Oh. I don’t watch, so forgive my ignorance. Is there some other comparable show where participants get voted off/out? I recall that skit Dave Chappelle did, the spoof of the Real Life, where the lilly-white kid gets stuck in an appartment full of the “craziest niggas” the satirical producers could assemble. Miscengenation and knifings ensue, of course. But in that skit the residents also voted the white kid out, so maybe it’s not Real World either.
Anyhoo, if it’s contestants, viewers, whatever, if one race dominates, you can safely bet the minority is getting the boot on that status alone. Segregate them, and the, uh <wince>, more legitimate criteria, like six-pack abs and D-cup breasts make all the wonderful difference. Or something.
An absolutely brilliant idea by the producers of Survivor. Their best gimmick yet. Network television shows are all about one thing-- selling eyeballs to advertisers. This Survivor incarnation well sell a LOT of those eyeballs.
Having tribes or teams divided by race will bring them huge ratings, and then, when the heat gets turned up too high and the racism starts to get too strong on the island, they’ll simply choose new tribes NOT based on race to relieve the tension (“Billy and Willy hated each other and almost came to blows as competing members of the Black and White tribes. Now, we’ve secretly replaced their racism with a scaled-down nationalism by re-assigning them to the same tribe. Let’s see if they notice.” Hillarity ensues.) And the viewers will already be locked in for the season.
FUCKING BRILLIANT!
And all you folks crying “raciscm!” right now are just doing CBS’s promotion work for them! You are creating the buzz that will lead more viewers to the trough.
Moo. Moo. Get back to the herd. We have everything under control. You’ll eat what we give you. Nothing to see here. Moooove along.
Hey, I resent that - I haven’t raped any children.
If you really knew what you were talking about instead of spewing monkey spunk out your ass, you’d know that the tribes will be merged later in the season, as they usually are.
Secondly, Americans will root for the likeable people, and root against the dislikable people. Sure, the prejudiced bigots out there might root only for people of their color or race - but they’d do that anyway.
Thirdly, the contestants vote each other off, not the public.
But the bigger question is, why is having teams based on race worse (or better) than teams based on sex, or nationality, or place of birth, or hair length, or college education, or anything else? Again: the only reason people have a problem with this is because they want to put their heads in the sand and pretend that racial/ethnic differences don’t exist - because anything that suggests there are differences is racist!
:rolleyes:
Far be it from me to defend Survivor or other reality TV crap, but I fail to see why this is a story.
I started a thread about this over in CS. I don’t think it’s such a bad idea-- at least this will be the first Survivor where Whites aren’t the majoirty. If you watch Survivor, you’ll know that you have to have a good alliance to win, and these alliances often involve unusual pairings. And the division by race will only be for the first few days-- the 4 teams will be merged into 2 pretty quickly. Sometimes the merge is random, sometimes two team captains are appointed and they pick their teams.
Maybe the next Survivor will be Gays against Straights. Gotta keep that gimmick fresh!
The only color that the producers of this show see is green. They aren’t trying to be PC. They aren’t trying to concoct a Sesame Street portrayal of race relations in America. They aren’t trying to be PC. They are trying to make money.
I hope they don’t consciously try to stack any of the teams with certain character types. Its bad enough that we have to view the show through the lens of selective editing. Add on the influence of selection bias and it will be extra slimy.
The obvious answer is to have more than one white team. One team of Poles, one team of Italians, and one team of Irish, who will all die of skin cancer in episode three.
I don’t see anything more wrong with this than with any other way they divide initial teams. Thinking over other ‘reality’ shows we’ve had…men v women, college degree v no degree, family v family, etc etc etc. I didn’t hear anyone screaming misogyny over this last season of Hells Kitchen, why is this setup being decried as racism?
Hell, even shows like Trading Spouses and Wife Swap uses the race, income, religion etc difference for their format and no one is yelling about that.
In a way, I hope the people that are saying this will end the series are right. The quicker America gets off this reality show kick the better.
This would be the best Survivor ever! I would so obsessively watch this!
The only problem is…not enough females to mess with the nerds, though the SCA would have the largest numbers in that area I’d think.
Hmmm…cut either the LOTr’s or the ComicBookFans and make the next group ‘CrazyYaoiFanGirls’ and we’d have more girls, plus lots of humor! Or maybe hard core Anime/Manga fans would also be a good change up. The fighting with the traditionalist ComicBookFans would **so **be on!
Actually, you’re thinking of the second round of challenges: Bologna Sandwiches on wonder bread with mayonaise, fried chicken with collard greens, jalapeno peppers, and finally a hot dog eating contest.
John Mace, they were actually going to include a multi-racial group of homosexuals on, but they were just to busy ruining the institution of marriage and the american way of life to be on the show.
The only problem with a geek survivor would be that they’d spend so much time maintaining their costumes in an environment that they were not meant to be worn in that they’d never get around to stuff like, say, finding food, and starve to death. Though I’d love to see how the guy dressed as Optimus Prime manages.
Hmmm…
The Yellow Fevers? The Ho Chi Wins? The Pure Bloods? The White Devils? Big Black Attack? The Art of Darkness? The Somber Arrows? The Itchy-Wawas?
And then when they merge:
White Flight and The Black Menace? Yan Can…Flan? The Pan-asian Persuasions? The Mighty Guerillas? The Ala-moes?
:::d&r:::
