Disney's Earth :: Nature Prevails

A couple of weekends ago I went to the theater to see Disney's Earth. It was awesome. Great storytelling and though the reality was softened for the Disney audience, the story was still honest in showing the beauty and brutality of nature. One thing that struck me in the narrative was it's insinuation that humans have escaped natures effects. The struggles to survive, produce, eat and escape predators. I took issue with this. I am far from being an outdoors person and could not survive the wilderness. But let's not forget the concrete jungles, the corporate office cess pools, the economic droughts, and the sinister prevalent selfishness of human nature. It's real out here. Nature prevails on all of us that breath, whether a blade of grass or a bird or a man. We all have to survive the wilderness.

As the audience cringed when the cheetah took down the gazelle, I felt triumph for the predator. I've never had to hunt for food, but I know if I had to I would and I hope I'd be as graceful, exact and deadly as the cheetah.

Next to me in the theater a woman held her head in her hands in most of the chase and kill scenes. I wondered what made her look away. Did she watch the news this way? Hands covering her eyes? For all of Disney's editing and blurring of the realities of life and death, I was most aware of people starving, people fighting, people fleeing, people dying. Watching the lions take down the elephant brought back the verse by Mos Def's "Got":

"There's hunger in the street that is hard to defeat
Many steal for sport, but more steal to eat
Cat's heavy at the weigh-in, and he's playin' for keeps
Don't sleep, they'll roll up in your passengers seat
There is universal law, whether rich or poor
Some say life's a game, to more, life is war
So put them egos to the side and get off them head-trips
'Fore some cats pull out them heaters and make you head-less..."
- "Got", Mos Def, Black on Both Sides