Les Stroud's "Survivorman" vs. Bear Grylls' "Man Vs. Wild"

Manliness of main character (10 points)
Camera work and production values (10 points)
Usefulness of survival advice (10 points)
Overall realism of show (20 points).

Category 1: Manliness of main character

Stroud comes out strong in the manliness department because in his show, he's in the wild for a full week rather than a mere 48 hours. He's also alone with no crew, making the ordeal that much more difficult.



Grylls, on the other hand, is much more daring and balsy when it comes to what he decides to do on the show. He goes out of his way to eat absurdly disgusting foods, ascend and descend absurdly dangerous cliffs, and he also makes sure to involve large dead mammals as food and/or clothing in most of his episodes; a manly decision there is no greater.

Digging deeper into their pre-show lives, we find that Grylls pulls ahead for manliness. According to Wikipedia, he's paramotored over the Himalayas (I don't know what that means but it sounds hard), set the world record for highest indoor freefall, crossed the North Atlantic in an inflatable boat, and, I quote, "rowed naked for 22 miles in a homemade bathtub along the Thames." The fact that he made his own bathtub really ices the cake, IMO.

Also, his name is Bear.

Stroud was a liberal arts major, who worked at MuchMusic and spent some time as a garbage man in Toronto. We should also knock off a point for Stroud because on his show, he spends quite a lot of time complaining about the loneliness and fear that he experiences in the wild. Manly men feel no such things!

Grylls: 10/10

Stroud: 5/10

Camera work and overall production values:

Bear's show has to be the winner for this category, but only just. The fact is, there's a full camera crew following him around, so they can bring loads of equipment and set up much more dramatic shots and angles throughout the show. The fact that Bear doesn't have to mess around with the cameras like Stroud does, allows Bear to move faster and be unburnened in his exploits. Often, dramatic moments and animal encounters are missed by Stroud because he has to 'set up' every shot himself.

Stroud does get points, though, for capturing some of the less tangible and more beautiful aspects of the wild environments. His shots tend to linger and viewers are given a better sense of what it's "really like" to be out there, rather than just an entertaining show.

Grylls: 8/10

Stroud: 7/10

Usefulness of survival advice

This is a tough call to make. On the one hand, Stroud tends to accomplish much less than Grylls, but that's mainly because Grylls has situations and opportunities "presented" to him, i.e. set up in advance, so he can demonstrate how to execute various survival techniques. Wild boars, dead sheep, and other usefull animals just tend to show up. In terms of the sheer quantity of different advice and demonstrations, Bear Grylls' show is the winner.

But that's not all there is to this category. One key difference between the two shows is that Bear brings a flint stick to easily start fires, while Stroud does not. Learning to start a fire (and generally stay warm) is usually top priority in reality (along with finding water), and firestarting methods are taught regularly by Stroud. Stroud also (and I think importantly) discusses the psychology of survival; he speaks of learning to overcome desparation, fear, exhaustion, and loneliness. This stuff is indespensible to real survival situations.

Stroud: 9/10

Grylls: 7/10

Overall Realism

Stroud takes the most impotant category without even much of a fight. It's not to say that Grylls' show isn't real, but the fact is simply that Strouds filmed experience much closer represents likely survival situations than does Bear's. Survival in the wild is a cold, lonely, terrifying, energy-depleting, and generally extremely taxing experience. Without a gun or help from others, you'll be lucky to get more than a squirrel or a rabbit for food in an entire week.

Stroud quit filming episodes after three seasons because of the physical toll they were taking on him. That's as real as it gets.

Bear's show has its realism, however. He doesn't have to drag 50 pounds of camera gear around with him and film all his own shots, for example. In this way, Stroud makes it even harder than it has to be, or would in reality be.

Stroud: 19/20

Grylls: 14/20

Deductions: -2 points for Bear, for faking it.

Bonus Points: +2 points for Stroud, for emphasizing the importance of wildlife preservation and good ethics in every episode of his show.

Final Scores

Les Stroud's "Survivorman": 42 points
Bear Grylls' "Man Vs. Wild": 37 points