Social Experimentation Indeed...
** Thoughts? Comments? General feelings of unease...? I have mixed reactions, but my gut says wtf...
"Survivor's" latest tribal twist: racial segregation
By DERRIK J. LANG
The Associated Press
Outwit. Outlast. Outplay. Out-segregate?
That might need to be the new mantra of the upcoming "Survivor: Cook Islands."
In a move that will surely create buzz for the South Pacific-set season of the CBS reality show, 20 castaways will be racially divided. Teams of five will be separated into four tribes - black, white, Hispanic and Asian - that will eventually merge into one.
Um, isn't there something ... wrong about this?
"I think what we did is add another layer to the social experiment," says "Survivor" host Jeff Probst. "It's always been a show about taking people from different walks of life and forcing them to live together. Now we're doing the thing that everybody's afraid to talk about."
Spoiler-hungry "Survivor" fans have been hotter than a Tribal Council torch since rumors began circulating on the Internet about this racially motivated twist - even though past "Survivor" tribes have been split by sex and assigned by age without much watercooler ire.
"The response illustrates that, as a society, we're less comfortable with the idea of dividing people by race than we are with dividing them by age or sex, as 'Survivor' has done in the past," says Andy Dehnart, editor of the reality TV blog realityblurred.com and lecturer at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla. "It's no less arbitrary to group people by sex than it is by race, but we're clearly more cautious and sensitive about it."
The last time a network reality show attempted to deal with diversity this intensely was ABC's "Welcome to the Neighborhood," in which different types of families (gay, Hispanic, tattooed, Wiccan, Asian, etc.) competed to win a house in Austin, Texas. ABC pulled the show before it aired in 2005.
"One thing we were cognizant of in casting the show, we weren't looking to put a white supremacist on with a member of the NAACP," counters Probst. "We weren't looking for extremes to show that people do have racial biases or ethnic biases. That would be a different show."
However, at its core, "Survivor" is a competition. Watching tribes defined by the color of their skin run, swim, climb and scheme alongside each other could enforce racial stereotypes or foster tension. Only two minorities (black Vecepia Towery of "Marquesas" and Hispanic Sandra Diaz-Twine of "Pearl Islands") have ever won the show's $1 million prize.
Probst insists this season's initial segregation is fair.
"This is an equal-opportunity game," says Probst. "Twenty people are given the same materials, the same odds of winning a million dollars. We're gonna start you out in your own ethnic group so you're not a minority unless you're a minority in your own ethnic group, which is possible. And then, as you know from watching this game, at some point you're going to integrate. And the person who wins this game will integrate the best. I believe that's what will happen."
However, viewers may be so offended (or bored) at the onset, they'll delete "Survivor" from their TiVo altogether. Last season's "Survivor: Panama - Exile Island" averaged 16.8 million viewers, an all-time low for the franchise. But that doesn't mean "Survivor" is desperate for hype. Despite the ratings decline, the Emmy winner remains the most watched reality show on broadcast television.
" 'Survivor' remains popular, but this twist may be what the show needed to bring itself back into the national conversation," says Dehnart. "Audience response will, I think, largely be affected by how engaging the season is, regardless of the cast's composition and division. If the cast falls into old patterns and this season feels like the previous 12, the twist may not matter at all."
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
"Survivor's" latest tribal twist: racial segregation
By DERRIK J. LANG
The Associated Press
Outwit. Outlast. Outplay. Out-segregate?
That might need to be the new mantra of the upcoming "Survivor: Cook Islands."
In a move that will surely create buzz for the South Pacific-set season of the CBS reality show, 20 castaways will be racially divided. Teams of five will be separated into four tribes - black, white, Hispanic and Asian - that will eventually merge into one.
Um, isn't there something ... wrong about this?
"I think what we did is add another layer to the social experiment," says "Survivor" host Jeff Probst. "It's always been a show about taking people from different walks of life and forcing them to live together. Now we're doing the thing that everybody's afraid to talk about."
Spoiler-hungry "Survivor" fans have been hotter than a Tribal Council torch since rumors began circulating on the Internet about this racially motivated twist - even though past "Survivor" tribes have been split by sex and assigned by age without much watercooler ire.
"The response illustrates that, as a society, we're less comfortable with the idea of dividing people by race than we are with dividing them by age or sex, as 'Survivor' has done in the past," says Andy Dehnart, editor of the reality TV blog realityblurred.com and lecturer at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla. "It's no less arbitrary to group people by sex than it is by race, but we're clearly more cautious and sensitive about it."
The last time a network reality show attempted to deal with diversity this intensely was ABC's "Welcome to the Neighborhood," in which different types of families (gay, Hispanic, tattooed, Wiccan, Asian, etc.) competed to win a house in Austin, Texas. ABC pulled the show before it aired in 2005.
"One thing we were cognizant of in casting the show, we weren't looking to put a white supremacist on with a member of the NAACP," counters Probst. "We weren't looking for extremes to show that people do have racial biases or ethnic biases. That would be a different show."
However, at its core, "Survivor" is a competition. Watching tribes defined by the color of their skin run, swim, climb and scheme alongside each other could enforce racial stereotypes or foster tension. Only two minorities (black Vecepia Towery of "Marquesas" and Hispanic Sandra Diaz-Twine of "Pearl Islands") have ever won the show's $1 million prize.
Probst insists this season's initial segregation is fair.
"This is an equal-opportunity game," says Probst. "Twenty people are given the same materials, the same odds of winning a million dollars. We're gonna start you out in your own ethnic group so you're not a minority unless you're a minority in your own ethnic group, which is possible. And then, as you know from watching this game, at some point you're going to integrate. And the person who wins this game will integrate the best. I believe that's what will happen."
However, viewers may be so offended (or bored) at the onset, they'll delete "Survivor" from their TiVo altogether. Last season's "Survivor: Panama - Exile Island" averaged 16.8 million viewers, an all-time low for the franchise. But that doesn't mean "Survivor" is desperate for hype. Despite the ratings decline, the Emmy winner remains the most watched reality show on broadcast television.
" 'Survivor' remains popular, but this twist may be what the show needed to bring itself back into the national conversation," says Dehnart. "Audience response will, I think, largely be affected by how engaging the season is, regardless of the cast's composition and division. If the cast falls into old patterns and this season feels like the previous 12, the twist may not matter at all."
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company