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So the new season of "Survivor" will base its four "tribes" on race: black, Hispanic, white and Asian.
The fallout is pinning the Geiger counters, and the CBS show's slinky producers are cringing all the way to the bank.
Political leaders have called for the show to be cancelled. A protest rally was held in Manhattan. Bloggers are losing
their minds with outrage or delight. Rush Limbaugh is race-baiting his fat butt off with quips about how this will be a tough
one to handicap because of the athleticism of the blacks versus the oppressor skills of the whites versus the brainy Asians...
you get the idea. "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett, in his best imitation of a guy taken aback by all the furor,
is making Multiculturalism 101 statements to the press about how the race angle is no big deal, how the show has previously
done gender and age, how this season's version will reveal that race matters less than we think.
It's an absolute marketing stroke for a show with sagging ratings, that's for sure. Burnett and his network cohorts are
not as dumb as they act. The brilliance of the "Survivor" idea has always been the way it seizes the predator-prey
paranoia of contemporary America -- you know, the whole fashionably selfish pre-fascistic thing -- and makes it personal.
In the jungle. On an island of no escape. Unless you're voted off, that is.
No question, Burnett and his team of me-sellers at "Survivor" headquarters are smart folks with a keen eye for
how to play the public mood for the sake of attention and ad revenues.
But I have to say, they made one whopper of a strategic mistake with this battle-of-the-races thing.
They left out the racists.
I know, it's hard to believe. I mean, how can you base an entire season of a fear-and-abuse-themed show on race and not
include the most fearful and abusive of the would-be candidates: the racists? But, appallingly, that is what Burnett and company
did. They have admitted it publicly. The show's producers have said, right out loud, without a trace of shame, that they deliberately
filtered the racists and the bigots and the name-callers out of this season's "Survivor" selection process. So what
we have left, as the season begins, is four racially-motivated gangs stripped unceremoniously of the one thing that racially-motivated
gangs do: stoke their sore egos with racial heat and then turn the blowtorch on other people.
Can you believe what a bunch of wimps Burnett and his producers are? What a gaggle of panty-waists. What a craven crew
of lily-livered little wusses.
Here we could have had a greasy-haired white guy in combat boots and an Iron Maiden T-shirt yell to his juiced-up tribemates
on prime-time international television, "Let's show those fucking niggers what we ought to be doing to the sand niggers
over in I-Rock!"
We could have had an Angry African-American and a Seething Latino spitting venom within mere inches of each other's faces,
with the Hispanic screaming, "Why don't you black people want to work? Huh? Why won't you work?!" and the black
person yelling, "Why don't you wetbacks learn the damn language and play by the rules? How come my goddamn taxes are
supposed to pay for you?!"
We could have had an Asian contestant sneering at a Caucasian, "What, you want me to do the math for you? Huh? Be
your handy little computer? Work it out for yourself, white girl."
We could have had straight-up racial profiling along the nightly-traveled island trails. We could have had drive-by (so
to speak) epithets by torchlight. White women pulling nervously downward on the tattered hems of their jungle skirts in the
presence of black men. White males yelling out, "Whoo, Conchita! Arriba, arriba!" at female Hispanic contestants
on the beach. Black women bitching out blond white women for thinking they're so irresistible. Hispanic men bitching out black
women for being so strong. Asian contestants bitching out everybody for feeling so sorry for themselves.
We could have had, in other words, real-life racism on TV. We could have seen the kinds of racial behavior that people
usually fling at one another through car windows or across rows of seats at a football game -- but this time on an island
where no one can drive away or hide. We could have heard the kinds of racial remarks that angry whites and Hispanics and blacks
and Asians often mutter confidentially to one another within the safety of their own groups -- but this time on network television
where the entire world can eavesdrop.
But no. Instead we get -- well, what DO we get? A televised diversity class where participants don't say what they wish
they could? A four-sided summit whose members all try to make a good impression in front of a prime-time TV audience as the
perceived representatives of "their" people? Or, as the show's producers seem to be assuring us, do we get something
much more like the typical "Survivor" ordeal, in which behavior devolves quickly into a primordial state oozing
somewhere far beneath race or gender or any other realm worth thinking about?
What a waste. Here is a chance to train the cameras on one of the things our nation does best -- an extended, intimately
personal riot over race -- and on an island, no less, with no gated communities allowed. But it's preempted before it can
happen because the show's producers are a bunch of trembling weenies who are afraid of the things that prejudiced people might
actually say. (And speaking of CBS' fraidy-cat quotient, have you noticed that Arab Americans are not one of the represented
groups?)
But before you get too glum about the lost opportunity, consider the good news: Burnett and his crack staff are not as
smart as they think. They may believe they have successfully filtered out any prejudiced contestants. But you and I know that's
impossible. If you're an American, you've got bigotry in you. Somewhere.
Okay, people: Places, everyone! And... ACTION!
© 2006 Bruce A. Jacobs (Posted 8/28/06)
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