Get the Feed
|
S I G H T S
Borans Don’t Cry For all the talk about ’social” Darwinism being the key to Survivor, classic Darwinism seems to be the basis for evictions this season. Survivor: Africa, the third edition of the popular TV program, is set on the Shaba National Reserve in Kenya. For the first time, a tribe has ousted its first two members purely for physical reasons: The Boran tribe’s Diane collapsed during a cart-pushing challenge in Episode 1 and was promptly expunged; in Episode 2, Jessie grew weak as she refused to drink the murky water, leading Boran to boot her (this despite the fact that she’s a sheriff’s deputy, generally a physically demanding job). This stands in contrast to the first two evictees from the four prior Survivor tribes. Only three contestants (Sonya, Ramona, and Maralyn, for those of you keeping track) over two seasons were clearly booted at the beginning of the game for lack of physical abilities. Three (B.B., Debb, and Kel) were dumped because they were socially incompatible with the rest of their tribe, and two others (Kimmi and Stacey), by this viewer’s reckoning, also got voted out for personal reasons, but you could argue it either way.
Linda is so concrete, she’s buried in the bottom of the Hoover Dam. Why the change? Perhaps Boran has learned from the Ogakor tribe’s unfortunate booting of Kel early in last season’s Survivor: The Australian Outback, a move that could have cost them the game were it not for Mike — on the opposing Kucha tribe — burning himself just before the two tribes merged. Perhaps it’s the oppressive climate of Africa and the intensely physical nature of the first two challenges. It’s also possible that Boran’s bootings are sexism masquerading as Darwinism. Some of Boran’s men — Lex, Tom, Ethan and Clarence — have been heard complaining that the women are not pulling their weight, and that the dominant Samburu tribe is winning because their women are stronger. But the men should recall that fewer than half the pre-merger immunity challenges in Survivor 2 were primarily physical in nature. Someone like Kelly, a behavioral research analyst and a recent Duke University graduate, would come in handy in a challenge requiring smarts. Will Boran continue to evict its women? Might the sympathetic Ethan and a paranoid Clarence defect from the male vote and force out the older Tom? Or will Kelly, who feared for her existence last week when she failed to drink a cup of cow’s blood as quickly as her opponent, get desperate, pull a Jerri and come on to one of the men? (A shirt she wore in her audition tape, after all, did sport the phrase "I make boys cry.") Oh, the drama of it all. So far, it’s hard to predict where any of these contestants are headed, but one thing is clear: Survivor doesn’t disappoint when it comes to mishandling race. In both the original Survivor and Survivor 2, we saw each season’s token African-American male, Gervase and Nick, portrayed, to varying degrees, as lazy. They’d be sitting around doing nada, or slacking during a challenge, while their tribemates worked their butts off. In interviews post-Survivor, Nick and Gervase complained that this was merely selective editing — executive producer Mark Burnett and Co. making good use of labeling (playing up behavior that conforms to labels or stereotypes and ignoring behavior that doesn’t). One would have to side with Nick and Gervase on this matter. If they had been really lazy, they would have been voted off much sooner (both placed seventh in their respective games, the Survivor high-water mark for a racial minority thus far), or at least would have gotten some "warning" votes, which the Boran’s Clarence — who fills the role of the young African American male this time around — received in the first two episodes of Survivor: Africa. What was shown of Clarence’s behavior in the first episode was yet another example of racial stereotypes. This time, the black man "steals" a can of beans while his teammates are away, then tries to hide the evidence. Then the "Southern hick" (Tom) gets all upset and says he would shoot Clarence, if only he had a rifle handy. Clearly, these are the traits the label-happy producers want us to associate with the characters — er, I mean, contestants. Tom may in fact get along great with Clarence (indeed, in Episode 2, that generally seemed to be the case) and Diane may have been lying when she said Clarence had opened the beans on his own, without her asking. We don’t know; we are privy only to selective, character-defining interactions. None of this should come as any surprise. Like any other ‘drama,” Survivor needs to create characters for storytelling purposes as much as anything else. In each previous season of Survivor, it didn’t take long for the contestants to become known by his or her ‘type”: bitch, down-to-earth mom, girl/guy next door, ex-military authority figure, etc. And, lest we forget, Burnett wants Survivor to be exciting and controversial. We’re not going to see footage of tribemates holding hands and singing "It’s a Small World After All" any time soon. Unless, of course, they get attacked by lions while doing so. Next week: Wild things get too close for Boran’s comfort; Samburu’s Lindsey is illin’; and Boran gets nekkid. Chris Wright, an admitted Survivor addict since Season 1, Episode 3, spends his days as a copy editor for Federal Computer Week in Falls Church, Va. He previously wrote about the Condit-Levy saga and crime coverage. His take on Survivor will appear here each week.
Related Sites For a full summary of the latest Survivor action, and to read up on the castaways, visit The Lowdown: Episode 2: |
