Gorilla Roasts Jamie Oliver

IT’S the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and the papers have the pictures.

But we’ve seen them all before. Back in the Victorian era when everyone was a collector of animal pelts, heads and skins, when no home was complete without a dried swordfish blade in the trophy room, such pictures would have been exciting.

But a picture of a leopard looking at the camera is not exotic. Neither are the Express’s shots of a turtle or an eagle.

The exotic has become the mundane. We’ve seen these things before. Perhaps if the baby gorilla was being roasted by Rwanda’s answer to Jamie Oliver, we’d be more interested. Or, better yet, if the gorilla was roasting Jamie Oliver.

But the Sun isn’t concerned. It also shows its readers the animal snapshots. Look there’s that leopard looking into the camera. And that huge, great thing is an elephant.

And it doesn’t get any more thrilling in the Mirror. It’s the “awesome and sometimes savage beauty of nature”, as the Mirror says, carefully using words that reflect the hackneyed pictures.

We want something more. Something to excite us. And the Mail has it.

It’s “CHINA’S CRUELTY OLYMPICS”, says the headline. And the Mail is appalled. Look at the boxing kangaroo. Isn’t it awful. And the monkey riding a bicycle. Terrible

It’s “sickening” says the Mail. The pictures seem “barbaric” to we British animal lovers. The Shanghai Animal Olympics, now in its fourth year, would never happen here.

It’s “degrading” to the animals says a spokesman for Born Free. It’s about “domination and manipulation”.

It’s just too dreadful. And not the kind of things we expect from our wild animal life. Bring back the shots of that cuddly leopard. That brainy elephant. The lion ripping the hind legs off a struggling zebra. You know, the stuff, we like…

Posted: 29th, September 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink