Though the ubiquity of animals on television is new, the genre of the wildlife documentary is as old as cinema itself. In Watching Wildlife, Cynthia Chris traces the history of the wildlife genre from its origins in precinematic, colonial visual culture to its contemporary status as flagship programming on global television and explores evolving beliefs about, and attitudes toward, animal subjects. Nature programming and films are consistently presented as real and unmediated reflections of nature. But in Chris's analysis of specific shows and film and television history she points out how-particularly in the genre's preoccupation with mating and the favoritism bestowed on certain species-documentary images of animals are and always have been about prevailing ideologies about human gender, sexuality, and race.