Much fuss
has been made already lately by politicians and in the media about the forthcoming
Survivor: Cook Islands TV show from CBS, which reportedly will initially divide the 20 contestants into four teams along racial lines. New York City Councilman John Liu painted it as "a battle of the races", and now people are coming out of the woodwork decrying this as a bad idea, to the point of making
Nazi comparisons and the like.
Personally, I can't wait.
First, I have a confession to make: unlike some of the critics out there, I've actually watched
Survivor--and not just an episode or two of it, but a lot of it--most of it, in fact. Actually, I've been a fan since the first season, when the infamous Richard Hatch--a determined, overweight, and occasionally nude 40-something homosexual white male--managed to claw his way to the top. And I've been watching it ever since. So while I am no doubt biased, I'm also
informed on the topic, a quality not always demonstrated by our media or even our politicians.
So, my take on it so far is that this is in part a gimmick, it is hype, it is a ploy to get ratings--but all CBS did was come up with the premise, it is the media and the politicians who are responsible for this Survivor feeding frenzy, and I have no doubts that more people will tune in for at least the premiere to see just what it's all about. And I think the critics will be debunked and disappointed, but perhaps pleasantly so.
First, it's important to note that this will also be a more diverse cast than Survivor has ever had before. In some ways, the contestants will have to be more tolerant just because of that. But in past Survivor seasons there have been many conflicts, due to personality, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, you name it.
And there has been just as much conflict resolution as well, and actually contestants have had their eyes opened to things about themselves, and changed some of the preconceived notions they used to hold--that has been happening from the beginning as well. I fully expect that we'll see a lot of that--maybe even a lot more of that--in this season. And in some ways, it's just part and parcel of stranding a small number of diverse strangers on an island and forcing them to work and live together.
You see, Survivor has always been something of a social experiment. And like most good stories, the most interesting part is often not the end, but the journey. And like any good social experiment ( / reality show / game show / etc.), they've tried playing with the variables a lot, shaking things up unexpectedly.
In the past few seasons, they've played with dividing people along gender or age lines, and then later merging them together (there has always been a merge; it's this particular sort of division that is more recent). Now they're dividing people up by race, at least in the beginning, into individual tribes. Then, those tribes will compete every week, but they'll be spending most of their time together, segregated, much as some neighborhoods in America effectively are. And as past Survivors have shown, they won't necessarily stay in those initial teams for long. Especially since they start with four teams of four, they'll be whittled down to two or three teams quickly enough in any case, and then eventually you'll see them integrated into one team, something that also happened in America, at least in our schools. However, I'm expecting this transition to go a lot smoother.
This whole process inevitably highlights who forms bonds with whom, which sorts of loyalties are stronger or weaker, which ones carry over throughout the game and which are broken immediately, etc. Some people can manage to assimilate, to fit right in, right away, whereas others can never seem to fit in. Invariably it turns out to be much more about personality, determination, and ethics than about age or gender or race. Perhaps the biggest thing that they will be doing is bringing this taboo issue of race out into the open again, and into people's living rooms. And--unlike many of these critics--I definitely see the positive aspects here.
As I mentioned earlier, I've watched their work over the past ten years or so, and in my opinion they've done a good job running the show thus far. I'd much rather watch this proceed and succeed, and hopefully we'll all learn from it. If it fails, or if it is uncharacteristically exploited as some seem to fear, then so be it, and I certainly will be disappointed in them for it. But based on their track record, I'm guessing that many people here would be pleasantly surprised--that is, if they even watch the show in the first place. So here's to hoping that all goes well, and additionally that some of the critics manage to actually tune in and possibly even learn something from the experience as well.
(Cross-posted on The Kakistocrats)