Today, “Survivor: Cook Islands” premieres tonight at 8pm CT on CBS. The 20 contestants will be divided into four tribes by race, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and White.
Host Jeff Probst told CBS News’ The Early Show that it was designed as a unique social experiment.
The idea for this actually came from the criticism that ‘Survivor’ was not ethnically diverse enough,” he said. “Because, for whatever reason, we’ve always had a low number of minority applicants apply to the show. So we set out and said, ‘Let’s turn this criticism into creative for the show. I think it fits in perfectly with what ‘Survivor’ does — it is a social experiment. And this is adding another layer to that experiment, which is taking the show to a completely different level.”
Several advertisers from previous seasons have decided they are not planning to advertise this season. And it is good they got some advertising consequences for it.
I agree with the criticisms that this show has been getting because it will encourage the audience who identify themselves strongly with the group. They may call it a “social experiment” but it is nothing more than segregation with a touch of Social Darwinism, Survival of the Fittest.
It is interesting how they framed the show by using magic words as if it makes everything ok, such as “social experiment.” By using the word experiment only conjures up ideas that some social scientist somewhere is tracking data in order to prove some type of social science experiment hypothesis. More importantly is to what layers are they adding too? Not all whites see eye to eye. Or when it comes down to it, we are all racist against each group and subgroups? That is right, sub-groups. There is only one winner. So is superior within the racial/ethnic community – Mexicans? Pervuians? Puerto Ricans? Japanese? Chinese? etc etc
Television is a representation of the current state of things that are actually occurring. So, guess what. The outrage that is happen is because we do not like what see and those who see nothing wrong with it are in a state of denial of the current racial tension that are currently taking place. Don’t think so. Here are some comments from an Internet Board Military.com with Topic Discussion – Which race is superior?:
1. I’ve heard all the superior race crap from Nazi Muffins.
I hate Nazis, Klu Klux Klan and all other supremacists that quote the Bible to cover their perverted attempts to overcompensate for their lack of power, be it intellectual, financial, physical or sexual.2. Ok, I see I’m going to have to explain my title of this thread.
It was in jest. I do not believe there is a superior race and this show will do nothing to prove that there is.
People like me(white) and my boss(black) are going to have fun ribbing each other about it, that’s all.
- (A response to #2) Yeah right! Whatever, this topic is not surprising at all on this website though!
- We all know the blacks are going home wit da money. Tis about time some negroes win some of deez reality TV shows!
- Which race is superior? – Jewish
- I would say the Arabs are the superior race. Nobody else in the world can eat sand and drink oil and still rule the nation.
That is not even a white supremacist forum, like Stormfront. No matter how much “ribbing” can occur between friends of different groups, at one point or another, each person will continue to test the waters just to see how far they can go in blurting out each groups stereotype. It will get to a point it no longer becomes funny because one will start to wonder if that is how one truly thinks about them or their racial/ethnic group, peppered with the old “You are not like them” meme. This show will only reinforce the different stereotypes between each group.
In the end, there is no win-win in this situation and we, the viewers, don’t go away with the cash prize. We all lose in this little social experiment. And so goes another layer of our humanity.
it’s a new low. But we will continue to find new lows. Bread and circuses.
wwhwen ya need him…lol! Seriously folks…turn off this crap. I for one will not support these shows or their advertisers…period. I am so fed up with this crap they keep shoving down our throats.
as per usual, I’m going to be the asshole who disagrees.
We like to pretend that we’ve made progress against the way we’ve enforced segregation in this country, yet MANY communities separate themselves, often for very good reasons. Go into the cafeteria at a large university and take a look around. Really, most of you’ve been there. We all go to different restaurants. We move into separate neighborhoods, often by choice. We mouth platitudes to each other about egalitarianism, like the French, while we try to pretend that we all just get along. We don’t. We don’t talk. We don’t put ourselves into each others shoes.
Even in entertainment … why is it that people still flock to the long-faded Sopranos, yet subscribers STILL won’t turn on the most powerfully written and acted show on cable television.
If this silly little diversion makes a few people think about it, then more power to it.
If I actually thought they did this to make people think instead of cynically appealing to racist sentiment for profit, then that would be one thing.
I do take your point, though. I’m always amazed how everyone “runs to their corners” after quittin’ time in DC. It is entirely possible if you were the cheating type (not that I suggest this, mind you) to have an active social life and not be detected because the social scenes are starkly divided.
I see your argument, but do we have to keep cultivating it and nuturing it. That is the problem, if nobody speaks out, we will continue reenforcing segregation and we will continue having separating ourselves over and over again.
This cycle will never end and the only thing we do is come up with more and more excuses to defend our own actions – Lock the doors, hold our purses tight, keep an eye out, look for tatoos because it was all for good reasons.
this is actually related to the interesting discussion between Kahli and Wilfred in his latest diary. Where does exploitation end, and a legitimate reaction/re-direction of it begin? Even low culture can subvert. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “The Jungle” are far from great works of art, but both used the forms of pulp entertainment of their time to push a different perspective from the prevailing system. Most of Dicken’s work was produced for serialization in daily newspapers … was he making a legitimate commentary on the problems w/ English culture, or was he drawing out what were basically melodramas to get paid?
I’m not saying that Burnett’s motives were pure here. Maybe they aren’t, but maybe they are. Maybe both. It’s a similar problem to the questions about “Black. White.” on Fx Network last spring. Is it worse than there being so few minority characters on most mainstream television? Can it be bad to have different voices getting out there, no matter how vapid?
Hell, it was interesting watching how the groups acted during the first hour (and yes I know that the producers pick and choose what they show us). The Asian Americans talked about the differences between their cultures. How many middle-American TV viewers know that is such a big deal to that community? The African American group started fighting along gender lines. I got no impression of the Latin Americans at all, and the whites made jokes about being the “whities” and all agreed that it’s silly confirming differences between people. After all, we’re all just people, right? Only people used to privilege could be so insistent about it.
I’d rather we all be confronted by these questions than to go on with the agreed upon fantasy that we live in an Oprah-ized American where we all get along.
That is the problem with scripted reality tv shows, they direct the we should all think. I gather the first hour was to play down their critics.
That is where the problem comes in, when producers specifically select the participants, they get to carefully designed scenarios, challenges, events, and settings to encourage particular behaviors and conflicts.
Given that the first day is get to know the person and the group. Who in their right mind will is going to say they are against living in the preverbal “color-blind” society. At the same time, the producer is not stupid either, they also know fans of reality shows tune in to watch those people who are the most extreme, the most unpredictable, the most obnoxious, and wait eagerly for them to be voted off or otherwise punished for their detestable behavior. And since this is a battle of the racial/ethnic groups, got to play to the crowd for ratings. The question is, how exactly will this obnoxious person act, will they be race baiting?
I’m not alone in my thoughts (link goes to Salon, so there is an ad to watch):
It doesn’t benefit us to turn our noses up and turn our backs on things that ARE our culture, as much as that might make you wince. I can’t stand NASCAR, but that entire phenomenon informs the worldview of a lot of the people I share this country with. Wishing it didn’t doesn’t make it go away.
Love the link, but I don’t think its the one meant to post, “The Texan who actually governed.” It is a great article though, it is on how KKKarl Rove screwed Ann Richards, which he did and I personally saw up front. Nasty race.
It is funny, when it comes to race, this is the only topic we really do try to talk less of, it is not a white phenomenon it is a people phenomenon. Who can blame people, we all hate to bring out the ugly side of us.
I tossed up a diary about this Friday night … with the right link!
fri rdm 10 – “We’ll Never Get Real and Face Reality About Race” Edition
I just fail to see how any good can come from pitting ethnic groups against each other like that. I actually suspect that this will be a disaster in the making and I cannot blame the advertisers runnign up the red flag and refusing the advertise or endorse this in any way.
At best: this is creating a racial conflict by definition. If there were no history of racial bigotry at all in our country this is establishing racial division by way they’re framing the ‘competition.’
The worst case scenario: The ‘tribes’ have a full outlet of all the racial tensions and prejudices that have been built up over a lifetime and they find themselves behaving in ways they would never act in civilized society.
This is sociology 101. People tend to think in groups differently than they do as individuals
the cheapness of the entire affair. It’s like ‘the battle of the sexes’ where there’s no actual battle but what the writers put there. Simply framing it in terms of ethnically seperated teams pitted against each reinforces ideas of racism as opposed to racial harmony.
This has to be the most assanine idea for a show that I’ve ever heard..and they ‘re actually stupid enough to do it. Disgusting.
This actually pisses me off.
I have not watched more than one minute of Survivor, ever. It has always been phony, and insulting to indigenous cultures, implying that “primitive” i.e. natural conditions automatically means Darwinian warfare. Indigenous cultures have created elegant methods of cooperation and conflict resolution, though not always perfectly. This racist crap is an extension of that same bullshit. Now it looks like I will have to boycott anyone who does see more than a minute of it.
I can join the just-turn-it-off crowd with both knowledge and feeling. Pseudo-survival (it is really all about high-school clique-forming) pseudo-indigenous (they never actually interact with those picturesque, exotic locals) the episode I saw was centered around a race to . . . pop popcorn! Yes, it was really that bad–no, it was worse: Words can only give the barest hint.
They can make you watch TV in the check-out line of the supermarket, but they cannot–yet–force you to watch in your own home. Don’t.
It comes on opposite to “Spongebob Squarepants”. I and my daughters have our priorities. If the choice is between half-clad folks eating bugs and a heartwarming show about a talking sponge the choice is easy.
but my feeling is when they go to the gimmicks or (like the Real World) load up the show with narcissists and sociopaths then it’s my signal to look elsewhere.
If you really want to talk about disturbing TV, the Diane Sawyer show on teens in America on ABC tonight was downright frightening. These kids are like little Nazi’s harrassing the weak, we get more like pre-war Germany all the time.
They even showed teens pushing other teens to suicide. Who the hell are we circa 2006? How reflective are we when 2/3 through the decade we still haven’t even come up with a term for this decade (the 2000’s, the ‘oughts’??). How do we come to terms with an era we refuse to even delineate? It seems a conscious decision to avoid what is happening now.
They showed the teen epithet du jour is now ‘gay’ as in ‘you are so gay’, ‘that is so gay’, ‘you are such a fag’, ‘you homo’ and anyone you dislike you tell others is gay. They showed instance after instance of kids doing this, by phone, on computers and to their faces. It was unbelievably horrible to see what we have become.
As a gay person, you just bleed for kids trying to deal with coming out who have to listen to this every day.
Sad to say, but it seems that things really haven’t changed that much for teens since the 1980s, when I was going through adolescence.
This is just a sickening new way to draw even more attention to a flagging series.
Too funny, only wish it was true.