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What can Survivor do about the increasing racism among its fan base?

  • Survivor 41 is the first Survivor season to premiere after CBS announced last year that all unscripted programs will feature casts that are at least half people of color. According to Reality Blurred's Andy Dehnart, this has led to more racism among Survivor fans. "Survivor did not create racism in our society, of course, nor did CBS, showrunner Jeff Probst, or executive producer Mark Burnett," says Dehnart. "They also don’t control who watches their shows, and fans are responsible for their own bigoted comments and reactions. But I think Survivor has contributed to it, and in several different ways. To its credit, CBS, via its social media team, is celebrating the cast’s diversity and the open and honest discussions of their experiences, with posts like this one (from contestant Danny McCray). But CBS is also allowing racist comments, so it’s just a tiny scroll from Danny’s quote to the racism. On Facebook, it’s not possible to turn comments off—after all, Facebook profits when we’re all angry at each other—but it is possible to filter out certain words and phrases. CBS could also just do better at moderating—and if they are moderating comments, it’s quite ineffective. On Twitter, they could turn off replies, or hide the vile ones. The show’s mistakes began in pre-production. The biggest error was to fundamentally alter the game of Survivor this season at the same time the cast’s composition changed so dramatically. Instead of trusting their cast, producers decided to to manufacture drama with twists that repeatedly undercut and undermined everything we love about this game. Survivor gave its bigoted fans a clear line of thinking: this cast is ruining their favorite show. The same thing happened during the first episode, with the absolutely inept decision to blame the players for a small change that Jeff Probst could have made on his own: dropping 'guys' from 'come on in, guys.' The change is ultimately so minuscule that most of us wouldn’t have noticed, but by calling such explicit attention to it (in two separate scenes), the show invited fans to draw a connection, blaming the cast for changes they didn’t like. Meanwhile, the editing has been incredibly clumsy, introducing characters with long bio packages and flashbacks to their home life, instead of just letting us meet them organically. I appreciate getting to know the players, but the storytelling this season has favored exposition, and that feels like a lecture rather than character development inside a narrative." As Dehnart notes, Survivor has frequently been disappointing when it comes to race, going back to Season 1, despite having casts that have been more diverse than other network shows.

    TOPICS: Survivor, CBS, Jeff Probst, Diversity, Reality TV