Bigfoot Is Real

Have you seen it? The new show, Bigfoot Is Real? If you regularly read this blog, you should know that I was a huge fan of Finding Bigfoot. Then it got cancelled like everything in our world recently has been. 

The first time I came across Finding Bigfoot, I was confused. What is this doing on TV? I kept asking myself. Another question I asked was, Who watches this? Week after week I tuned in and wondered who watched this show. Finally I realized that I watched the show. Eagerly. Enthusiastically. Joyfully.

Then another question formed in my mind: Are these people real or are they actors? I watched for maybe two years before I came to the conclusion that they were/are actors.

I know what you are thinking. It did not take you that long. It took you like, fifteen seconds. But you have to understand that when this show first came on, genres of TV were well defined and had been for a long time. Documentaries and Investigations were factual (or attempted to be) and TV shows and movies were fiction. Suddenly with the rise of reality TV (I know, that is an oxymoron) the divisions between fact and fiction began to be blurred. It took awhile for me to figure this out. I know, I am slow, but I usually get there.

Even after I came to the conclusion that the people on Finding Bigfoot were actors, I enjoyed the show. I found it entertaining, mildly amusing, and a bit interesting. The program had a format from which it never deviated. They decided to investigate an area. They went there and did an initial search. Then they decided to call an town meeting. After the meeting, they would plot the sightings/encounters on a map and then refocus their investigation around these clusters of sightings. They would then go out at night, hit trees, howl, and listen for Bigfoot. Everything they encountered was evidence of Bigfoot including nothing. I loved it.

The new show has many of the same elements. You have a team who make up the GCBRO = the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. They come to investigate the claims of people who not only have seen Bigfoot, but have been harassed, threatened, and/or terrorized by these creatures. They do an initial investigation, then instead of howling in the woods, they take a night hunt. Dressed to the nines in camouflage and ghillie suits, toting big iron and night vision goggles, several hunters are place in the woods while a few members remain at camp with walkie talkies. 

So far, the plot goes like this. The hunters get spooked. They hear stuff, see hairy creatures moving in the underbrush, and talk to the camp on their walkie talkies. Wait, won't talking on a walkie talkie break their cover? Not to worry. The guys at camp, tell the hunters to stay put, they will come to them to get them out of the woods. You can't make this stuff up. But somebody did.

Last night's episode had something the original Finding Bigfoot had: a town meeting. Last night's show also had something the old show never had: conflict. In this new show, there is a "scientist" who was formerly a member of the GCBRO. He has broken ranks with the group because of his ethical conflict over killing Bigfoot. He yells at them and calls them "murderers" even though they have killed nothing but time. At this town meeting, several people became loud and aggressive with the GCBRO members over the same issue. They call Bigfoot human. Yeah, really.

One interaction from the meeting struck me as interesting. A local man yelled at the GCBRO members that "Bigfoot was here long before us." The GCBRO guy yelled back, "How do you know?"

I found that interesting because it highlights a naiveite that I encounter often. On social media, if someone complains or warns of the dangers of certain animals, an "enlightened" person always comes back with "We are moving into THEIR territory." We are then lectured to accept them and be more tolerant. 

The problem with that is that though it is often true, sometimes it is not. Recently someone warned people to be careful of their pets in rural areas of Mississippi. Coyotes will kill them we were rightly told. Here came the woke folks to lecture us that we are living in their (the coyotes) home. What these woke folks don't know is that we are not moving into coyotes home territory, but they are moving into ours. The coyote is not indigenous to the Southeast United States. I can actually remember when they first started showing up here. People called them wolves and it was a big deal. What happened was that sometime around the mid-1970s, the Mississippi River froze over and coyotes crossed it. Since then have been reproducing, spreading, and causing trouble in OUR territory. They are an invasive species. 

Anyway, I like this new show more than the old one. It is not cheesy like Finding Bigfoot was, has direct conflict that works on the intra- and interpersonal levels, and is comical although I'm not sure that is the intent of the producers or actors. The idea of these guys armed with .223s and sidearms, dressed in ghillies suits getting run out of the woods by sounds and rescued by their lesser-armed comrades is, well, maybe they did intend for that to be humorous. 

If you haven't seen it, check it out. You can find it Sunday night on the Travel Channel. It either is or is not your sort of thing. It is mine, my new favorite show. Thanks for reading.