There is stupid, there is the outright idiotic, and then there's reality television. Despite its overwhelming popularity with everyone who apparently matters, this page has never liked the reality TV genre, and now has even more reason to remain in the exile of Sportsnet and Turner Classic Movies: The latest edition of perennial CBS cash cow Survivor.
Survivor: Cook Islands premieres on September 14 with this pathetic attention grabber: the competing teams (tribes) are segregated by race. This page is particularly galled by Jeff Probst's noxious scenario. We just sat through a FIFA World Cup where commentators repeatedly labeled Latin American teams "passionate", European teams "mechanical" and African teams "athletic". Why watch the same stereotypes be played out by struggling actors? (yep, most reality show contestants are really actors). The segregation also insults people like Negro League legend Buck O'Neil, who not only stole the show at the recent Baseball Hall of Fame inductions, but at the age of 94, became the second oldest professional ballplayer ever when he was intentionally walked in the Northern League all-star game in July.
It was just over 70 years ago this month that Jesse Owens showed the world how stupid it is to paint competition with a racist brush. It's too bad Jeff Probst and CBS don't remember that, or for that matter, what happened after because somebody thought one race could be better than another.
1 comment:
Seriously, people need to relax about this. They've done initial tribal divisions based on gender and age before, and two things stand out:
Within a few episodes, the tribes will be shuffled around. The tribes are always shuffled around.
The most successful contestants are always the ones who can form alliances across real schisms (gender, race, age, sexuality) and artifical ones (tribes).
I'm not saying that Burnett deserves a firm handshake for this. I do find myself not giving a rat's ass how Burnett decides to chop up his little world, however. Hmmm... maybe this is why I haven't been writing lately.
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