Survivor: Vanuatu – How low can you go?
Nov 12, 2004 by Vic Holtreman
I’ve watched Survivor since Season 2. I’ve always looked at it as a real life “Lord of the Flies”, showing what can happen to people who are separated from civilization’s rules and it’s creature comforts. Of course the twist which keeps the show from being “pure” in this regard is the attachment of a big fat monetary prize at the end of the whole thing for the one who outlasts everyone else.
I believe that if one distills the contestants down to the core, one is left with two types of people:
1. Those who behave on the show just as they do in their normal lives. This group believes that the same rules of ethics and personal behaviour applies whether one is at home or involved in a competition on a tropical island.
2. Those who approach this experience as a pure game. They play it as they would poker, with it’s own set of particular rules where the dynamic between people is completely different from “the real world”.
I’ve always been fascinated by the interaction of these two types of people on the show and it’s always fed into the “Flies” scenario, but for the first time, I’ve seen a shift in the personal dynamic on Survivor: Vanuatu. For the first time that I can recall, the women outnumber the men in the merged tribe, and something unexpected has happened…
Survivor: Vanuatu has turned into George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”.
The women, as a majority, have settled into a caste system mindset far beyond anything I’ve seen on the show previously. Sure there have always been conflicts, self-interest, and the occasional mean and nasty person on the show, but last night’s episode was scary: These women are acting mean as a group.
The tribe has split squarely down gender lines, and the women are gloating it up in targeting the men as a group. In the reward challenge the remaining three men were picked off immediately and when Sarge made a comment, the women called the men “bitter”.
I guess their bitterness was well justified, because later when the recipients of the reward returned with a stash of BBQ chicken wings, they distributed them only to the women and conspired to keep it secret from the men. They went as far as presenting the tribe with some chicken bones with hardly a scrap of meat on them, and acting is if they were very appreciative of this, just to fool the men.
When food is brought back from the reward challenge, it has always been shared with everyone. Sure, in the past it’s been political at times, but I’ve never seen anyone deliberately left out like this. That was truly low, and then to see them conspire to lie about it just about made me want to spit.
This was truly the most disgusting display of behaviour I’ve seen on Survivor in 8 seasons.
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I saw this and felt it was a new low as well.
For a “Game” that has one “winner,” the women are taking the battle of the sexes thing too far. I too was surprisingly hurt to see chicken wings not shared with the guys. I am sure the “reunion special” will harp on this fact, and I hope the guys are ticked off about it when the time comes.
None of them has been smart enough to try make sure they end up in the finals with a guy, because when that has happned in the past, the woman always wins.
Here the women seem willing (or stupid enough) to lose, as long as it is to another woman. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
What is more pathetic is that “Scout” is still around. She hasn’t done jack (because of her bum knee), and even when put in roles where she must use her brains and not brawn, she stunk too. Chad doesn’t have 2 legs and he has done a whole lot more than Scout on all fronts. It’s pretty obvious the producers want Scout to go far to continue that young vs. old dynamic.
You know, there is a reason why each season more and more people hate Survivor. Although the most watched reality show, it is a big joke.
Well, maybe part of the reason we watch reality shows is that it’s cathartic, and maybe it makes us feel better about ourselves in comparison to those we see on those shows.
Of course the question is: Would we really behave better in the same situations?
Vic
Of all the things that disappoint me about Survivor…and the list is long, … the one that frosts me most is the artificiality of the producers side of it. The challenges are sometimes just stupid.
Too bad they don’t have a team of down to earth psychologists on there… then we would have a more honest representation of what this show is.
Rats in a maze.
It’s a flippin’ human experiment, done badly.
What I would MUCH rather watch is a show where the more the people co-operate and subdue their own ego, the more they get. We could call it ….
Civilization!
(This is also the reason I am not a tv producer!)
Yetzirah,
That sounds like a great concept for a show.
As to psychologists and Survivor I am quite sure they have one or two used in the cast selection process to guarantee maximum friction. I’d even bet they have a better than even idea who will win right from the start.
Vic
P.S. I love finally having smileys on the site… I’ve wanted to implement them for a loooong time.
OK, guys – I gotta know: would you have been as disgusted or pissed off if the roles were reversed? Are you pissed because it’s the MEN who are getting screwed?
And didn’t you notice that the women are starting to turn on each other? ie; Eliza being the first to go in the aforementioned reward challenge. As far as Scout goes – she may not have the physical ability in the challenges, but she did pretty well in the quiz challenge.
I can’t stand any of these broads, personally, but I am enjoying the fact that the women are in charge. I think it’s especially ironic that the lead woman, Ami, happens to be a lesbian.
Terri,
Of course I would have been as angry about it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have written the entry above, now would I? :confused:
That’s just low, lousy behaviour, period.
Vic