CBS has revealed that the next season of “Survivor” will feature race-based teams, and the New York City Council is up in arms. (HatTip to Drudge)
NEW YORK (AP) – As CBS prepares to launch a new season of the hit reality show “Survivor,” this time featuring teams divided by race, enraged city officials are saying it promotes divisiveness and are calling for the network to reconsider.
“The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous,” City Councilman John Liu said Thursday. “How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?”
For the first portion of the 13th season of “Survivor,” which premieres Sept. 14, the contestants competing for the $1 million prize while stranded on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific will be divided into four teams – blacks, Asians, Latinos and whites.
I would be more impressed by Liu’s outrage if he and his colleagues on the NY city council were similarly outraged by the divisiveness produced by the race-based competition that is at the heart of all racial preference and set aside programs.
Indeed, it is hard to argue with CBS’s reply — that its “ethnic twist” in programming simply “reflect[s] cultural and social issues.”
How true.
That is not to say, however, that CBS is beyond criticism. Where, for example, are the Aleuts? Don’t they get to compete? Is CBS biased against Muslims by not having an Arab team? For that matter, why not have Muslim, Christian, and Jewish teams? Or how about introducing leagues, where the Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, etc., compete to see who gets to represent the Christians against the winners of the Shia–Sunni and Orthodox–Reform competitions? The future of race– and religion–based competition seems endless.
The problem with CBS’s approach is that it does not “reflect cultural and social issues” as accurately as it could. But just wait. Perhaps these deficiencies will be corrected in the future.
I would be more impressed by Liu’s outrage if he and his colleagues on the NY city council were similarly outraged by the divisiveness produced by the race-based competition that is at the heart of all racial preference and set aside programs.
I’d be more impressed by Liu’s outrage if he weren’t speaking for “the city council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus” when he was pretending to be outraged.
Sounds like CBS just wants to keep up with whoever just televised the World Cup, Olympics, etc.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the host claims the new show concept is a sort of affirmative action serving as a response to criticisms that their show was too white:
“I would … always get asked, ‘Why aren’t there more black people on the show? Where are all the Asians?’ So the idea [was] to take on something we are criticized for. We decided, let’s try to have the most ethnically diverse cast in the history of TV.”
http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1279451_3_0_,00.html
I offer no opinion as to whether this is sincere or cynical, but even if it is cynical, it is a plausible perversion (fruition?) of the logic of “diversity.”
A little context for the discussion (according to a program I heard on the radio Sunday Morning).
1. The first Survivor had about 1500 people try out.
2. The second Survivor had 70,000 try out.
3. The previous Survivor had about 20,000 try out with many of the potential contestants being described as reality show groupies who try out for all reality shows. The interviewee (described as a reporter/pundit of reality television. Many in television consider the quality of those trying out to being going down. Also, many consider the individual contestants of being overly affected by previous seasons of the show.
3. About 80% of those trying out are white. The audience is also overwhelmingly white.
Thus, you get the perfect storm. Pick contestants out of groups that previously have not been interested. Put the contestants in a new format to lessen the effects of previous seasons. Generate “buzz” by putting race into the format.
Saying all that, I would guess that the show will be manipulated to ensure that a black or Hhspanic wins. Ensuring that a black or hispanic wins will probably increase viewership with minority viewers.