A question that many of us don't ask ourselves nearly enough is, what does it mean to be an American? I know a man named Timmothy Treadwell, also known as The Grizzly Man. He was legally American, born and raised, yet many people people would still question whether he truly upheld the American values.
Timmothy Treadwell grew up as your typical middle class American, with a college diving scholarship, and on the path to make his daddy proud. However, it all began to crash and burn when he hurt his back, lost his scholarship and fell faster and faster on a downward spiral into the world of alcohol and drugs. Feeling neglected and out of place in the human civilization, he ventured into the world of the most dangerous animal on our continent, the bears. He journeyed across Alaska with nothing but the company of his camera and tripod, and seemed to form a greater bond with the wild bears than with his own family and friends.
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Some would say that Treadwell had a bright future ahead of him and simply threw his life away, but I don't think Timmothy himself would have the same view on it. He was simply living his dream of protecting the bears and in his own way rising above his earlier substance abuse troubles and making himself more successful than he was to begin with. He may have not lived the typical "American dream" of going to school, getting a job, then raising a family and doing better off than your parents before you, but he did live his own form or success. He simply had his own version of an American dream.
What is the first thing that everyone learns about America as early as the 1st grade? I don't know about you, but for me it was the pioneers. When we learned about the pioneers, we were taught to see them as heroes, paving their way across unknown territory and building the country we now know of today. Treadwell is his own form of a pioneer, he is exploring a new kind of society that no one has ever dared to dip their feet into. The "Secret World of the Bears." Many people criticize Treadwell's sanity and faith in these dangerous creatures, even the director of the movie "Grizzly Man," himself, Werner Herzog,
"What haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. But for Timmothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a savior."
Many people in the movie, included Herzog, questioned the bond that Treadwell believed he had with the animals, but to Treadwell, even through the dead of being mauled by his so-called friend bear, he had faith in the animals to make him feel a part of their society since he felt that the human society wasn't enough for him. Timmothy did believe in the bears as a kind of "savior," from the pressures of the human society and the problems that were waiting for him there. In the Bear Maze there was no need for money or material success, and most of all no temptation from harmful substances.
Timmothy Treadwell, in daring to venture into the unknown and the outskirts of what is considered the civil "norm" and doing what he believes will bring him success in his own eyes and rising above his earlier troubles, he is truly an American living his own American Dream.
I agree with you Madi, Treadwell did in some way search for "his own American Dream." However, I would argue that Treadwell was also searching for fame. In bringing 2 video cameras to the wilderness, I think that Treadwell was hoping to gain support for his fight to protect grizzly bears. Though Treadwell was harshly criticized he persevered until the end and for that I believe he is a true American.
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