Review of the ‘Mammals’ episode of

All nature shows anthropomorphize their subjects, often to the degree that they tell us as much about our values and morals as they do about animals. And so it is that Life, the successor to Planet Earth now appearing on the Discovery Channel, tells us an awful lot about Oprah Winfrey’s values and morals.

Winfrey narrates the show and appears to have influenced its content as well, if its ‘girl power’ overtones and fixation on motherhood are any indication. While the show’s visuals are spectacular, its writing is weak, especially when compared to more cerebral nature programs like David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals. Life’s script is light on science and heavy on generalisms. Whereas Attenborough would tell you why an elephant shrew evolved nipples on its front as opposed to its underside (the answer: so that it can feed its young and still remain in a position to sprint off should danger appear),  Winfrey merely  gushes about how the shrew’s “maternal instincts” make it devoted to its babies.

‘Mammals,’ definitely the weakest of the four Life episodes so far, is sometimes so lightweight that its scenes come off not as illuminating segments about animals but as parables. Most of these parables are about motherhood and gender: a scene of a reindeer herd escaping a swarm of mosquitoes, for instance, turns into a cautionary tale about child abduction, as one female loses her baby in the scuffle. “The mother may search for her kid for days,” Winfrey intones over footage of the female bleating in panic, “but she won’t see it again—not alive. Predators have already gotten to the baby.” Hear that, Vixen? You’re a negligent mother. You left your child alone for two seconds, and see what happened?

Then, as if to provide a foil for deadbeat Vixen, we get a series of vignettes about good animal moms: a seal who teaches her calf to swim; an elephant struggling to free her baby from a mud hole (Grandma Elephant—I kid you not—comes by to save the day); a polar bear who (in a scene that tells us nothing new whatsoever about polar bears, but does manage to introduce the specter of global warming) considers fighting off competitors to get her cubs a piece of beached whale meat.

On Wednesdays, we wear tan.

There’s also a scene about rival cliques – I mean, lionesses and hyenas. A starving hyena tries to move in on a carcass some lions are chomping on, with the predictable result that they chase her off. The hyena alerts its pack, who outnumber the lions, run them up a tree, and take the carcass for themselves. A pretty typical scene out on the savannah, you’d think, but Life’s script turns it into something out of Mean Girls. The female gender of the combatants is mentioned prominently; the hyena is described as greedy (“She shouldn’t have tried to eat that,” Winfrey even says, as if chiding the animal for not being sufficiently diet-conscious) and her summoning the pack is construed as revenge.

This silly reduction of animal behavior to mini-morality plays isn’t fair to Life’s videographers, who brought both incredible talent (my husband, no slouch in the photography department himself, was consistently agape at the shots they managed to capture) and grueling hard work to this series. (Thankfully, the other three episodes to air so far aren’t nearly as egregious as ‘Mammals,’ perhaps because it’s harder to see yourself as a fish or a lizard than as a cute meerkat.) And it’s not fair to the viewers who tuned in hoping to learn something about the natural world and only got an Oprah-style lecture about parenting instead.

The creatures featured in Life are a series of marvels. Male stalk-eyed flies ingest air until their heads inflate and their eyes protrude from long stalks, all in order to attract a mate. Pebble toads turn themselves rigid and fall dozens of feet in order to escape predators. A komodo dragon attack a water buffalo and then waits, with unnerving patience, weeks for the creature to die from its poisoned bite.

And the photography is astonishing. The filmmakers pan in close to catch every brilliant bump on a chameleon’s skin, or zoom out to catch wide-angle beauty shots of icebergs floating in an Arctic ocean. They shoot from seemingly impossible angles, at one point filming a pygmy gecko the size of a quarter from below as it skitters over the surface of a pond. In slow motion, and with startling clarity, they show us the dramas that take place over the course of a millisecond: a lizard’s tongue darting out to snare an insect, a “Jesus Christ lizard” sprinting across water, three cheetahs taking down an ostrich.

An elephant shrew, just one of the many cute critters featured in "Life."

Life’s narration, though, doesn’t live up to its visuals. Oprah Winfrey lacks the gravitas of a David Attenborough or a James Earl Jones, and she overemphasizes words and phrases  in a forced and sometimes distracting manner. The content of the narration is also slender—it mainly relies on platitudes about predator and prey and the great circle of life without ever asking the viewer to think deeply or ponder his relationship to the natural world. Instead the script just underscores what’s happening on screen: “Here’s another new animal. Check out the bizarre way it attracts a mate! Hey, it’s kind of like this next animal, which also needs to mate!”

And sometimes, Life can feel like a rehash of Planet Earth’s greatest hits. Instead of great white sharks snapping up seals, there are orcas circling around a crabeater seal; instead of African wild dogs hunting antelopes, shot from a helicopter, there are cheetahs hunting ostriches, also shot from a helicopter.

Life can feel shallow and disjointed at times, but its gorgeous cinematography more than makes up for its weak script. And if it feels like Planet Earth II, well, Planet Earth was awesome, so bring it on. Put Oprah on mute if you must, and sit back and let your mind get boggled.

Mary Lynn with two of her capuchin "children"

As I’ve said before, baby monkeys are among the cutest creatures on the planet. In some ways, they’re even cuter than baby humans: they’ve got fur and tails, they make adorable chirping noises, and they can hop around and play a lot sooner than their furless fellow primates can. I can totally see why some people keep them as pets, even though they’re extremely expensive and require care almost 24/7.

But adopting a monkey not as a pet but as a substitute child? That’s borderline crazy, as viewers of the TLC special My Monkey Baby can attest. The program follows three sets of “monkey parents”: a pair of empty nesters who refer to their 18-year-old capuchin, Jessy, as their “daughter”; Mary Lynn, a woman who owns three capuchins and two marmosets; and a young couple adopting a newborn macaque they name Butters. All three, not surprisingly, have suffered trauma or mental illness that has left a void in their lives. Mary Lynn, for instance, had uterine cancer which left her unable to bear children, while Butters’s owner, Jesus, had a vasectomy at age 22 because his painful childhood convinced him he never wanted to have kids of his own.

Jessy serves as a "bridesmaid" in her "mom's" wedding

Perhaps the saddest is Jessy’s “mom.” She is estranged from all six of her grown human children, who rebelled against her, she says, starting when they were teenagers and “wanted to lead their own lives.” The woman purchased Jessy because the monkey is like “a baby that never grows up.” A spoiled baby, at that: Jessy has a wardrobe full of frilly dresses and dozens of toys, and eats pastry, ice cream, and lollipops. It’s not hard to connect the dots: it seems like this woman built her identity around taking care of small, dependent children, and was never able to break out of that role. Jessy now fills the void her children left when they grew into independent people with their own free will.

Jessy's toothlessness is obvious in this photo.

And there’s a second dark side to this story, one My Monkey Baby irresponsibly fails to address. Despite the “do not try this at home”-type disclaimers TLC runs after every commercial break, the program never does adequate justice to the stresses and hardships of monkey ownership. Monkeys are wild animals who, when they reach maturity, can and will bite out of anger or in self-defense.  (One reason Jessy’s “parents” have been able to co-exist with her for so long is that they’ve had all her teeth removed, a practice even more painful and damaging to a monkey than declawing is to a cat.) They’re intelligent, have opposable thumbs, move much faster than humans, and can easily tear furnishings to shreds. Many owners, sadly, grow tired of their pets once they grow past babyhood, and seek to offload or sell them. But sanctuaries for former monkey pets, like Jungle Friends, are few and far between.

There are responsible monkey owners out there, who provide for their pets’ needs and don’t feed them candy or feel compelled to stick dresses on them, but it’s hard to tell if Mary Lynn is one of these, or if Jesus will still want Butters when she looks less like this:

and more like this:

or even this:

By focusing on the “weird factor” and not presenting all sides of the story, I fear, My Monkey Baby may only contribute to the problem of monkeys being used as substitute children.

Still, it’s hard to argue with the kooky cuteness of the demo pictures. I can haz silly kat kalendar?

I would buy you a monkey

You always wanted a monkey

–The Barenaked Ladies

Is there anything cuter than a baby monkey? How about a baby monkey wearing a diaper?

I know it’s weird, but lately I’ve developed a Cuteness Fetish for pictures and videos of lil’ baby monkeys. Maybe it’s a maternal instinct gone awry, or maybe I’m going backward on the evolutionary scale. All I know is that little capuchins and mangabeys are right up there with kittens and pandas on the squee-inducing scale. Luckily, YouTube’s a goldmine of mini-monk sweetness.

There’s little Lenny, who trills like a bird:

Then there’s darling Irwin, the capuchin. He wears a diaper, drinks from a bottle like a baby, plays with toys, and sleeps in a basket filled with stuffed animals. This little guy is just meltingly cute, with big dark eyes and lanky limbs that he hasn’t quite learned to coordinate yet (in most of his videos, he’s 8 weeks old). His owner has disabled embedding, but you can follow these links to the cuteness: here’s Irwin rather placidly taking his first bath, conking out in the manner of a sleepy kitten, munching fruit, and playing with his “brother,” Darwin.

I should note that, in most cases, monkey ownership is not such a great idea. They can turn aggressive and bite when they reach maturity, they “play” with household objects by smashing them or tearing them apart, and they’re hard to keep in line unless you have zookeeper-level animal-training skills. Monkeys require a huge level of commitment — like that shown by Irwin’s owner, who has built a fancy outdoor enclosure for him that’s basically a small zoo exhibit.

As for adorable undiapered zoo babies, how about Conchita, the newborn mangabey at the London Zoo? Conchita was born via C-section and zookeepers hand-raised her while her monkey mom was recovering. Like a cute, gangly, fur-covered preemie, Conchita sucks her thumb, clings to a teddy bear, and has to be burped after her bottle:

Finally, there’s Emily, the luckiest toddler in the world. She got to have a playdate with a baby orangutan named Rishi while her photographer dad was documenting an animal preserve in Miami. The N.C. Department of Health has asked that I remind you to have insulin on hand before you click on this link or peruse the following picture:

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go buy two car seats and a bunch of bananas before I run off to Miami . . .