One thing that has been bothering me about the fast-forward is how it seemed biased towards the 2-men teams versus those with a woman or two women in them. Yes I know Rachael is all sorts of crazy and a woman has done that task in the past, but it seems to me that some women would opt out (like Rachael) whereas almost any guy would have the Border patrol attitude and say “Fuck it, this is a million bucks, Shave it.”
You’d think so, but I can remember two other teams facing this FF before. One was Joyce and Uchenna, and she fabulously sat and had her head shaved (not without some tears) and won the million dollars.
The other team included a guy - I don’t remember his name - who was a “male model” with thick curly hair. He refused to shave his head, and they were eliminated (but maybe not on that leg). I’ll have to see if I can validate my memory.
EDIT: Aha, it was Brandon and Nicole in season 5, and I was wrong, they were not eliminated – they crossed the finish line in 3rd place (the youngest team to ever cross the finish line).
Except that a few seasons back there was a Brazilian? wax task that both team members had to do–and for the women? No big deal. But for a few of the gorilla-like guys? It was probably the most painful task I’ve ever seen them require.
Are you suggesting they balance this out with a task that favored women over men? What sort of Fast Forward would you create, genital piercing?
ETA: Or waxing. Whatever.
i’ve always thought the begging for money challenges are biased towards the hotter groups.
Well, as we learned last week, the dancing challenges are totally skewed towards the chicks.
One thing I was surprised to see when I went looking for information on the most legs won record was the fact that if anything the race is biased towards teams of one man and one woman. Actually I’d have to do more math to find out if that was true since most particpants fit that description but the overwhelming success of the alpha male teams that people believe occurs is not reflected in the list of records
That was Zev & Justin. I remember Justin saying to one of the waxers (in all seriousness) “If you do that again I’m going to punch you in the face.”
Just because it’s more fun than actually doing the work I’m paid to do, I categorized all teams since Season 1 by relationship, and their average finish.
Male friends – 26 teams, avg finish 6.0
Female friends – 30 teams, avg finish 6.6
Mixed friends* – 9 teams, avg finish 4.4
Dating couples – 48 teams, avg finish 5.6
Married couples – 29 teams, avg finish 7.1
Gay couples – 8 teams, avg finish 5.1
Parent/child – 23 teams, avg finish 7.0
Siblings – 28 teams, avg finish 5.5
Other relatives – 5 teams, avg finish 6.0
*I included divorced and other ex-couples here.
I also had to make some guesses on gender and relationships. Some teams double-counted due to All Star seasons. Excluded Season 8 (Family)
One conclusion I can draw is that married couples tend to do poorly probably because they tend to be older.
8 gay Couples only? in 19 (non-family) seasons?
And that’s including the fabulous hispanic couple who appeared on 2 seasons (Danny, and somebody else), who only listed themselves as friends. Of course this is uncloseted…I have my suspicions about some of the “friends”. 
I agree that shaving your head is over the top for female racers. The way Big Brother handles that (in a “what would you endure to stay in the house” type challenge) is that if a guy pulls that challenge, he has to shave his head. If a girl pulls it, she has to dye her hair bright neon hot pink.
The rule is generally “at least one gay PERSON per season” (not officially, but the observed rule). That one gay person has been a member of a friends team (even if they’re unofficially “friends”), or a parent/child team, or a siblings team, or an other relatives team in a lot of seasons. That there have only been 8 explicit “gay couple” teams isn’t surprising given that it’s “gay person” rather than “gay couple” per season.
Vyxszxin would have been all over that…of course, so would K[del]u[/del]y/ent…
I can’t see Kynt shaving his head, but yeah, I could totally see him begging for the dye it pink option. hehheh.
I would have expected the male friends team to have a higher average finish.
Wait–then where would you put the lesbian ministers? They were married: do they go in the “gay” bucket or the “married couple” bucket?*
Also, JSC: that was Oswald and Danny, aka “Team Cha-Cha-Cha”. The most zen racers ever. Reading interviews with them, apparently they just don’t work as a romantic couple–they keep trying but it doesn’t work out–they’re just better as friends. (Which is sad, because you WANT them to get together).
*They were mediocre racers but they got a shout-out line off to the fans and TAR hates those. One of them was clearly asked “Do you think God will help you” and she said something like “Uh–no. I think God has better things to do with his time than cheat in a race on my behalf”.
Dunno. jsc1953, how did you count them in that list?
Dang, I forgot about them! As I recall, they’re listed as “married ministers” – I picked up on the “married” part, but didn’t notice the gender implications of their names. So they’re under “married”.
I’m sorry? That favors women how, exactly?! :eek: