Grizzly Man

While watching the Grizzly Man there were a couple of things that struck me as particularly interesting. It made me wonder if the message that Timothy desired to convey, was actually understood the way he wanted. His death resulted in people interpreting it in their own ways, and therefore maybe the true meaning of his project was lost. He spent thirteen summers with the bears and probably would have done it longer had he not been killed.

His approach toward the bears and the concrete and thorough understanding of how to interact with them left me in complete awe. His repeated mentioning of “I love you” to the animals obviously showed that he meant well. However, I wonder how far you can actually go, even with the right intentions, before you invade and disrespect somebody else’s territory. From the movie, we understand that he had been living and acting like those bears for so long that he probably thought himself to be one of them. In order to protect himself it seemed that he was trying to establish that he was the “dominant” bear. His desire to be a part of their world was plausible but not a probable one because we ARE different from them no matter how much one would want to believe otherwise. I strongly agree with the curator of the Native American museum that acclimating the bears to the presence of human beings who are kind to them probably does more harm than good because then they start believing that all humans will treat them the same way.

His love and respect for the bears were so deep that it almost seemed religious. His connection with them was strong enough that it was no longer human. Different religions have different beliefs and his belief may not have been in a supernatural power but it was definitely in the bears that he lived with. Religions have rules, regulations, and symbols, which incorporate the individual’s belief into them. Timothy’s according to me were all expressed through his dedication in protecting these bears. However, I wonder if religion can actually be the tool in defining the cognitive line that says where humans stand in the natural world. In comparison to our earlier readings, we do not observe this kind of love in the art of the Paleolithic hunters. But then again I am not sure if it would be reasonable to compare the two because the Paleolithic hunters hunted for survival very much unlike Timothy's intention.