Obama and a ‘Bear’ in the woods highlight climate change
The US president shows he’s a folksy fellow with survival skills on a popular in-the-wild reality show, writes Gardiner Harris
He helped make tea from catkins, ate a salmon pre-chewed by a bear and discussed why people would drink their own urine.
On Thursday night, US President Barack Obama appeared in an episode of the survivalist reality show Running Wild With Bear Grylls, part of an effort by the White House to highlight the perils of climate change. While trekking in the Alaskan wild, the president and Grylls, one of reality television’s biggest stars, bemoan the rapid retreat of a vast glacier.
But the episode also revealed Mr Obama as a leader made claustrophobic by tight security, a father who is worried about appearing cool to his daughters, and a man who likes pushing through a forest and scrabbling over rocks to reach his campsite.
“I think you assume that someone with that kind of responsibility and power is somehow different from the rest of us,” Grylls said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “So it’s surprising to see how he really is.”
Grylls, a former Special Forces soldier, has created a climb-and-eat-nasty-critters show on NBC that sometimes provides a more intimate portrait of celebrities than they would offer in traditional interviews. Among his guests have been Kate Hudson, Ben Stiller and Channing Tatum.
For the show’s producers, Mr Obama presented a unique challenge. The White House has a set of ironclad protocols — the president, for instance, cannot eat or drink anything that has not been vetted. Nor could Mr Obama put himself in danger, as previous guests have by jumping out of a helicopter or rappelling down a mountainside.
The show agreed to all of the conditions, “but Bear pushed his luck in a couple of interesting ways”, said Paul Telegdy, the president of alternative and late-night programming for NBC Entertainment. “You do not hand the president a piece of salmon that a bear has already taken a bite out of and expect him to eat it.”
Bending the rules seemed to be much of the fun for Mr Obama.
“I’m in what’s called the bubble, and Secret Service makes sure that I’m always out of danger, which I very much appreciate but can be a little confining,” Mr Obama said on the show, which was filmed in September. He continued, “So to be with Bear in the woods, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Mr Obama sometimes appears professorial or hectoring at formal news conferences, so his staff has increasingly sought more relaxed and conversational settings for him — late-night talk shows, podcasts and documentaries.
Another benefit of these appearances is that they reach people who do not watch TV news broadcasts or read newspapers, and the White House has promised more of these unconventional interviews in the next year.
When the White House first approached Grylls to arrange the appearance, he thought it was a hoax. “We didn’t take it seriously at all,” he added.
Grylls said that as he waited for Mr Obama to arrive in the Alaska wilderness, he was awed, despite his own military background, by the bristling weaponry that accompanies the president.
“The incredible Secret Service team, the snipers in the mountain, the helicopters in the air, and the things you don’t even see,” he said.
“It all made me mega nervous,” he added, so much so that Grylls feared that he might be rendered speechless.
But once the president arrived, Grylls said, he was surprised that they shared many of the same concerns about parenting and even faith.
In their discussions, Grylls insisted to Mr Obama that, as president, he could do just about whatever he wanted.
“But he said it undermines other people’s jobs, and at the end of the day isn’t worth the battle,” Grylls said.
After Grylls cooked the gnawed salmon for Mr Obama, the president made s’mores for both of them. They talked about fatherhood and even prayed together. Grylls is an evangelical Christian.
“It’s one of the most special moments of my life,” Grylls said. “I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder and say a bit of a prayer, to pray for protection over his family and for forgiveness when you get things wrong.”
The show is broadcast around the world, making its message about the urgency of climate change particularly well timed after nearly 200 nations reached a landmark accord last week that will commit them to lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
“What he’s doing on climate is incredible,” Grylls said. “He’s protecting the planet. I’m proud to stand beside him or behind him, and feel proud to champion that.”