Who will be the last Survivor?
*This post is a retro one....sorry, folks, I have been traveling abroad the past few weeks so I am behind. Check back for more current rants...er, I mean comments soonjkmjhmn (those last few letters are courtesy of my cat Titan, who just walked across the keyboard).Last week marked the debut of the latest season of the smash CBS hit 'Survivor'. As many of us know, this year's cast features tribes based on race -- and has likely drawn the most coverage (and criticism) since the show's premiere several years ago.
Now, I am a 'Survivor' fan from way back, ie. the inaugural season, with Richard Hatch running around naked. So I had no intentions of boycotting the show, as some of my friends and the larger black community have insisted. Instead, I want to see how the participants react to being aligned by race instead of the traditional, yet arbitrary, 'Survivor' categories.
And, quite frankly, I want to know what the fuss is about. Everyone has decried CBS' move as, alternatively, a cheap publicity stunt and a disaster waiting to happen. Folks are worried that stereotypes will prevail (Asians are smart/blacks are lazy, anyone?), that relations between the tribes will get ugly, that viewers will cheer for their 'home' race, etc. That this latest twist in reality t/v will lead to able-bodied v. wheelchair, midget v. giant, gay v. straight and so on. GM even pulled their long-standing sponsorship of the show, chalking it up to the end of their deal vs. the show's content.
Let's get real: in the brief history of reality television, we've seen people eat bugs, marry unseen millionaires and display their badass kids to America among other things. If these antics don't spell the end of television as we know it (and some would argue that they do), let's not act like the subject of race will. America is often referred to as a 'melting pot', with my current hometown of New York City usually held up as the epitome of that metaphor.
Now I have a very diverse friend set, folks I love dearly. But I would say the core group of people with whom I speak, go to church, go to clubs, eat, etc. are primarily African American. And I suspect that racial makeup is similar for many of my white, Asian, Indian, Caribbean or Latino friends, both in and out of the city. So how is it wrong for CBS to inject that aspect of reality into this "reality" t/v show? Are people upset because CBS brought race out into the open? Or are they worried that the dirty little secrets of their particular race will be shown?
Let's see what some of the contestants had to say about it... A sister on the show said this year's 'Survivor' is the time "for the black people to represent, to show that yes, we do swim, we can get in a boat and paddle. we don't just run track." This week, the black tribe rebounded from last week's loss to gain immunity going into the next challenge. One of the Asian team members noted that, within her group, the backgrounds are Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean - noting that there is much diversity within their larger 'Asian' classification. Another contestant, Cao Boi, noted that his younger tribemates are, as he called them, "Asian American --emphasis on the American. They have no knowledge of the old country." So are those of us who cringe at this year's 'Survivor' aware that these intraracial conflicts exist -- or are we showing our own ignorance and prejudice by painting the cast with a broad Asian (or black or Latino) brush?
A member of the white tribe observed that "Just because people have cultural similarities does not mean that will automatically make them a cohesive group", at least not by 'Survivor' standards. Any member of any minority community - black, Latino, Asian, female, gay, etc - will attest to the truth of that statement. That contestant's words would prove prophetic as, this week, the Latino tribe ostracized and later voted off a castmember with whom they could not relate.
It sounds like the cast of 'Survivor' might be a little more enlightened than the rest of us. Stay tuned...
posted by Miss E @ 4:09 PM
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