More than I care to know about Survivor
My wife loves Survivor. This house is just a constant low level Survivor fest. If she's not watching a new season she's rewatching an old one. Recently it's been a bunch of Survivor New Zealand, and South Africa. I'm often pinned down to have various tactics and strategies explained to me.
I... don't care about Survivor. I have watched it. Just never intentionally. Or willingly. It's also the only 'reality tv' I ever see nowadays? Even 'scripted reality' or whatever that genre is called. Apart from L'Agence. But that's French so the boys don't count.
So I notice a lot of nonsense. Mostly, wild cognitive dissonance. The contradictory things people say often in the same sentence are mindboggling.
A plus-size model being the all-too-predictable first vote out. Despite being a power lifter. "She's been doing loads of work around camp and is obviously really strong but we need to get rid of the weakest players," they say. To which I say, as I walk past on my way to the kitchen: "???"
In the same challenge one team instantly jettisoned all the women because they thought it would make them stronger... and lost.
It's so unseemly watching these older men being so vitriolic about younger women, often women of colour.
Going to blame the producers for much of this. They give a licence to racism and sexism in the way they construct a lot of this stuff. If you are voting people off hours after having met... of course it's going to be the plus-size model or the older person or the black woman. This is, unfortunately, human beings we are talking about. Out there being their worst selves.
Contestants whine about other contestants lying or betraying them... In a game that is entirely about that? While they themselves do that?
Two dudes dub themselves "the most competitive players" while they rail about having been voted out. Boys, if you have been voted out, you are by definition not the most competitive players! What men generally mean by this is "physically strong", apparently forgetting that this is only a part - and not an essential part - of the game. Even I know this.
"She's calling all the shots but she's not done anything in the game." Okay, so let me get this straight, 'she's not done anything'... apart from orchestrate the last few votes and you are scrambling to get round her now?
So many of the men on this show so badly crave the attention and approval of other men. They are falling all over themselves. I don't know why we talk about giddy schoolgirls. Did their dads not hug them enough?
On the plus side! There was a bit where a team forfeited a challenge because they were uncomfortable having two big men manhandling and dragging a woman through mud. Props. It is never a good look.
This show makes me realise how many people out there still refer to women as "females." Wild.
Thanks to my wife providing spontaneous TED talks about various aspects of Survivor I feel pretty knowledgeable. I, however, would never play Survivor because one night without a mattress would break me in half and I struggle to stand for ten minutes as it is, never mind holding bag of sand above my hand or whatever. My wife would never go on Survivor because she complains too much about being bitten by the bugs in our back garden, which is not on a tropical island.