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‘Alaskan Bush People’: New Season Creates More Cognitive Dissonance For Viewers? [Opinion]

By Roz Zurko
Published on: 02:58 PST, Jan 2, 2017

A new season of Alaskan Bush People has arrived, promising to bring the Brown family into your living room as they struggle even more than ever before to make a living off the Alaskan bush country. Knowing that each and every one of these people from the bush has been awarded cushy salaries for their antics in the unforgiving Alaskan terrain makes watching all these struggles a bit tough for the deep thinkers of this world.

The only remedy for anyone questioning the authenticity of Alaskan Bush People, as they find themselves drifting into a state of cognitive dissonance, is to think of it as a sitcom rather than reality TV. The point of putting these people on the screen as they clamber through the Alaskan Bush in a quest to follow a dream is nothing more than entertainment, much like any other venue that airs on TV.

Monsters and Critics reports that along with the “stunning vistas,” there is plenty of drama to go around in this new season of Alaskan Bush People, which debuts this Wednesday. The viewers of the show have weighed in on social media, and they are a polarized bunch. Many are still wondering after several seasons just what this show is really all about.

There are those who confess that they absolutely enjoy this show, and then there are others who see Alaskan Bush People as nothing more than “fake.” Some of the commenters who see this show as fake also detest the attempt at a TV show of pulling the wool over their eyes. This could actually be where all the negativity grows from, as people in general don’t like to think that someone is attempting to dupe them.

The Discovery Channel might fare better with gathering more positive comments on Alaskan Bush People if they simply changed the venue’s assumed genre, as many believe it is a reality show. It is not labeled as such on Alaskan Bush People homepage in the “About” section. The show actually doesn’t have a label assigned to it at all as far as what kind of category it falls into.

The Discovery Channel describes the Alaskan Bush People as follows.

“Deep in the Alaskan wilderness lives a newly discovered family who was born and raised wild.”

They go on to explain how this family built a home in the wild originally, but it was burnt to the ground when it was found to be built on public land. The Discovery Channel picks up this family as they go back “even deeper” into the Alaskan Bush to attempt to rebuild that life. There is nothing on their homepage specifying that Alaskan Bush People is considered a reality TV show, so maybe it isn’t.

Earlier descriptions of Alaskan Bush People refer to the venue as “reality TV,” which is seen in various articles and comments online. Slowly, the genre seemed to change from reality TV to a “reality-documentary series,” which is how Google describes the “American Television Show.” It would appear that the Discovery Channel did not attempt to give em>Alaskan Bush People a label. They also don’t appear to make any promises — they just describe Billy and Ami Brown and their brood as attempting to build a life way off the grid. Basically, that is what the viewers see when they tune in.

Let’s face it: Nobody is going to watch a show if all you see are the Alaskan Bush People stars sitting around a fire and weaving their own baskets out of vines found on the land. How long would viewers’ interest last if you watched Bear in episode after episode concocting his own shampoo and then washing his hair in the river? It is not as if the show offers the most stimulating of conversations, so you have to imagine that the people behind the scenes have no choice but to improvise. More than likely in order to keep the show at a constant pace for entertaining the viewers, some things need to be scripted. From the sound of the tweet below, it looks like Bear’s shampoo made a big hit.

For those of you who find disharmony in what you are seeing vs. what you know about Alaskan Bush People, why not approach this show as you would any other series that you enjoy? So what if the Brown family allegedly lives in a hotel while filming the show, they are out in the bush while creating entertainment for you to watch. You may like to watch Law and Order or Criminal Minds and enjoy these shows because some of the episodes are pulled out of the headlines, but they are still all scripted.

By harboring the thought that this is a fake venue being passed off as a reality show and feeling duped because of it, you are missing out on some real entertainment. From what the homepage offers on Alaskan Bush People, it sounds like many of the scenes are taken from real-life scenarios the Brown family experienced at one time or another. Whether you are watching it unfold in real-time or you are seeing a recreation, do you really need to worry if the end game is only to get you to laugh or drop your jaw in awe?

There are very few who take Nasmir Fellows’ attitude when approaching the discussion on this Discovery Channel offering: “Fake or not, this is an enjoyable show.” He left this comment on the Monsters and Critics article, and he weighs in as the minority when it comes to offering happy thoughts on the Alaskan Bush People. The show airs their new season on January 4, at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel. The preview calls for the Browns to stop all progress in Browntown due to an emergency popping up. Matt, who is the eldest Brown child, is said to step into grown-ups’ shoes as they contend with this emergency. This crisis-like event is said to ” forever change the lives of the entire wolf pack.”

You have to admit they are not like many families you know, with the adult-kids using child-like ways to solve problems. Then there is that bizarre accent they’ve developed from not being part of main stream society, which is how their odd dialect is explained by the Alaskan Bush People homepage. Seeing the family howling in unison as a wolf pack when they are happy does offer up the opportunity for you to enjoy a good belly-laugh.

Who can forget Bear and that shampoo he throws together and how most of it misses his head as he pours the concoction on his hair while in the river? Then there’s Noah, who fancies himself a modern-day inventor who has conjured up all types of strange things. That is a man who is set on reinventing the wheel. It’s entertaining, that’s it. There’s no need to analyze Alaskan Bush People beyond an hour that sparks your interest!

[Featured Image by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

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