ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the way gender relates to a range of discursive practices, both verbal and visual, associated with Natural History programmes on television. Natural History programmes on television are probably the most influential source of popular knowledge about wildlife. Most wildlife programmes concern themselves at some point, if not centrally, with the gendered behaviour of animals, especially reproduction. Predictably, gender is a fertile area for anthropomorphic play in script and image, and has significant implications. The Tale of the Pregnant Male invites us to marvel at the wonders of seahorse reproduction, and offers us an accompanying narrative in which scientists-as-heroes patiently and arduously collects evidence and pieces it together. The chapter argues that television Natural History programmes do seem to mediate the information-entertainment dichotomy, but their hybrid status raises questions not only about how seriously they should be taken as 'science', but indeed about the nature of science itself.
