What Females Want and Males Will Do

Documentary Review of the Nature Documentary: What Females Want and Males will Do

This documentary starts out with one simple question, the draw to watch the entire story - "How has the story of natural selection been influenced by females?  How does female choice effect mating success?" This simple question serves as an opener to the documentary and for myself, I do want to know how my understanding of this topic is going to change as the documentary unfolds. 

I took this explanation directly from the pbs site: 

'What Females Want and Males Will Do' explores the evolution of sexual strategies and whatand impressive ornamentation makes certain species winners and losers in the mating game. Courtship drives evolution by controlling whose genes are passed on to the next generation, and intense competition gives rise to a wide array of dazzling displays

To tell the story a narrator (F. Murray Abraham) helps us navigate between scientists who are telling us about their research. For the most part, the scientists present material to the camera in a very host-like fashion.  They talk directly to the audience as they look down the lens of the camera. 

The first step in the documentary is to travel to the Ethiopian highlands to examine Gelada baboon social structure with scientist Chadden Hunter. His goal is to figure out what makes a male a good mate.  We then travel to the Wyoming plains to examine sage grouse with a mechanical bird.  Finally, we look at Barn Swallows with Rebecca Safran. 

All in all, this documentary is fairly typical of a Nature documentary. The style and structure are designed to ask a scientific question and take us on a ride to uncover the answer. Because of my interest in behavioral ecology, I was attracted to this documentary. It serves its purpose well and told a great story.  I would highly recommend this film to students interested in ecology in general and those interested in the finer details of Darwin's theory of natural selection.  It wouldn't win a film festival for originality, but I don't think that was necessary in a film like this.

LINKS

The experts of the Documentary: A Nature Podcast

This short video gives a kind of behind the scenes look at parts of the documentary that you didn't get to see in the actual film.