I tried to walk into this with an open mind and initially naïvely assumed this would explore Taboos in a more placid "Hey look at these strange weird cultural quirks / oddities" way, but what I saw instead was stomach turning, especially in regard to the treatment of animals. The senseless barbarity and butchery fully on display was overwhelming and shocking at times. Savage and inhumane from a civilized western perspective; a brutal reminder that some humans still live guided by a stone age mentality in a myriad of ways.
The narrating presenters / experts try to cast the scenes in a "Well, we can't judge what we can't understand" sort of light, along with the classic "We need to ensure we preserve these cultures, otherwise they'll be lost". To be honest though... ... sometimes I couldn't escape the feeling that there was no ACTUAL value being created here; it was nothing more than desperation meeting destructive belief / tradition, thus, I often felt myself strongly disagreeing with the premise that these snake-oil approaches NEEDED to be kept active vs simply preserving them in history books.
As an example, a tribe in Africa had a woman claiming to be some sort of spirit vessel, and all she really did was take on a masculine voice/tone, have people slit live animal throats (including a calf), leave the animals wriggling or flailing on the ground as people danced in the blood gushing from the animal's neck... Then, all she said to each person who came seeking help & advice was "everything is going to be okay"... All I could do was sit there stunned in traumatic shock and horror, wondering how anyone could possibly take her seriously, let alone believe that this cruelty would solve their issues. One woman even came seeking help for her sick daughter; internally I was screaming "Take her to a doctor!". In my view, the sad reality was that some of these communities would have been better served with a proper education focused on science, and better access to healthcare; worrying about 'preserving' their culture, as far as I could tell, was RELATIVELY a non-issue.
ANYWAY, the production quality WAS decent, and it WAS interesting, BUT given that it was shot "in your face" David Attenborough style (think "nature shows that explicitly / vividly showcase death in the animal world"), this show is not for the squeamish, and if you're an animal lover, I'd STRONGLY recommend you take a hard pass on some episodes (though, unfortunately, no warnings are given in advance).
Oh, and if you're on the sensitive side, DO NOT WATCH RIGHT BEFORE BED; give yourself plenty of time to recover and unwind. I regard myself as an animal lover and empathetic towards the plight of others, so my review should likely be regarded with that lens in mind.
The narrating presenters / experts try to cast the scenes in a "Well, we can't judge what we can't understand" sort of light, along with the classic "We need to ensure we preserve these cultures, otherwise they'll be lost". To be honest though... ... sometimes I couldn't escape the feeling that there was no ACTUAL value being created here; it was nothing more than desperation meeting destructive belief / tradition, thus, I often felt myself strongly disagreeing with the premise that these snake-oil approaches NEEDED to be kept active vs simply preserving them in history books.
As an example, a tribe in Africa had a woman claiming to be some sort of spirit vessel, and all she really did was take on a masculine voice/tone, have people slit live animal throats (including a calf), leave the animals wriggling or flailing on the ground as people danced in the blood gushing from the animal's neck... Then, all she said to each person who came seeking help & advice was "everything is going to be okay"... All I could do was sit there stunned in traumatic shock and horror, wondering how anyone could possibly take her seriously, let alone believe that this cruelty would solve their issues. One woman even came seeking help for her sick daughter; internally I was screaming "Take her to a doctor!". In my view, the sad reality was that some of these communities would have been better served with a proper education focused on science, and better access to healthcare; worrying about 'preserving' their culture, as far as I could tell, was RELATIVELY a non-issue.
ANYWAY, the production quality WAS decent, and it WAS interesting, BUT given that it was shot "in your face" David Attenborough style (think "nature shows that explicitly / vividly showcase death in the animal world"), this show is not for the squeamish, and if you're an animal lover, I'd STRONGLY recommend you take a hard pass on some episodes (though, unfortunately, no warnings are given in advance).
Oh, and if you're on the sensitive side, DO NOT WATCH RIGHT BEFORE BED; give yourself plenty of time to recover and unwind. I regard myself as an animal lover and empathetic towards the plight of others, so my review should likely be regarded with that lens in mind.