Survivor: Samoa premiered on CBS a couple weeks ago and I have to admit that this season seems to be a bit more exciting than the previous few. The biggest reason why? Producers found a new supervillian in oil tycoon Russell. But at what cost?
The game has had its fair share of villains, most noticeably Big Gay Richard from the first season and the always conniving Johnny Fairplay. Russell is hoping to go down in history as the bad guy who won big, and so far his antics have been successful. The two people who stood in his way, who noticed that he may not be the man who he claims to be, have been sent packing.
And who does he claim to be? He has told fellow castaways that he is a Hurricane Katrina victim who lost his dog to the flood waters. He's a big dumb country boy who works hard physically and gets a bad rap from dumb girls who aren't contributing enough. In actuality, he's an oil Tycoon from Texas who appears to be an incredibly sexist, power-hungry masculinity trope whose gameplay includes dumping everyone's water out of their canteens. Most of this I take no issue with. I don't care about their water; I actually think that keeping the camp in disarray makes people point fingers and as long as the fingers aren't predisposed in your direction it's a good tactic. And the must talked about lie about Hurricane Katrina? I don't care what people on the internet are saying, lies are necessary to win this game. Hatch lied to everyone and won a million and Johnny Fairplay's dead Grandmother lie was perhaps the best piece of gameplay ever. These shows are as much about my observance of human nature as they are about the manipulation of this nature.
I am, however, observing something pretty troubling. Evil Russell is a masogonistic ass. And he's being rewarded for his trouble. In the first day on the island, Russell makes alliances with three of the young, attractive girls on the island. He then promptly names this the "Dumb Girl Alliance". What exactly made them dumb? Well, they're young and attractive of course. And those two things can never coexist with intelligence. Look at me. I'm dumb as a fucking rock. Russell goes on to let the cameras know that he will be manipulating the girls because they're stupid and easily manipulated. A large male who believes that women can and should be easily manipluated because they belong to the inferior sex. Sounds like my kind of guy. Except that his assertions aren't right at all. In the past two weeks two of the women have gotten leery of Russell's creepy ways (see, girls--even dumb ones-- can spot a dickhead a mile away) and expressed their distrust to Russell. Seeing red at these vaginas having opinions, he has convinced a tribe full of men who buy into these tropes and the women who are too scared to stand against them to send these independent voices home.
I guess the masogony is contagious because Ben, a member of the team hit a girl in the face during the challenge and everyone was cool with it. Cool enough not to vote him off. When Jeff Probst (who seems genuinely concerned about the level of sexist behavior being displayed) questions another male member of the tribe about the incident he replies, "That's how Bennie rolls basically. The guy doesn't just show teeth, he bites." Yeah guys, he doesn't just display idle threats to small women. He punches them in the fucking face. He's a man.
Alas, this is what reality television does. It holds a mirror up to society and says, "Jesus, you guys are messed up! Anybody want to watch a train wreck?" Train wreck indeed.
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