In our class discussion today we talked about the world that Timothy “created” in his mind for the bears, which he displays by talking to them like pets. This is not a judgement call that we should be making. Of all humans, Timothy can probably be the most objective about the bears because he has spent way more time with the bears than us. He was able to intuit enough about their behaviors that he could stay alive, even at extremely close proximity to them, for thirteen summers. Even if he was projecting onto them, those projections kept him alive pretty well for a long time. One of the men interviewed for the film said that the bears don’t eat Timothy because they think he’s retarded. He is personifying the bears the same way that Timothy does. Even when criticizing Timothy for his “delusions,” we tend to make up our own stories for the bears, and those stories are focus more on Timothy than the bears.
The bears have a lot more going on in their lives than thinking about the presence of a human. They’re either thinking that Timothy’s a threat or that he’s not, and beyond that they’re thinking about finding food and taking care of their young. To them, Timothy is just another part of life. I found it interesting that when talking about the bears, people often jump to the impact Timothy was having on them, when in reality Timothy was just living amongst them, hanging out near them. He didn’t have any more impact than a bird or Timmy the fox.
I love your point about how the man being interviewed was personifying the bears nearly as much as Treadwell was. I agree that although Timothy Treadwell was obviously a bit delusional, he deserves more credit than many of the interviewees in the film gave him. He did keep himself alive in the wild for a long time, which, ultimately, is very impressive. This particular interviewee is trying to argue that Treadwell was not responsible for his own safety, and that it was the bears' decision to leave him alone. The fact that he is guilty of projecting onto the bears just like Treadwell, however, makes his argument much less legitimate.
ReplyDelete