According to the Associated Press, the next version of Survivor will begin with teams that have been divided between teams comprised by whites, hispanics, blacks, and asians.
http://www.realitytvwebsite.com/news082306d.html
Bloody fucking Christ, who exactly at CBS decided that this was a good idea? Literally separating teams along racial lines.
I wasn’t going to watch this shit before, but who wants to organize a boycott of advertisers that pay for spots within this show?
What’s worse is the challenges are racially divided as well. The first four challenges are as follows: computer programming, landscaping, basketball, and oppressing minorities.
I don’t see anything wrong with it. Unless they suggest one team is better or worse than the rest simply due to their skin colour, then I see no racism here.
And as horrible and cliche as this is, I have to say race relations aren’t going to get any better if people act squeamish every time people are seperated by race.
Damn those oppressive Asians to hell!
Really? The challenges are racilly divided, too? That’s the list? Hey, hey, hey! Black people will dominate in TWO categories! ALL RIGHT!! Man, that’s just fantas–
:: Squints ::
Oh. That says oppressing minorities. I thought it said oppressed minorities. Nevermind.
Well, it’ll work until the Secret Gay Fifth Column with members in each of the groups takes over…
Ah, yes. Once again the indigenous peoples of the Americas are left out because in such a contest we would provide little scrutable drama and voluminous ass-kicking.
Wow, that’s really so blatant it’s hysterical. Absolutely bizarre.
They don’t have to suggest it, since dividing people along racial lines and then repeatedly pitting them against eachother and ending by electing a winner suggests it for them. Some teams are always going to come out better, and it will be easier to credit victories to the most obviously visible dividing factor: race.
Is that what *you’ll * credit it to? No, because you’re not a racist. Who, in fact, would watch it and think “Man, those <insert group here> are really great/terrible!”? Why, people who have racist tendencies anyway! Again, i’m really not seeing a problem, here.
I won’t credit victory to race, and I don’t think any sane person would credit a win by a group of five people to the blessings of their skin colour. But dividing teams along racial lines makes that suggestion anyway.
I just don’t think the world is really at a point where this stuff doesn’t matter. Credit it to my growing up being told “EVERYONE IS ALWAYS THE SAME ALWAYS”. The show simply eeks me out a little bit.
I would just like to note that in my experience, American programmers have been better than Asian. Asian American versus Caucasian American I don’t know, but Asia Asians seem to have a really bad programming education that doesn’t stress much creativity, flexibility, nor even a basic understanding of the inner workings of it all.
Of course, the Survivor show is going to be all Americans so that’s probably not very relevant.
And I don’t see any particular issue to splitting them this way. There’s only a one in four chance that the white team will win, so the great odds are that the whites will end up looking like the big slackers. Personally I’ll be rooting for the hispanics.
But if that were true, any method of dividing teams that isn’t random would suggest something. Sex? Age? Nationality? All these have been done in reality shows in the past, but I don’t see people attributing victory to any of those factors. And producers deciding to seperate groups based on those factors aren’t lambasted.
I agree, we’re still at a point where this stuff matters. Which is why we should try and treat divisions by race just the same as any other kind of division. True equality.
That has to be bullshit.
Lots of people used male/female stereotypes to make predictions about which team on The Apprentice (divided by sex) would be more successful.
I saw people basing Survivor’s outcome on the gender division a few seasons ago. I have no idea how it turned out, since I don’t watch the show. However, it was more of a division that made me roll my eyes rather than genuinely disturbed me like the race division. I guess I’m just more accepting of the differences between men and women.
Ok, it appears my post was in haste. People do use stereotypes in cases of sex division, too. But really, I think I addressed this; if you’re someone who believes stereotypes are accurate, then you’re going to look at the results from that view. No one’s going to be persuaded by what happens as being proof that one particular group is better at something than another unless they already think that. I guess what i’m trying to say is, this isn’t going to recruit new racists.
Bwahahaha!
I feel guilty because I want to watch this trainwreck.
The set up is a little worrisome because I think the viewer’s natural tendency will be to root for the team that matches their race. That tendency is a manifestation of the same in group/out group social dynamics that is responsible for racism, xenophobia, sexism, etc. So the show will be exploiting our biases, encouraging us, at best, to see those in the less favored teams as inferior in a way that is associated with race. At worse, it will encourage us to see those in the less favored teams as inferior because of their race. And really do we need more of that?
But one potentially positive outcome is the opportunity to see how people perceive “the other” when they let their guard down. When the teams talk trash about one another, will it be the same way as it always has been? Or will there be overtones of racial prejudice and bigotry? Will we see stereotypes and generalizations being overused? Will the producers be objective in their editing, or will there be a sense that they are trying to portray conflicts as being more racially-charged than what they really are?
Interesting questions. Interesting experiment. I just hope the show execs know what they are doing.
Aaaargh! monstro didn’t write the above. T’was me.