While we are talking about AFO, how about one of its
most, (if not the most) controversial
episodes – the ‘Lion vs. tiger’ episode? By the great Caesar’s pale ghost? Fuck
no!
As it was said before, AFO used to determine its
victors by physical standards – the bigger and heavier combatant usually won. Thus,
the walrus defeated the polar bear, while the brown bear triumphed over the
tiger. The problem is that the lion and the tiger are very close in size,
weight and strength, so determining the victor overall and forever more is
impossible; you have to go case by case, and – animal cruelty, anyone? In the
modern, XXI century, in broad daylight? Again – no. (And rightly so.)
However, when it comes to the lion and the tiger, the
two animals are very similar, especially if you go at them from an anatomical
P.O.V. You need to be a professional to determine whether the bones belong to a
lion or a tiger, and a DNA analysis would be useful. With the brown and polar
bears it is easier – the brown bear’s claws are longer but blunter, it is
generally smaller than the polar bear…though the grizzly and the Kodiak brown
bears of North America just might be as big as the polar bears are… never mind.
Lions and tigers may have diverged before
the 10,000-year mark unlike the brown and the polar bears, but they are still
closely related and are built very similarly…which is where AFO’s problems
began.
The lion and the tiger may have plenty of
similarities, but people tend to perceive them very differently – the lion is
the king of the beasts, a divine creature (in a positive way), especially in
the monotheistic cultures of Europe and Middle East, while the tiger is not. In
fact, it is often depicted as a villain…of course, so is the wolf…but if it is
a man-eater, for example, (the tiger), then so’s the lion…the lion just had
good PR, one that is not connected to reality in any way (there is nothing
divine in the lion’s behavior, for example, and most of human presumptions
about it are anthropomorphic and unrealistic clichés)…
Nowadays, these clichés about lions (and tigers, etc.)
are not really believed in anymore, not consciously, but, in that particular
episode of AFO, the lion won. In another episode, when the (African) lion was
put against the (Nile) crocodile, it lost. Here, against the tiger, the lion
won because of its mane…which proved
to be useless against the crocodile, BTW…
Yes, like the tiger, the lion was featured in two episodes of AFO: once when the great
cats went against each other and the second put the lion against the crocodile
(and the tiger against the brown bear, remember?). The footage, featured in the
studies of the animals in these episodes was subtly different: the ‘lion vs.
crocodile’ episode featured real-life footage of a single Nile crocodile
harassing a pride of African lions…and the lions were unable to overpower the
reptile (this is probably why the crocodile won in the stimulation too). The ‘lion
vs. tiger’ footage does not feature anything like that.
There is footage,
much older than YouTube, of lions and tigers fighting – in circuses, fighting
pits, etc. Usually the lion is depicting winning over the tiger, but the
problem is that in some of the countries, including the former USSR, the
opposite was true too. The problem is in the individual variations of tigers
and lions, as well as in the fact that both of the great cat species have
several subspecies, all of which are subtly different from each other. A fight
between a lion and a tiger can go in any way; both animals are quite
unpredictable, when it comes to each other, period.
Yet the lion won. Period. Because it has a mane and
the tiger does not. This is one of the most ridiculous justifications one has
ever heard – and on TV, on a professional, ‘grown-up’, program too! The truth
is that AFO did not have to justify
the lion winning – it could have ‘just’ won because was ‘tougher’, ‘bigger’, or
something else – not because it has extra-lion hair on its neck and the tiger
does not. A lion’s mane is like a peacock’s or a pheasant’s tail – it is used
to impress the lionesses, not help the lion in a fight. In the ‘lion vs. tiger’
episode, the show’s staff/cast had allowed themselves to be prejudiced and to
fudge the results – but because it was Animal
Face-Off, it was okay…
No, I am being serious. Back, when ‘Deadliest Warrior’
(DW) was on air, I was a big fan of it, (and still is, BTW). If it were to air
once more, (with new episodes, though I am flexible), I would watch it again,
but…it was prejudiced, especially in S2 and 3. In S1, you see, the Russian
Spetznaz won over the U.S. Green Berets fairly, and the show never recovered
from this. S2 was fairly mild on the ‘patriotic’ scale, but S3 had George
Washington and Teddy Roosevelt face-off against Napoleon Bonaparte and Lawrence
of Arabia…and win. In addition, the fights – especially the final, one-on-one
fights – were choreographed similarly badly. The U.S. people, including the
audience of the DW show, do want to be proud of their country, but not if the
odds get so blatantly doctored with, as it happened on S3 premiere – George Washington
vs. Napoleon Bonaparte. Slowly but steadily, the S3 episode ratings dropped,
and the fact that the show’s new owner wasn’t
a Green Beret, but pretended to be one, only further made it unpopular –
unpopular enough to be cancelled, even though their material and subjects were even more
varied and interesting than AFO’s were; they lasted for three seasons, while
AFO – only for one.
Conversely, however, AFO was better than DW in that
there was less prejudice and favoritism amongst its cast/crew/staff/etc. The ‘lion
vs. tiger’ episode was more of an exception than a rule; the rest of the
episodes were done quite fairly instead.
This, then, is the ‘lion vs. tiger’ episode – an ugly
duckling among the otherwise fine flock.
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