Survivor 2

created by Infinity

(thing) by Infinity (4.3 y) (print) ? (I like it!) 1 C! Tue Jan 30 2001 at 0:05:42

This is the second season of the TV show "Survivor", not to be confused with "Survivor2", which is an E2 parody on the show.

This time the 16 castaways are out in the Australian Outback. I could write all about the different contestants, the rules of the game, the setting, and so on, if I actually thought that any of that was important in any way...

I watched the first Survivor and now I am watching the second because I laugh at them a lot. I enjoy watching them run around in their little challenges and get in their angry fights and arguments. I also laugh at people who take this whole "Reality TV" thing seriously in any way...

How much of a representation of "Reality" do they give us? The answer is: The "reality" they want you to see.

First off, there is the fact that a bunch of people living out in the wilderness with no modern conveniences, and getting together every three days to vote someone out of their life if they fail to win a challenge bears absolutely no relevance to our life.

Then, they present THAT "reality" to us in the way they want us to perceive it. We do not see the myriad cameramen and other workers of the show just outside the eye of the camera. We do not see when Mark Burnett or Jeff "Anal" Probst coaches them and gives them all the rules they must follow to make sure that CBS gets the "reality" it wants. They only show us what will gather the most ratings and advertiser dollars.

We do not see enough to make any reliable judgments on the character of these people playing the game. How can we suppose we know anything about them when we perhaps see them for a total of 5 or 6 hours*. Then consider that what we do see of them is heavily edited so that we are tempted to judge them in a certain way. Many people disliked Gervase of the original Survivor. Why? Because the producers decided Gervase would be the one to dislike, and for the most part only showed his worst actions and words. Any way that we perceive the contestants is biased by the producers. For all I know, Gervase could have been the nicest guy in the worlds, but when you take all of someone's actions and words from three days and edit it down to perhaps 30 minutes*, you can make them appear any way you want.

Then, there is the selection of the contestants itself. They are mostly young, white, "attractive" people. Most likely that is the most lucrative advertising demographic. Of course, we can't risk alienating other groups, so there is the token black man and woman, the token elderly man and woman, and the token middle-aged man and woman. Within any of these groups there could be the token gay man (Richard in the original) and the token lesbian (Sonja - the first to be voted out - in the original). Again, chosen to present the most lucrative "reality" for CBS.

I do enjoy this show in the same way I would enjoy a comedy or a regular game show, but anyone who takes it at all as serious or "real" seems to me to be a bit foolish and deceived.

If Survivor is still around in some form when I am the required age, I plan on trying to get in, for a simple reason: TO FUCK UP THE SHOW AS MUCH AS I CAN. This would be great fun. How would I do this?

- By not participating in any "voting alliance" or other sorts of schemes to win the game. Doesn't mess up the show much, but it doesn't help them either.
- trying to make a record of what actually happened to counter the edited version that will be aired. Hopefully I would be allowed to bring some sort of high-capacity voice recorder (probably a high capacity MP3 player that lets you record voice, with jury-rigged solar power perhaps...... I would want to get as much on it as I can... I know that you can get a 300+ MB memory pack for the Rio 600, so who knows what will be possible in a few years), but failing that I would bring a large journal and write down everything I possibly could. I would take special care for any kind of speech I made directly to a camera, as these would probably be the most obviously edited.
- Cursing as much as I possibly can, since they still can't air some words on broadcast TV.
- voting to kick MYSELF off. I would wait until some crucial voting stage, probably around 5 or 6 people left if I make it that far, and I was either the deciding vote or one of the two that were most likely to be kicked off. I would say to the camera as I held up the ballot, trying to keep a straight face, "Well, I didn't contribute much to the team, plus I am a member of a one man voting alliance against myself, and I don't like my attitude very much." I think this would mess up the show a little if I did it at the right point. I do not even care if this means that I actually kick myself off the show, it would be well worth it.
- using my 15 minutes to try and get out the real, unedited, reality of life on Survivor Island/Desert/Moon, and speaking against the show and others like it that the mass media feed to all their millions of loyal sheep. Probably would get me sued, but again worth it.

printable version
chaos

Survivor2	Survivor	Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out	Reality TV
attractive	Extreme Dodgeball	Crocodile Hunter	voting
Lesbian	token	lucrative	people
game	E2	wilderness	Game show
Advertiser	reality	xm	My cat is mentally challenged and more than a little misshapen
Pauline Hanson	Anne Robinson	Erd�s number	Film Editing

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