Grizzly Bear - The Untold Story

So we watched Grizzly Man last night on The Discovery Channel. I had heard basically what the film is about--a guy who goes off to live with Grizzly Bears and winds up being devoured by his passion, literally--and I had also heard over and over about how good it was. Good? I'm still confused about that one. I will admit that I draw some satisfaction from seeing the results of one person's stupidity coming to its natural conclusion, but beyond that, the thing tries really hard to be defferential to a subject, Timothy Treadwell, who is clearly bat-shit insane and, I hate to say it, had it coming. But on top of that, the annoying accent of the filmmaker, and the irksome if occasionally and unintentionally funny antics of Treadwell, the film is completely biased against the better half of its title--the Grizzlies.

It's easy to see that Treadwell loved the animals (a little too much, that's the point), but throughout the film we are constantly reminded of how one "mean" Grizzly murdered Treadwell and his companion, Amie Huguenard. Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for Huguenard and much less so for Treadwell, but can we really blame the bear? Let's take a look at the Grizzly's side of the story.

Summer 1990
What the hell? There I was, at the stream looking for fish like I usually do around midday, and then all of the sudden this fruit with a shitty hat came up and started talking babytalk to me. I gave him a look and kind of growled, but then he just said I was being "saucy" and kept on with his jabbering. Needless to say, I lost my concentration and about every Salmon in the whole damn river swam past me while I was trying to get this whackjob to get out of my face. He named me "Muffin," which is a goddamn insult, and then pranced off.

Summer '95
Guess who showed up again! I swear to God there should be some sort of law to keep that blonde weirdo away from me and the rest of the poor bears here. Oh wait, THERE IS! The Rangers in this park suck ASS! If he calls me "Muffin" in front of the females one more damn time, I can't be held responsible for my actions.

Yes, in the woods. Bears actually do.

Summer '98
SON OF A BITCH! I thought for sure this was going to be the year he wasn't going to be back, but not only is he back, he brought a damn video camera with him! Great, now the whole world can see what this nut does out here all Summer! I watched him the other day and he spent twenty minutes just screaming a crazy stream of obscenity at the poor camera. What more proof does the world need that this guy is insane? He spent the rest of the day filming some of the other bears. I'm pretty sure he was masturbating to the video in his tent last night, but there's no way to tell if he was jacking it to us bears or to his own pretentious whining.

Fall 2002
We all just held an emergency meeting before hibernation. Everyone was there--us bears, the foxes, birds, squirrels, even some Salmon who were annoyed by that lameass (we ate them after). We discussed it for all of about ten minutes and we decided that if he comes back next year, it's up to us to kill him. We can't take another Summer of this crap. All right, I'm going to sleep...

When animals attack... with guns and baseball bats.

Summer 2003
That's IT! The sick son of a bitch touched my sister's shit! He touched it and he sniffed his finger and kept saying "it was inside her" over and over. That twisted loser is going down tonight. I talked it over with the foxes and they support me fully. Ever since one of them took his stupid hat (HI-GODDAMN-LARIOUS), he followed him to their den and started yelling more obscenities. I swear he hasn't heard of a four-letter word he didn't love. I feel bad that I'm going to have to eat him in front of that poor blonde girl, but I've promised to let her go unless she does something stupid like hit me on the head with a frying pan instead of running for her life. But that would be retarded, even for someone dumb enough to hang out with that whacko.

You're next, Crocodile Hunter! You're next!

So you see? The bears, the entire refuge had been pushed to edge and beyond. Is what happened kind of sad? Absolutely, just like it's sad when a moth, drawn to the flame, catches fire and dies. But then you compare the potential brain power of a moth to that of Treadwell, and suddenly it's hard to feel so bad about it. The only tragedy I can see is that three very important safeties failed--common sense (Treadwell should have had some), psychiatric care (Treadwell should have gotten some), and the law (he should have been kicked out of that refuge a LONG time ago for violating a myriad of laws meant to keep both the bears and people like Treadwell safe).

Jason risked his life taking these wildlife photos. He'll be missed.