Britain’s version of Crocodile Dundee is a guy called Bear Grylls.
Having said that, the only thing Bear has in common with Crocodile is that both have forensic outdoor skills. Otherwise, Bear went to Eton and gives his sons names such as Marmaduke and Huckleberry, which Crocodile would rather smear honey on his belly and lie on an anthill than do. His kids’ names are Bruce and Sheila.
Despite his toff background, Bear’s extreme survival credentials are not in question, although in one TV series on conquering jungles he was caught sneaking into a fancy hotel room for champagne and canapés.
This caused much mirth in the survivalist community, but no one seriously doubts Bear’s skills in severe situations.
The guy is an ex-SAS soldier and the youngest person to have climbed Everest. He also broke his back when his parachute didn’t open during a jump in Botswana.
He not only survived that, but still willingly leaps of cliffs and out of planes at ozone layer height for a living. He eats snakes and scorpions and believes tarantulas are nutritious when champagne and canapés are not available.
But now he’s embarking on his most ambitions task ever. He plans to teach British men how to be … well, men.
Most British guys I know have no questions about their masculinity. But then, I meet guys out fishing or at the odd rugby match, where abstract notions about who makes a man are not regularly discussed. Indeed, if you brought it up, you would get strange looks.
But the media agonise over it. Macho men are scorned, while paradoxically questions are asked why the average Brit male is being outperformed at every level by females.
Girls get better grades at schools and women are beating men hands down in the work place. There are women fire-fighters, women jet pilots and women cage fighters.
Indeed, when England’s cricketers were humiliated in the recent Ashes whitewash, some took solace in the fact that at least the women’s team won. The shame of it! No wonder many believe the Western male is a wuss.
At the same time, women have babies and bring up kids. So, the question is asked, what are men for?
Identity crisis
Bear Grylls has verbalized this on national TV. In a nutshell, he says the modern bloke has a serious identity crisis because traditional hunter-gatherer skills are obsolete.
‘Men really struggle nowadays with what it means to be a man. In the olden days, it was clear – you use your spear, your brains, your resourcefulness, your courage. All that sort of stuff made a man.’
No longer. Modern technology, he says, means people are ‘only using a fraction of what nature or God or whatever has given us to be human’.
‘If you strip man of everything – no microwave, no bed, none of the stuff we take for granted – are the skills that man has gained over thousands of years or mistakes and errors and development still here? Have they just gone in a generation? Or when pushed are they still somewhere in there?’
But this is not just metaphysical musings. Bear aims to answer his question and has produced a TV series called The Island where 13 men are marooned and have to fend for themselves for a month.
They are dropped with just the clothes on their backs, a machete, three knives and enough water for a day. For the next four weeks they will have to learn how to make a fire, purify swamp water, catch food – including stingrays and crocodiles – and generally ‘man-up’.
Among the wannabe survivalists are an IT manager, a call-centre attendant, a neurologist, a 70-year-old ex-cop and a gay Gypsy hairdresser. I mean, this is the 21st century.
I’ve watched the first episode where two guys are on the verge of breakdown after 24 hours and it takes the group eight hours to make a fire.
Will, as Bear hopes, they end up as macho men?
Good luck with that one, mate.
