Giants’ Dan O’Neill on making history with the queerest wildlife documentary yet: ‘Visibility and representation cannot be overstated’
"It is crucial for shaping the perception of future generations, ensuring that they recognise LGBTQ individuals as valuable and deserving of respect."
By Dan O'Neill
My earliest dream job was to be a palaeontologist. Long-extinct dinosaur giants were just the most incredible thing I could imagine, and because of the fossil record, I could actually see them at the local Natural History Museum in Oxford.
As soon as you walk in, you’re met by the massive Iguanodon and T-Rex skeletons. I had such a yearning for them to be real as a kid, and always asked my dad how long it would be before scientists could bring them back to life.
Those animals ignite a really powerful sense of imagination, and for me, they were symbols of the immense power of nature. I was in total awe of that place, and those prehistoric bones. More recent zoological collections sparked a lifelong journey into the natural world, and an ardent desire to protect it.
Today, I feel incredibly lucky and honoured to work as a zoologist and wildlife filmmaker, often exploring some of the planet’s most remote and challenging environments in search of rare animals, and documenting their stories and the stories of communities that live alongside them.
Over the past decade my team and I have led expeditions into the depths of the Amazon rainforest in search of jaguars, been face to face with wild snow leopards in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, and sat atop overgrown Mayan temple ruins in the Yucatan jungle.
I absolutely love that presenting has allowed me to share these experiences, but getting to this point hasn’t been without its hurdles. I’m a huge believer in the importance and power of role models, mostly because I didn’t have one that I could truly see myself in as a kid.
When I was in my early teens, there were no openly LGBT adventurers, wildlife presenters, or explorers in the media. In a time when I felt so different from everyone around me, any path that mirrored that feeling was buried in an attempt to fit in.
I ended up leaving school at 16 and it took me some time to find my way back to my dreams. I hope more than anything that I can be that role model for someone that I needed, and that this path might seem a little more possible for someone else like me.
Our brand new 5-part series, Giants, which launched in the US on Curiosity Stream on 18 May, marks the first time in history an LGBT wildlife presenter will have hosted a series on a major network. The show explores the five evolutionary stories of African elephants, lions, saltwater crocodiles, great white sharks, and anacondas, circumnavigating the planet on expeditions to find them in the wild, as we bring back their even bigger prehistoric ancestors with the latest CGI.
Each adventure has its fair share of hair-raising encounters, from walking up to a wild African bull elephant in Kenya and camping out alongside lions in Botswana’s Okavango Delta to getting face to face with a great white shark off Australia’s south coast and even swimming with a 20ft long anaconda in Brazil!
These mad moments will probably make a few people scream at the TV, and I don’t blame them! I can’t believe I had the balls to be honest, but the real heroes of this series are the international team of contributors and scientists whose cutting-edge research and eyewitness accounts breathed life and purpose into our journey.
What’s more? By total accident, it turned out to be the most badass queer team imaginable.
Dr. Seb Groh, an expert in prehistoric giant crocodilians who also happens to be trans, takes us on a captivating journey back in time to meet a creature capable of hunting dinosaurs. Dr. Julianna Terra, a world-renowned anaconda scientist, fearlessly immerses herself in the water with these gigantic snakes, while Fernando Continentino actually wrestled one trying to eat his dog!
I also loved working with great white shark biologist, Dr. Lauren Meyer, another member of our global community, as we set out on a research vessel to collect data in the Neptune Islands. It really was a dream to work with these people, to showcase the work of brilliant LGBTQ leaders working in STEM fields, where queer voices have historically been routinely left out of Diversity and Inclusion targets.
It’s exciting that this series is coming out now, celebrating a diversity of our daring, talented scientists and adventurers. It comes at a time when our community is facing significant challenges worldwide, from regressive legal movements in the UK and the US to the implementation of cruel laws targeting Uganda’s already oppressed queer community.
In such a climate, the importance of visibility and representation in media cannot be overstated. It is crucial for shaping the perception of future generations, ensuring that they recognise LGBTQ individuals as valuable and deserving of respect.
I am deeply grateful to Jorge Franzini, Curiosity Stream’s VP of Original Content, Andrew Zikking, and the exceptional production team at Off The Fence (known for their work on My Octopus Teacher) who brought this series to life.
Without their support, expertise, and belief in me, I would not have had the opportunity to embark on this incredible adventure or share these captivating stories that I can’t wait for you to see.
Giants is currently streaming on Curiosity Stream in the US and is in talks to be broadcast in the UK.