Sunday, August 27, 2006

Survivor & Race: Pearl Islands, All Stars, Guatemala

Continuing with my observations.

Pearl Islands: Osten and Tijuana were on the Morgan tribe. Sandra, a Puerto Rican, was on the Drake tribe. Tijuana was described as "over-excited by things" by Nicole, a white female teammate 10 minutes into episode 1. Nicole was voted out that same episode. The Drake tribe started out really well because Sandra, the only one who spoke Spanish, was able to work out good deals for supplies. That was the only time in the series that Sandra stuck her neck out.

Osten, who had traded all but his drawers for supplies, talked of quitting early in episode 2. Tijuana talked him out of temporarily, but when the team lost their second immunity challenge, he asked the tribe to vote him out. The tribe's leader, Andrew, told him they needed his “physical strength.” Despite Osten's wishes, he wasn't voted out -- a frail white teammate was voted out instead.

In episode three, Osten was chosen as the physically strongest member and had to hold a teammate suspended over water for two hours. He failed to beat Rupert, but still didn't get voted out. Osten finally exited the game in episode 7 after once again asking to be voted out. No vote was actually done -- Jeff, the show's host, simply extinguished his torch. Then Jeff made a big deal out of this and kept calling the guy a quitter like he owed him or something.

Tijuana was later blindsided by the scheming Johnny “Fairplay” and was the 10th person voted out. She was one of the few black women not to be considered "strong," but like Linda from Survivor: Africa, there was an early attempt to paint her as crazy or high-strung.

Sandra, the latina, won the game by never being seen as a threat.

Survivor All Stars: Alicia from Survivor: Outback was the twelfth person voted off and the third member of the jury. She was not targeted, but she was described as “having a big mouth” by Boston Rob, the good friend of Sean from Survivor: Marquesas.

Guatemala: No black contestants, so I didn't watch it. CBS has probably realized that other people of color do the same thing when it comes to these reality shows. So if white viewership is down, there needs to be some way to boost the numbers. Hence, they've increased the number of contestants to 20 for Survivor: Cook Islands and only five of them are white.

I ain't done yet, there's one more post on this topic.

Technorati tags: Survivor | Diversity | Race | Reality Shows

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