There's a Big Problem with NBC's New LGBT Nature Documentary 'Queer Planet'
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Nature documentaries used to be fairly safe entertainment.
Sure, a few were more violent than others, but on the whole, they could be decent family entertainment, with perhaps a sermon on climate change or environmentalism as the extent of its possible wokeness.
Well, those blissfully innocent days are now over, with NBCUniversal proudly announcing the June 6 release of the nature documentary “Queer Planet” on streaming app Peacock.
Alas, this was not an attempt to reclaim the old meaning of the word “queer,” which once simply meant “strange.”
No, as IndieWire reported May 16, this is a documentary focusing wholly on the same-sex relations found in the animal kingdom.
NBC declared that the “first-of-its-kind nature documentary” devoted entirely to “queer” animals would release in the first week of LGBT “pride month.”
Actor Andrew Rannells, who narrates the program, heaped rapturous praise on the documentary’s off-putting subject matter.
“We’ve all heard of gay penguins, but this film really opened my eyes to the full spectrum of LGBTQ+ behaviors across the natural world,” he said. “And what could be more natural than being who you are?”
Perhaps someone should tell Rannells that “natural” does not automatically mean “good.”
In any case, the trailer itself was something to behold.
The trailer at first appeared relatively benign, with shots of nature and various animals while the narrator informed viewers that “our planet is home to over 11 million species.”
But it didn’t take long at all for the agenda to rear its ugly head, with the trailer displaying text that proclaimed “the animal kingdom isn’t as simple as black and white.”
It was all downhill from there. The filmmakers assaulted viewers’ eyes with gratuitous shots of animals indulging in the joys of the flesh, while a panoply of “experts” exclaimed “everything you were told as a kid is wrong,” and the narrator fawned over “gay penguins,” “bisexual lions” and “sex-changing clownfish.”
And, according to these “experts,” “queerness has always existed” and “it’s only in humans that we have such a stigma about it.”
Indeed.
What these experts neglected to mention is that there are excellent reasons for that.
As Joel Berry of the Babylon Bee pointed out on social media, “Animals also practice rape, cannibalism, infanticide, murder, and theft. Humans are meant to be more than animals, because we ARE more than animals.”
Animals also practice rape, cannibalism, infanticide, murder, and theft.
Humans are meant to be more than animals, because we ARE more than animals. Don’t listen to the evil anti-humans. https://t.co/k0BgRVLbZd
— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) May 16, 2024
Which, indeed, was the major problem of the documentary.
Humans have always tended to anthropomorphize animals, assigning human virtues and qualities to them, like courage to lions or wisdom to owls.
Along those lines, then, the documentary’s implicit thesis seemed to be that since animals regularly engage in deviant sexual acts, that means those acts are “natural,” and therefore humans need not hesitate before engaging in such acts themselves.
But using nature to justify pushing a destructive and deviant lifestyle fails to account for the inconvenient facts Berry pointed out.
Nature is violent and cruel, full of murder, rape, infanticide, cannibalism, and a host of other acts that would make any sane person recoil with horror.
Humans, being made in the image and likeness of God, are held to a far higher standard than any mere animal.
Animals are incapable of rational thought, whereas humans are.
Animals act purely out of instinct, while humans can think carefully about their actions, recognize their inherent moral value, and choose rightly or wrongly.
Taking animals as a moral example is both a foolish and elementary mistake.
But, of course, when did the cultural overlords ever let something silly like wisdom get in the way of their agenda?
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