Swamp People won't Disappoint

First appeared on October 12, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

October is known for thrills and chills, a time when farmers return to their fields to reap what they have sown and a time for Cub fans to struggle for reasons to get out of bed.


So it was with great anticipation that I turned to “Swamp People” (History Channel, Sundays 10/9 c), looking for something to get my heart beating again. Fully expecting a distant cousin of Wes Craven’s masterpiece “Swamp Thing”, I discovered instead a pocket of the world where apparently evolution is yet to be defined, or by most accounts is late for the party.

For those yet to experience “Swamp People”, it is an unscripted diary chronicling the rudimentary existence of Louisiana’s Alligator hunters. It’s the Beverly Hillbillies meet the Crocodile Hunter.

If you’re confused why this is on the Sports Page, before continuing let me mention alligator hunting is in fact a sport; and it’s been a slow sports week otherwise.

Since the number of you who have been struck by lightning is probably higher than the number who have actually been Alligator hunting before, I will summarize the concept in one sentence.

You find the perfect swamp stump, wrap a shoestring with a barbed fishhook large enough to make Captain Hook jealous around it and wait until an Alligator bites into the rotting chicken meat you’ve baited it with.

To be fair Times Square the Atchafalaya River Basin is not. A million acre swamp that gashes the southern third of Louisiana, this remote wilderness is home to 300 different bird species, an estimated 1.5 million Alligators and, of course, the Swamp People. With this in mind it’s understandable that harvesting gators has been a way of life there far longer than the state of Louisiana has been around.

Acadians, or Cajuns as many know them, take pride in the fact they were castaways. Sent down from Canada to start a new life, few could have realized they would settle into the Atchafalaya swamp only to lie unmolested for 200 years. That was until, like a frozen caveman, a group of History Channel Producers unearthed them in a state of perfect preservation.

What “Swamp People” does is shed light on a part of Americana few realize existed. Fried alligator, swamp rats, grown men hunting half-naked (save a pair of overalls) in Crocs (no pun intended, one was literally wearing Crocs), “Swamp People” is as entertaining as it is crude.

Say what you will, you have to love “Swamp People” for being the one show that dares to stick a finger in PETA’s eye. It’s the politically incorrect elephant in the room in an era when environmental awareness has arguably never been higher.

If the sight of a spider on the floor sends you running for the high ground safety that is the coffee table, then “Swamp People” is probably not for you. The show is so over the top it’s almost as if a group of History Channel producers literally asked a table of writers to put together something so insensitive it would convince the entire nation to join PETA overnight.

What “Swamp People” is to me, if you can get by the images of a rifle being jammed against the head of an alligator writhing for his life, is a celebration of American Culture. Oral history in the digital age. Uncomfortable as some may find it, “Swamp People” is actually the closest thing we’ve probably ever seen to Reality Television. Yes, its official- Reality TV has a new standard bearer. No matter what anyone says, “Swamp People” is a show full of teeth.