From teddy bears and Winnie-the-Pooh to Smokey Bear, Yogi Bear, and Cocaine Bear, American popular culture has been fascinated with real and fictional bears for more than two centuries. Bears are ubiquitous, appearing in advertisements, as logos for sports teams, and central characters in children’s books, cartoons, movies, and video games. In Bear With Me, Daniel Horowitz presents a vibrant history of the pedestrian and celebrity bears who have captured our imaginations and infiltrated our everyday lives. He shows that bears’ ability to represent and evoke both terror and comfort makes them well-suited for their omnipresence. Today, cultural depictions of bears largely encompass examples of human-bear relationships, reciprocity, and emotional engagement. Reminders that climate change threatens the lives of polar bears engender feelings of empathy while news of bear attacks drive us to fascinated fear. Whether examining the subculture of gay bears or the deadly consequences of anthropomorphizing animals, Horowitz charts the complexities and depth of American culture’s unique and enduring relationship with bears.
Preface. Polar Bears, Franz Boas, and Me ix
Introduction 1
1. Folkloric Bears and Actual Ones: Sacred and Profane from the Bible to Contemporary Celebrities 11
2. The Stories of Hugh Glass: The Case of a Disappearing and Reappearing Dangerous Bear 33
3. Out of Hibernation and Into Children’s Literature 47
4. Grizzly Adams: Bears He Tamed, Those He Displayed, and Those Responsible for His Death 75
5. Captive Bears and Their Captors as Workers 95
6. Teddy Bear: Another One Quickly Disappears and Frequently Reappears 129
7. Off the Poster and Out of the Zoo: Smokey Bear Goes Everywhere 149
8. Out of the Closet: Bears in the Gay World 167
9. Timothy Treadwell and Marian Engel: Bears, Humans, and Dangerous Eroticism 181
Coda. Precarity and Polar Bears 203
Acknowledgments 211
Notes 215
Select Bibliography 245
Index
