the series was accused of fabricating translations of interviews with the machiguenga to portray the tribe as "sex-obsessed, mean savages" during its third season. glenn shepard, an anthropologist who has worked with the tribe for more than two decades, and ron snell, who grew up with the tribe as the son of american missionaries, called the show "staged, false, fabricated and distorted." both speak the tribe's language fluently. shepard compared the show's methods to the film "borat".