Weblog
04/18/01 02:24 PM: I watched When Animals Attack
I watched When Animals Attack 2 last night on FX. I must say, that genre of shows does appeal to the lowest common denominator. Then again, what on tv doesn’t? There was some overgrown cheerleader between segments asking idiotic questions like, “If there was a $10,000 reward and a dangerous crocodile showed up on your front lawn, would you play Crocodile Hunter?” Doubtless most of the viewers only tuned in because it was on after Jerry Springer, but I found it highly amusing to see people get what they deserve. Honestly, if you are stupid enough to sit on top of a bull and dig metal blades into its sides to get it to jump around, you deserve to get trampled on. I do realize that watching such a program could be considered a sort of bloodlust no entirely different from the people that favor televising Timothy McVeigh’s execution. But the differences are manifest. First of all, nobody died. In fact, hardly any (if any at all) of the people shown were seriously injured. I have no desire to see anyone gored to death. Secondly, it brings the issue of mistreatment of animals into the spotlight. Admittedly, this is not the main purpose of the show. If it was, it would probably have been on PBS or the Discovery Channel instead. But it does bring the issue out if one can look past the Jerry Springer effect. The death penalty is already a hotly contested issue, but how often do you see anyone in the mainstream media doing any stories about the abuses of rodeo and circus animals? As my friend Perry says, the show should be called When Stupid People Get Bit.
