently over the arrival of “Amish Mafia” in their community.

The couple own Lovelace Manor, a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of town, and found the show that depicts black-clothed young men terrorizing neighbors distasteful, offensive, and an affront to their many Amish friends.

The final straw was the phone call last winter from a TV producer who wanted to blow up a vehicle in the small parking lot behind their restored Second Empire mansion, next to the aviary housing several prized doves. The McCarleys later discovered the exploding car would be featured on the season finale of the popular Discovery Channel show, which purportedly depicts real-life events of armed Amish vigilantes.

“We had basically ignored the show until that point,” said Lark McCarley. “But that was when we realized how much the network was infiltrating this area to do such outrageous staged scenes for the show. We definitely wanted no part of it.”

Now they are part of a movement that took off this summer, counting elected officials, hundreds of churches and businesses among its supporters, to persuade the Discovery Channel to cancel the show.

“It hit a nerve,” said Mary Haverstick, a Lancaster-based filmmaker who created the website Respect Amish and is leading the effort. “We tapped into something that was unsaid.”

“Amish Mafia” premiered in 2012 and quickly became a cable hit. Now preparing for a fourth season, the show centers on a foursome who take on alleged wrongdoers with strong-arm tactics and sometimes violence — such as torching the car of a non-Amish man illegally renting vehicles to Amish teens.

The Discovery Channel maintains on its website that the characters and situations — albeit re-enactments — are based on real events. But experts familiar with the Lancaster Amish and Mennonite communities say there is no such thing as an Amish Mafia.

Haverstick and others also say the show doesn’t reflect the real Lancaster — sprawling countryside dotted with farmsteads and vast fields of corn, soybeans and wheat — or its 30,000 Amish residents.

Even worse, she said, was targeting a tight-knit conservative community that’s traditionally averse to publicity, has no centralized religious structure, or an advocacy group to fight back.

“A show called ‘Jewish Mafia’ would be seen as problematic,” Haverstick said. “The Amish deserve a voice of protection.”

Still, killing the program, due to resume airing this winter, is likely to be an uphill climb.

The success of “Amish Mafia” and “Breaking Amish” has led to more Amish-themed shows, including “Amish Haunting” — a horror show — which premiers this fall on Discovery.

In an email, a Discovery Channel spokeswoman declined to comment.

But in Lancaster and throughout the state, political leaders and others have been condemning the show for what they say is “bigotry” and “a potentially damaging portrayal” of the Amish.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation and other officials signed a letter to Discovery Channel asking officials to pull the show and sponsors to drop their support.

Corbett said some reporters have questioned why he would speak out on the issue.

“I say ‘Wouldn’t you write a letter if it was any other ethnic group?'” said the governor in an interview. “It’s insulting.”

It’s not clear how the Amish themselves view the brouhaha. One, a man named Jake who asked to be identified only by his first name, said he had not seen the show and had no desire to.

“I know it’s not legit. I was kind of on the sidelines cheering it would go away faster than it came,” he said. Jake said he appreciated the rising opposition against the show. Given the opportunity to watch a neighbor’s television, he said he’d prefer to peek at a football game. “An Eagles game — all the boys love that,” he said.

Lancaster visitors are both intrigued and frightened by the show, McCarley said. Some want to see “Amish Mafia” landmarks, while the show’s blurred fact-and-fiction lines have left other visitors afraid to leave their rooms after dark.

Donald Kraybill, an author who is considered among the nation’s foremost authorities on Anabaptist faiths, including the Amish, says the show is a completely false “assault” on the Amish.

“The fundamental values of Amish society are pacifistic and harmonious, following the teachings of Jesus and simple, peaceful living,” said Kraybill, a fellow at Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. “The central theme of the show is violence and retaliation. It turns those key values upside down.”

The Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau say the show damages the perception of Lancaster beyond the county.

“They say any publicity is good publicity, but I don’t think this holds true,” said Joel Cliff, public relations director for the convention bureau, which represents 700 businesses, including some that are Amish-owned. “The imagery of the Amish community broadcast to a broader public bears little to no reality to what we see, so maybe we should be shunning that publicity.”

The RespectAmish supporters asked businesses to consider not allowing Discovery production crews to film on their properties.

Photo via WikiCommons

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