Survivor plays race card

Survivor plays race card

From the Oh No They Didn't! files: the latest twist in "reality" television is ... segregation!

CBS announced details for the upcoming season of Survivor: Cook Islands yesterday. But when it premieres Sept. 14, viewers may wonder if they've tumbled through a crack in the space-time continuum.

The 20 contestants will be divided into four tribes along ethnic lines. That's right, after watching Survivor plunge to all-time lows in ratings and buzz last season, wily Mark Burnett hopes to reignite passions with a good old-fashioned race war.

Black Tribe! White Tribe! Latino Tribe! Asian Tribe! Survivors ready ... let the social Darwinism begin!

More...

You gotta wonder what they are thinking...

With real world examples of racism in the US, like this one:

Black students ordered to give up seats to white children

they're just askin' for trouble.

Just when you think reality TV can't possibly sink lower... They surprise us. And the horror of this is that it's going to work like a charm. I'll bet huge sums of money that ratings are going to go up, up, up. I don't know about popularity, but definitely ratings.

I'll bet you're right, GemWolf, it will work like a charm. Sadly, race relations still causes quite a bit of drama (that means good reality TV) in this country.

I was channel surfing yesterday and came across a show that was talking about racism in TV. Their claim was that black people were always kicked off the reality shows first or early. Interestingly, the REASONs they were kicked off were not discussed in depth. One black man slapped a woman, one started a physical fight with the other cast members, and so on. So even though there were legitimate reasons to vote off and kick off these black members, this show made it seem like it was because of their race...

On the other hand, I'd like to keep an open mind about this. It's possible that people will just see the different Survivor 'tribes' as people. We can hope, can't we?

The idea for this actually came from the criticism that Survivor was not ethnically diverse enough."

Just thinking out loud:

Would it have been more appropriate for them to divide them up differently? one black per team, one white, and so on? That's racist, too. I rather wish they had had 5 of each race and drawn straws... That's true diversity. But yeah, this current division can only pit the races against each other.

Sad... :shk:

CNN just carried a spot on this issue and it would appear the reporter left out some major details. Guess she was looking for dramatics and shock factor in her story. :shk:

Yes the season will start out as ethnic teams, but it will not remain that way. As the season progresses and members are eliminated integration of the teams will begin.

Just the media trying to make it a bigger issue then it really is.

Now that issue on the moving of children to the back of the bus is another problem and a bad one at that.

Thanks shots.

Source

Of course, this isn’t really that different from last season, when the show separated tribes by sex and age for Survivor Panama. Splitting them by race may seem to be more controversial, but really is a no less arbitrary distinction than sex or age.

cnn

The show's producers have clearly decided to address complaints that previous seasons were overwhelmingly dominated by Caucasian players...
...
Players are being initially divided into teams by race

I don't see any difference in this and dividing by age or gender.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
I don't see any difference in this and dividing by age or gender.

I see no difference either. This is also no different then what Donald Trump did when he pitted educated against non educated. Granted not racial discrimination but still discrimination non-the less.

If it were up to me I would cancel all reality shows and while I was at it I would add all evening news shows i.e. Dateline, 20/20, 60 minutes etc., which essentially are nothing but Op/eds or investigative news reports that are not worth a grain of salt and replace the whole lot of them with a few good westerns along with other family oriented programs and perhaps a few good cartoons along with a few new space programs like StarTrek.



[edit on 8/24/2006 by shots]

The whole notion of "reality" TV is bogus anyway. But the ratings will shoot through the roof...and yet another sterling example of the wasteland that is most television...thank the good lord for books and the internet, and the occaisional movie.

Just when you start to think we are making progress in addressing racial issues...along comes some stupid dufus playing it up for all its worth.

Booo!!!

that's what I get for skipping over posts. Thanks, shots. this would be me .

[edit on 24-8-2006 by seagull]

Funneh,

Last I check there is only one human race.

When are we going to move pass this ignorance?

We won't as long as idiocy such as this is even contemplated.

There is a reason I have never watched a single episode of Survivor or any of the other copycats...the utter unreality of it.

Loam, Good Thread
Just a little "home town" reality.
We have recently relocated to a small community in the Central North West.
We experience segregation on a daily basis. People are so abnormally proud of there heritage that everyone is basically an alien.

To us it is surrealistic, this is a multiracial country, but on the same street people are divided. And they/we are all caucasian. What would happen if we added a little yellow, black and blue? Jeez.
It's not even about race, it's about recognition, we need to mirror ourselves. (very simplified)
I'd get sick and tired of looking at my own image all day long.
What are people so scared of?
WIS