Reality TV Check
Unfortunately there are few things that surprise me anymore. Equally as unfortunate, though, is if something does have the potential to surprise, once it settles in, be it in a minute or, say, five, it goes back to being not such a surprise.
But I think I found something.
I was watching a DVR-recorded episode of "Criminal Minds" the other night, sweat dripping off my face because I had just gotten off my stair stepper, and I was a little slow on the fast-forwarding uptake. As a result, I managed to catch a promo for the upcoming season of "Survivor."
I used to watch this show. Just the first season. The foul-mouthed, short-tempered truck driver from the Midwest was much too entertaining to ignore, and, well, it was an interesting idea. The problem, though, is that the show has run out of ideas. I haven't kept up, but I can only imagine that is the reason they're doing this season what they're doing. Because of the need for ratings to satisfy advertisers so someone makes a big buck.
The brainiacs behind "Survivor" thought it would be a good idea to divide this season's contestants into four teams by race: Blacks, whites, Latinos, and Asians. I didn't hear that right, did I? I hit the rewind button. I did hear that right. My mouth fell open, ready to scream at the television, but nothing came out. I was speechless. Flabbergasted. Surprised, even.
Who thought this would be a good idea, asked my friend Chris today after I presented him with the information. Indeed. Have we not just spent more than a hundred years trying to ease the divisions that were drawn by race? Does "race war" no longer have meaning?
I'll admit that I don't know much of the show's specifics, other than the "tribes" will eventually merge as they do each season, this time into a "melting pot," if you'll allow the misnomer. They hope. "It's a social experiment," said the scrawny little host (I wonder whose side he's on). A social experiment. Correct me if I'm wrong, but simply stepping foot outside every day is a social experiment. There are social experiments being conducted all over the world -- racially, religiously, economically.
Even the word "experiment" is unnerving. It suggests the presence of a powerful higher-up somewhere in a white lab coat tracking the data in order to prove a hypothesis. What will it be? That whites are the "it" group? Asians the smartest? What if all the Latinos are gone by merge day? The blacks? What are those stories going to be about in the papers the next day?
And consider that the point is to work together, thus assuming that each tribe member gets along well. That will rely on the presumption that all blacks like each other, all Asians like each other, and so on. Furthermore, it assumes that nationalist pride within each group is enough. That those with Canadian, Irish, German, Czech, Polish, Australian, Swiss, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Laotian, Vietnamese, Indian, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Peruvian, Mexican, Brazilian, Colombian, and Venezuelian ancestry share national pride. Um. Oh, and I forgot. "African-American" national pride. Sen. Barack Obama is visiting Kenya, because his father is from there. Not all blacks can trace their nations of origin. America? Lots of pride for blacks to feel about there.
Television is a representation of the current state of things. So pitting racial groups against one another in a game of survival in order to entertain is akin to sitting ringside of a boxing match. Or watching figures in a cage go at it. And viewers will be watching figures go at it in a cage, except this cage comes in high definition. Just to make the bloodshed a little sharper, more, well, defined. Sure the show is a hit. And yes people have been pit against one another before. Men and women, I heard. But never racially. And it's a little frightening that not only do television executives think this would be a good idea, but also that there will be advertisers. Even more frightening, perhaps, is that there will be viewers.
This idea is a sick one. It's American. It takes any social progress this country has made and dips it in a vat of lye. Maybe it's not so dramatic. Maybe there's another, sicker effect the producers are going for. A Bamboozled-like satire is potentially in the making, with the contestants donning modern-day blackface in the quest to belong to the "bigger," "stronger," "better" racial group.
"Survivor" is a game. Race is not. And sadly it's all in the name of keeping it interesting. Because the world's not interesting enough?
