For the past 12 seasons, Survivor has captured our reality-TV-loving hearts with its wacky locations, grueling challenges and unique castmates. From original winner Richard Hatch – now serving hard time for conveniently forgetting to pay taxes on his $1 million prize – to latest survivor Aras Baskauskas, the college basketball-playing, youngest male winner, Survivor stays interesting.
But it’s time to face the truth – Survivor’s 12th season had the series’ lowest ratings, probably affected by stiff competition such as The Amazing Race and my favorite guilty delight, Flavor of Love.
No TV show has ever gone down such a blatant, ridiculous route as Survivor has chosen with its 13th season in Cook Islands: playing the race card.
If you paid attention to Survivor’s population count, you’d notice the obvious lack of minorities in past seasons – they were there, but never made it very far. Only two minority contestants have won the final prize: Vecepia Towery (black) in season four and Sandra Diaz-Twine (Hispanic) in season seven.
So it’s obvious Survivor needs more contestants who are black, Hispanic or Asian (and Middle Eastern), but there is no sign of any Arabs, Iranians, Indians or other such ethnic groups in the contestant pool.
But is it necessary to get whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics on the show and then force them to divide up by race and fight the other groups – and eventually one another – for a cash payoff?
It’s not a matter of political correctness, but a matter of taste. Pitting different races against each other is never a good idea – not even in a simple pop culture reality TV format.
In their defense, CBS producers say their decision isn’t racist one bit. In an explanation to Entertainment Weekly, Survivor executive producer Mark Burnett said, “To the less-than-openminded person, it is very easy to trash us … But we’re smart enough to not make it negative.”
Unfortunately, nearly everything about this new season seems negative, if not a downright publicity ploy. From being a game about tactics used to “outwit, outplay and outlast” others, Survivor now focuses on something as trivial – and controversial – as race. Only time will tell if America accepts or rejects the new season, but I’m keeping my bets on the latter.
– Sophomore Roxana Hadadi is Diversions’ monthly TV columnist.
