Frozen Planet (2011)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ryIxztr4T2Q
Argument: "Well, [cheating] is the charge now levelled at Attenborough and his team after a newspaper chanced to learn that the wondrous scene of a polar bear giving birth in Frozen Planet was not filmed in an icy burrow in the Arctic, as the programme seemed to imply, but in a plaster den in a Dutch zoo.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_Planet#Zoo-filmed_material Sir David, now 85, defended the scene saying: 'If you had tried to put a camera in the wild in a polar bear den, she would either have killed the cub or she would have killed the cameraman.' Mark Thompson, BBC director-general, told MPs that research had revealed that viewers did not want transcendent moments to be ruined by clunky, 'here’s one we prepared earlier' captions" (Pearson, A., 2011). Argument: "Some viewers reportedly said they felt cheated by the episode, which did not make the distinction explicit during broadcast. However, the BBC deny any wrongdoing or deception, saying that the Frozen Planet website clearly states that the shots were taken from a zoo, and explains in detail why and how the shots were not filmed in the wild" (Thompson, H., 2011). Criticism: The furore resulting from the film crew's decision to film the sequence of the polar bear giving birth in a Dutch animal park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_Planet#Zoo-filmed_material implies that doing so, jeopardises the authenticity of the documentary episode/series (and by extension, credibility of the David Attenborough and the production team) when clearly, the aim was to offer a fact-based narrative, which is plausible and believable. In this sense, the criticism clearly says about the expectations of such audiences for creating such television. Bibliography: Spillenger, P., & Attenborough, D. (2011). 'Frozen Planet: Winter' (No. 5). BBC. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/01AE12DB?bcast=135878128 (jump to: 24:30 to 28:00) Fothergill, A. (2011). 'To the Ends of the Earth' (Season 1, Episode 1). In P. Spillenger, Frozen Planet. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/01AE12DB?bcast=135878128 'The newest polar bear in the world'. (2011). https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00m21s4 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2095247/ Pearson, A. (2011, 14 December 2011). 'Fake? Sir David Attenborough is a wonder of the world'. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8957122/Fake-Sir-David-Attenborough-is-a-wonder-of-the-world.html Hasan, L. (2011, 12 December 2011). 'Polar Bear Video Lands BBC in Hot Water'. https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/fakery-or-bending-the-truth Thompson, H. (2011, 20 December 2011). 'Polar bear controversy'. YouGov. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/2656-polar-bear-controversy
