ethics

Maybe I’ve overlooked the full significance of the segregated Survivor season. Or, maybe people are giving it more credibility than it merits.
From BBC:

Officials in New York are campaigning to stop the broadcast of a new series of reality show Survivor which divides contestants into ethnic “tribes.”

City council officials are to stage a rally on Friday to urge New York-based CBS network to pull the 13th series of Survivor, due to air from 14 September… New York councillor John Liu told the Associated Press: “The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous.

“How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?”

In a post- Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire world, I didn’t know people were still bothering to ask that question.

…Hispanics Across America founder Fernando Mateo called the move an “offensive and cheap trick” to boost ratings. “The participants will be held to the daunting and unfair challenge of representing an entire race of people,” he said.

I think this is where I’m missing the outrage bus. I can’t take seriously the notion that any four people represent all the qualities and capabilities of an entire ethnicity – much less any four people who would be selected to be on Survivor.

[Mateo continued,] “What will it mean for a team – a race – to fail in a battle of wits and strength against another race?”

It will mean that the team lost. For that team’s race, it doesn’t mean shit. Let us not forget that we’re talking about Survivor here, a game so capricious that its “All-Stars” season was won by a featherweight sorority girl using the ingenious tactic of riding her boyfriend’s coattails.

On the other hand, there is something to the argument that the show will promote racial divisiveness. The reliable pundidiot Rush Limbaugh has already jumped on the Survivor story to use it as a launching pad for some of his typical bigotry, followed by an indignant denial that anything of what he said was racist. I don’t care to reprint what he said on my blog, but those who’d like to can read about it here.

I’m still of the mind that CBS and Mark Burnett should be given the benefit of the doubt. Calling for them to pull the show, as the New York officials are doing, is only going to solidify their resolve to run it and may indeed boost their ratings. Ultimately, I continue thinking that it’s all a tempest in a teapot. After a few episodes, I don’t see where this season of Survivor is going to look different than any of the past seasons.