Archive through March 10, 2003
TV ClubHouse: Archive: Can you catch the mistake?:
Archive through March 10, 2003
Hippyt | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:39 pm     Read this article,there's a mistake in it!! Can you catch it?Struggling to survive By KIRK MAKIN Globe and Mail Update E-mail this Article Print this Article Advertisement — You knew things were getting desperate when they resorted to throwing a deaf woman in the piranha pool. It was clear from the first episode of Survivor Amazon that poor, passive-aggressive Christy wouldn’t fit in. Her cartoon voice and blatant insecurity made her a natural target for the bullies that Survivor adores seeding amongst the more garden-variety misfits. Her disability also guaranteed her exclusion from the bonding rituals as well as the incessant plotting of the Survivor jungle. Are there no human rights commissions in Brazil? Of course, the Christy debacle isn’t the only lowlight in Series Six of reality TV’s gasping granddaddy. There is the catty ineptitude over at the segregated girls’camp, where a half-dozen Girl Guide rejects are still squabbling over how to build a lean-to and which end of the fishing pole goes in the water. The rival camp is seething with such a virulent brand of Fifties-style misogyny that anyone who lets their kids watch this series should be prosecuted by the Children’s Aid Society. The boys scratch their parts, talk tough and, at the coaxing of smart-ass host Jeff Probst, rank the “hottest” chicks. It’s downright tacky. With another sub-par series getting underway, Survivor is in a definite death spiral. Ignoring for a moment those who claim — wee chests bursting with pride — that Survivor is television for cretins, let’s examine where it is stumbling. And there is no better place to start than what made it such a huge success in the first place (beyond the fact that it is dirt cheap to produce and offers a heaven-sent vehicle for shameless product placement.) Three of the first four series — Survivor: Pulau Tiga, Australia and Marquesas — featured a varied and surprisingly interesting blend of personalities. In contrast, Survivor: Africa, Thailand and Amazon, have been stacked with personality-types mutating out of the show itself. Each new cast has studied the previous ‘castaways’ and patterned themselves after their forerunners. Constantly popping up are: - The requisite Richard Hatch clone, a social strategist who can’t stop boasting to the camera about his fiendishly-clever tactics. (The latest version: Brian, the ultimate winner of Survivor: Thailand.) - The tattooed, trash-talker from a suburban garage band (Lex, who also happens to be my hands-down winner as the most hateful survivor ever) - The cornpone peanut farmer (Roger and Big Tom) - The wrinkly, naïve-but-plucky old doll who proves to be out of her depth (Examples: Thailand’s Jan or Africa’s Kim J.) - The gook-hating, slightly-crazed G.I. Joe facsimile (Hello, Frank and Rudy). - The pneumatic survivor of an overzealous boob-job (Step forward carefully, lest you do a face-plant, Heidi and Sarah.) - The leering, psychopathic creep. (Exhibit A: “Boston Rob,” from Survivor: Thailand.) Relationships run a similarly well-worn path. The old man/young girl bond is tired and becoming a bit disturbing. So is the young stud who calculatingly deceives a girl who has the hots for him. The love/hate relationship between a pair of black contestants is also wearing thin. In short, Survivor is slavishly imitating the worst parts of itself. Worse still, it has inexplicably ditched the relatively decent, normal folk who helped balance the weirdlings and made the show feel less like a trip to the orthodontist — people like Elisabeth, Sean, Ethan and Vecepia. In retrospect, even the dreaded Jeri Manthey looks like the girl-next-door alongside this gallery of sullen losers and hair-trigger kvetchers. “Shows like Joe Millionare are forcing Survivor to become more human interest — but it’s becoming so human interest that it’s sickening,” notes 11-year-old veteran Survivor analyst, Miri. “There used to be some people who were horrible. Now, they’re all horrible.” There was also a certain innocence in the early days; even the most abominably hokey events were tolerable. Remember how a torch would “mysteriously” extinguish itself moments before a survivor was voted out in Australia? Or, those spiritual journeys of the soul toward the end of each series finale? Even the cultural inanities — Lex and Frank being shipped by SUV to a starving African village in order to gorge themselves, for instance — somehow slid by. Now, contrivance is the watchword. You can almost hear the agents back Stateside exhorting their clients to do whatever it takes to stand out and be memorable. Thus, the naked aggression, the flamboyant statements, the skinny-dipping and the ridiculous luxury items — a crystal ball; a giant “Believe In Yourself” banner… Likewise, the supposed realism of the Survivor experience has been ramped up to new heights of stupidity. In response to early criticisms that Pulau Tiga was insufficiently grim, the producers now edit in enough scary zoo-footage of black mambas and crocodiles to fill a National Geographic special. And, I suppose it’s all a matter of personal taste, but I could do without the close-ups of infected sandfly bites, the blood-engorged tick-in-the-buttocks incident, and the constant kneading of dried-out stomach folds. More slavish imitation: Contestants incessantly chant the same tired bromides about “flying under the radar,” or “being here for one reason — to win.” And those damn immunity challenges are trapped within the same imagination warp. In the beginning, they had a pleasing simplicity. If you got too exhausted standing on the post, you fell in the water and lost. If you built a fire high enough to sever the rope, your bucket dropped and you won. Now, most of them involve slurping up a plateful of maggots, or an absurdly complicated combination of beam-shinnying, cargo net-climbing and piecing together a giant puzzle. That ain’t all. Despite transparent attempts by the producers to lay false trails, it gets awfully predictable when one strong tribe or alliance starts picking off their opponents one-by-one. In short, the producers are caught between two contradictory imperatives. The first: Stick with the formula that got you here. The second: Innovate or die. Survivor is feeling the heat from Are You Hot? and Joe Millionaire — which is why its dimply host plays up the sex angles and struggles to provoke conflict — yet it is afraid to morph too far away from the staples of the original episodes. A friend, Liyat, neatly sums up a sentiment one hears often these days: “I watched the first episode religiously, the second out of need, the third out of interest, the fourth and fifth not at all. And the current…well, they’ve added a twist that both lures me and angers me to no end: the division of the sexes. What a cruel, but brilliant, way to hook the viewer.” The golden goose isn’t dead yet. Watching others fuss and fight will always have a weird attraction, and the desire to gab at the water cooler about something besides George W. Bush is insatiable. But if Survivor doesn’t give its collective head had a darn good shake, it is going to run out of viewers long before it runs out of continents warm enough to justify a string bikini. Survivor: Amazon Thursdays, CBS, Global, 8 p.m. |
Tabbyking | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:46 pm     wasn't it lex and ethan who gorged themselves? also, lex is not the most-awful surviiivor. he is second most-awful after brandon! lol i know a lot of people really love him and he has become quite a 'cause celebre' amongst some of you, but i didn't care for him, either. |
Hermione69 | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:49 pm     (Exhibit A: “Boston Rob,” from Survivor: Thailand.) is one mistake. Is that what you were looking for? Boston Rob is from Marquesas. |
Tabbyking | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:51 pm     hermi, i was just going to check that out myself. there are probably a dozen errors on the page! |
Hermione69 | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:52 pm     Luxury item: "a crystal ball" is another mistake. Should be Magic 8-Ball. Unless someone on a past Survivor actually brought a crystal ball that I am forgetting about. |
Tabbyking | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:55 pm     maybe one of the guys has an artificial testicle? oh, never mind. that would be the 'lap' of luxury! lol |
Hermione69 | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:56 pm     ROFL! |
Texannie | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:58 pm     Rudy hated gays not gooks. |
Tabbyking | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 12:59 pm     and who is the '11-year-old survivor veteran, miri'? it should be a mistake because miri should have been in bed earlier at age 9 when survivor started! |
Hippyt | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 01:00 pm     Yes,Lex took an SUV to the aids hospital. Ethan and Lex took a truck with a goat,and sold the goat and bought the food from the people. So,the African's got the goat and all their money. This guy doesn't know half of what he's saying! I wrote him an e-mail and politely told him,if he's going to write Surivovor articles,he should check his tapes first! |
Tabbyking | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 01:00 pm     what kind of a reporter would actually use the slur 'gooks', anyway? to me, it's like using the 'n' word. don't like it. not one bit. i cringed when i read it. |
Hermione69 | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 01:06 pm     I didn't watch Survivor:Africa so I didn't catch that one. Although I remember reading about one RC when Big Tom got very drunk. What was that one? |
Tabbyking | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 01:08 pm     that was a different reward and yes, tom got very drunk and had a hot air balloon ride while hung-over! i loved the africa survivor, although a lot of people (allegedly) hated it. |
Hippyt | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 01:09 pm     Really,Tabby,the entire article kinda peeved me! I'm sure Frank or Rudy wouldn't appreciate reading this at all!!!! snifff...smell a law-suit???? |
Tabbyking | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 01:59 pm     you are so right, hippyt. uneducated, as to his topic; and unrefined, as to his choice of words..what a poor reporter! |
Hermione69 | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:15 pm     I also thought that using "cartoon voice" to describe Christy was in poor taste, but then I have baggage in that area! |
Jane_Bond | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:15 pm     HippyT, this has to be a joke! Surely the Globe and Mail would never in a million years print something written this badly! I mean, that's the elder statesmen of newspapers in Canada! |
Lyn | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:26 pm     OMGosh! "cartoon voice"? What an idiot! (Sorry Mods, I just had to say that) |
Hippyt | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:35 pm     Jane,I got the link from Survivornews.net. I couldn't believe they put the link on their web site! |
Tabbyking | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:40 pm     hermi, the 'cartoon voice' comment was an automatic turn-off for me. it was obvious from that point the writer was a buffoon! i just wouldn't attribute the description to her at all. just something else showing how unfeeling and moronic the author was. the 'gooks' comment was way over the top in unacceptability, but there were loads of other awful things in there, including the christy comments. is this author for real? |
Hippyt | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:41 pm     Oh,and Hermione,since you can't hear Christy's voice,I'll let you know that she does not have a 'cartoon voice.' I'm not sure what the reporter even means by saying that.Christy speaks very clearly and her voice doesn't sound odd at all. |
Jane_Bond | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:45 pm     Hippyt, I just got off of the Globe's site and I, too, wrote a note to the television critic (JDoyle@GlobeAndMail.ca) complaining about the poorly written commentary and pointed out the use of erroneous facts, racial slanders and obvious fictions (11 year old analyst?). I am really surprised considering the reputation of the newspaper (think NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post... but a national newspaper). |
Webkitty | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:48 pm     Is this article for real? What professional in their right mind would refer to Christy's voice as cartoon? And would use a term like gook-hating? I disagree with everything he said. I still love Survivor just as much as I ever did, and this guy can just take his bad 'tude and shove it!!!! grrrrrrrrrrr |
Hippyt | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 02:56 pm     Good job Jane! |
Jane_Bond | Monday, March 10, 2003 - 03:11 pm     I had forgotten about the "cartoon voice" and emailed the critic back and mentioned that bit and how I thought is was very irresponsible. I'm still shocked! I mean, I realise this isn't the most important journalism on any newspapers run list, but even the little stuff needs to be responsible! And, I am a sometime freelancer and professional coporate communicator, so such writing really blows me away from an inside perspective. I mean, where was the bloody editor when this thing got published twice! |
|