| Author |
Message |
Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 2:33 pm 
As I mentioned earlier, one of the issues with Survivor is the boundaries surrounding what is appropriate or inappropriate aren't as clear as in other workplaces. It's not like they are working in an office. There are a bunch of men and women living together 24 hours a day in very close quarters under very difficult circumstances. They are hungry and both mentally and physically exhausted. They often sleep together and the environment often means that they cuddle together for warmth. The game also requires frequent touching, especially during competitions. There is a lot of intimacy and trust and fear in both the mental and physical sense.
So appropriate boundaries are less clearly defined. If you were working in an office you wouldn't rub someone's arm or give them a hug. But you might on Survivor. In fact, people have done that countless times on Survivor. Having said all of that, if someone states that they don't want to be touched, then the touching should stop. Period. End of story.
I confess that I was pretty tired when watching (and fell asleep) so my recollection is unclear to say the least. Can someone describe (in neutral terms) exactly what the viewers were shown with respect to the touching? Did a contestant tell Dan to stop and he continued anyway?
|
Biscottiii
Member
05-29-2004
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 3:45 pm
Kellee Ponderosa
https://www.goldderby.com/article/2019/survivor-39-ponderosa-video-kellee-kim-immunity-idols-dan-metoo/
|
Biscottiii
Member
05-29-2004
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 4:25 pm
Jamal Ponderosa
https://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/video/
wJLiLeigbWPA79mxfzeb47clRvQGcoBY/
ponderosa-interview-the-second-castaway-voted-off-the-latest-survivor-island-of-the-idols/
|
Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 4:28 pm
I think they are set up to think they are in a more "familiar" environment being together 24 hours a day, in hard conditions, that might encourage some to think they are more "friendly" with each other. I also wonder if the producers were direct with Dan and said "Kellee feels uncomfortable" or if they just were general (which sometimes makes people not realize they are the problem).
Plus.... Maybe the Producers should give them some clothes, so that the men don't have to run around in their underwear and the women can feel more comfortable in their outer wear. (Like Karishma had said about feeling uncomfortable having so much exposed.)
|
Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 6:43 pm
So I am rewatching and taking notes.
Missy and Kelle talk. Missy said Dan's hands were "all over her" at night. No video of this.
Kelle says she told EVERYONE that she doesn't like to be touched, but he keeps touching her. They show a scene of what looks like him tucking a wayward hair behind her ear.
Then she notes "Tommy puts his arm around me and it's fine." Missy agrees that it's different.
Ed note: I am wondering if it's different because they like Tommy and they don't like Dan?
Kelle talks about how you can't do anything about it, because there will be consequences, just like in real life.
Missy says "for my mental health he can go." His arm smothers me at night. I was talking to Janet at the feast and he wiggles my toes. It's just inappropriate touching.
Kelle says it makes me, Missy, Molly uncomfortable. (Molly was already voted out, right?) It's a pattern. Then she says it's five people (not sure who the five are). She gets very emotional in confessional. The producer offers to do something. Kelle demures and says "I think it will stop because Janet is here."
Ed Note: Thereby denying any help from production, and implying that they are going to rely on Janet to fix it. (Ed Note: So Kelle doesn't want to risk HER game, but it's fine for Janet to take the fall?)
Now Kelle and Janet. Kelle is crying, Janet apparently already knows (we don't see what she told Janet). Janet validates her and says you can't ignore your feelings. It's your perception.
Janet in confessional says her take was he was an old school guy that just never thought about what he was doing. Janet notes that these are the SAME THINGS that she does to people, that she is also very physical. But she says she can't ignore the girls, but she's going to watch Dan from now on.
Missy & Elizabeth now - last night was great. Didn't touch anyone. One of them says "he had his arms around Janet." (Ed note: Apparently Janet doesn't see anything particularly lecherous about his behavior.) Missy talks again about how they all need to band together to get Dan out. Missy tells Lizzie to tell Janet how uncomfortable she is around Dan. ***** Elizabeth says "it's important to get on the right side of the numbers" and says she'll do it in "whatever way possible" and she'll play up that angle.*****
Ed note: Harrumph.
Lizzie goes and talks to Kelle. She shows where Dan put his hand on her hip and ASKED her if it was okay. But of course Lizzie says she didn't say it wasn't.
Now comes Kelle's example of how she asked Dan to stop touching her and he kept on doing it. Kelle says Dan tried to massage her scalp the other day. The clip then shows Kelle talking to Dan about how dirty her hair is. Dan reaches over to the back of her head and touches her hair to see how dirty it is. She gets upset and tells him to stop because "his hands are dirty."
Ed note: C'mon that wasn't massaging your scalp and you know it! Double harrumph.
Kelle and Lizzie talk about voting Dan out. They agree. But then privately Kelle says she won't make a game decision on his behavior. She really wants to get Missy out.
Lauren tells Missy that she is the vote, not Dan.
Then we have the screen about the producers meeting with everyone, and then privately with Dan.
So, as you can see, it's not really clear that Kelle ever told Dan to stop touching her, and the incidents that she relates, as backed up by the video clips were very EXAGGERATED about what actually happened.
And Elizabeth makes clear that she is playing this up to get on the "right side of the numbers."
I don't think this is at all clear that this some horrific issue of inappropriate touching.
What I think is that Dan, and JANET, are just touchy feely people. Apparently so is Tommy. And whether you are bothered by it or not, depends on how you feel about the person.
And that much was exaggerated by Kelle, (although she was clearly upset by it, that seemed real to me).
Given all that, I think the producers handled it appropriately. I think if there were more egregious clips, they would have shown them. There weren't any. And clearly it was game play on the part of some.
This is the kind of thing that wrecks people's lives, and I think people should be more careful. As Dipo said, it's an atmosphere where they are living closely together and encouraged to wear underwear and sleep in close proximity. If it's going to bother you, stand up and say so. And don't exaggerate. Be fair.
/rant
|
Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 6:55 pm
I would add that in the next vignette, Elizabeth tells Janet to vote for Dan to make everyone feel safe.
Then Elizabeth in confessional says "I have felt safe this entire time, and if I didn't I would say so."
|
Lakecat
Member
10-01-2006
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 7:33 pm
So was Missy uncomfortable by Dans actions or was she just saying she was uncomfortable to get in tight with Kelle? I couldn’t figure that out. Was Kelle being hypersensitive?
|
Lakecat
Member
10-01-2006
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 7:45 pm
A communal living situation probably isn’t the best place for someone that doesn’t like to be touched. I multi task when I watch so I didn’t see if he was inappropriate or not.
|
Pamy
Member
01-01-2002
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 7:57 pm
Kar, in one of the 1st eps this season, Kellee does talk to Dan about how she feels about him being so touchy feely and then this ep shows he continued. I also dont think Dan is leechy BUT once she said it made HER feel uncomfortable, he should have stopped touching her.
|
Pamy
Member
01-01-2002
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 7:59 pm
also, editing showed us the additional touching in this ep...it could have happened before Kellee talked to him. timing seems off and unclear when producers talked to him and others
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 8:06 pm
Jeff Varner should have kept quiet since he watched only this one episode then his comeback to every post about the earlier episode where Keller did complain and talk to Dan an the touching was shown.
He just kept saying that he is not watching the show but then watched this one show and issued his opinion based only on this one show. Pfft!
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 8:17 pm
Karuuna, you have to re-watch more than last night to get Kellee's story.
After she asked him to stop. Then they were on different tribes.
Then the merge and he started again.
Why was he fondling a woman's ankle at the merge feast? I doubt if he thought her ankle was cold, it was not at night, so this was not to keep her, or her ankle, warm.
Aaron I think is apologizing for his harsh comment that if anything happened,vHE
|
Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 8:30 pm
Pamy, I don't remember that episode. I will say that Kelle was CLEARLY uncomfortable.
But the others, like Lizzie, also said the same behavior didn't make her feel unsafe at all, and didn't bother her one bit.
Missy wasn't bothered enough by it to vote him out.
Nora and Lauren also said it was nothing to them (in confessionals), that they weren't bothered by it. Although Lauren said to the girls that she was bothered by it.
Pamy - you are correct, we don't know the sequence. All I'm saying is that whether she did or didn't tell him to stop, the way she *described* the incidents to the other women were highly exaggerated from what actually happened, as shown by the clips.
I have empathy for Kelle, something made her uber sensitive to this kind of attention. In a way that the other women were not. Kelle had the right to tell him to stop touching her. But Survivor is a tough place to be that uber sensitive, about *anything*.
Dan meant no ill... that's my takeaway. He may have been a bit clumsy or insensitive. But there was no ill intent.
I still think Dan spoke eloquently, and honored Kelle's feelings, and apologized deeply.
And I think he was right that it was upsetting that it turned into game play.
|
Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 8:32 pm
Why was he fondling a woman's ankle at the merge feast? I doubt if he thought her ankle was cold, it was not at night, so this was not to keep her, or her ankle, warm.
He *briefly* touched someone's toes in a playful way. Not their ankle and there was no fondling.
See, this is exactly the problem. A little thing just got turned into a big thing by being related in a completely inaccurate way.
You don't get to exaggerate a story to make a point. The truth is still the truth.
And that's the issue that I had with Kelle. The stories they SHOWED were exaggerated when you compared the actual clips with the Kelle versions of them.
And the issue I had with the rest of the women is that they used it as game play, when they sometimes said it bothered them and sometimes said it didn't.
Like outting a gay person, there are game lines you don't cross. This was one of them.
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 8:49 pm
I think it weakens women or men when one of us judges their pain or discomfort by what would bother us.
I watch This is Life With Lisa King and last week her topic was the swinger community in present day. And she went to a convention of swingers in New Orleans.
I wish I had a screen cap of the signs they had to remind the participants, all of them at least interested in swinging, though they had rooms where people could just watch..
But the signs reminded them that No means No And Silence also means No.
|
Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 8:55 pm
Sea, you posted that twice. 
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 9:03 pm
Why is it deemed a little thing just because it apparently would be a little thing to you? What matters is why on earth would be so that?
And while more touchy feely stuff might be European, it is less likely to be welcomed by many Asian people (As a general rule). I have noticed this with my patient riders, a wide range of acceptable touch.
The biggest clash I had driving multiple patients was she I had a sweet man from Italy with early dementia and cancer, a guy with a brain tumor and a Vietnamese woman who had arrived here after the fall of Saigon in 75.
The Italian guy was chatting away but he kept pointing at the woman and actually poking at her, to make a point.
Wouldn't have bothered me and I had been told about the dementia, but she was extremely annoyed and said it was very disrespectful. In the car, she just leaned away, but told me later. She of course could not be told about his dementia, but I am not sure that would have mattered to her.
I made the decision that driving them together, while it was a good use of my time, simply was not a good idea. My contacts at American Cancer Society, completely agreed.
|
Strategist
Member
07-01-2014
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 9:15 pm
Karuuna, thanks for watching the whole thing again.
There is a lot of footage that didn't make it to the show. There may well have been clips that could not be shown. We haven't even seen all the shows yet.
Dan is a partner in Industry Entertainment and represents people in the TV world. Mark Burnett is certainly not one to easily give away clips that disparage his friends and colleagues in the business. Who knows if he is holding back anything.
The cameras are NOT there 24x7. There might be more that was not seen even by the cameras.
We do not know everything that happened. Therefore, we can't make the assumption that we saw was everything in that one show. And we certainly cannot make the assumption that Kellie exaggerated.
|
Strategist
Member
07-01-2014
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 9:16 pm
No means No And Silence also means No.
Absolutely. More people need to understand this.
|
Strategist
Member
07-01-2014
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 9:22 pm
You can be on Survivor and also not be comfortable with someone touching you (unless by accident or required by a game).
I've seen more than one person on "Naked and Afraid" not willing to cuddle for warmth even though it was freezing cold. Sometimes it's as simple as their religious beliefs, personal values, cultural upbringing, or marital status that do not make them feel like touching is right for them.
|
Strategist
Member
07-01-2014
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 9:40 pm
On Naked and Afraid, they ask permission. As Seamonkey said, no means no and silence also means no.
In this show, we saw Kellie both being silent and also saying "stop". It does not matter how weak or unclear the "stop" was. That should have been enough for Dan to back off. This is a very important lesson for him. If he was innocent before, he now knows.
|
Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 9:41 pm
If the general experience is there is a lot of touching (and this seems to clearly be the norm on Survivor) and you don't give all the people touching you explicit permission to touch you then it's hard to expect that one person is going to know that you don't want to be touched by them unless you tell them.
|
Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 9:45 pm
Yes I agree that if anyone expresses that they are uncomfortable in any manner, the person should accept that and immediately stop what they are doing.
|
Starr
Member
07-09-2005
| Friday, November 15, 2019 - 10:51 pm
Telling someone who is touching you to stop because his hands are dirty (which were all saw in the clip) is VERY different than telling him to stop because you're uncomfortable with it.
Aaron's apology was because he spoke up at Tribal Council saying (paraphrasing) "if something was going on, I would know about it. I have a mother and two sisters, I'm sensitive to these types of issues..."
That was when Jamal stepped in with his eloquent words saying "this is what happens in society, men don't know, they think they do/should..."
|
