Post by Forever Xena on Aug 24, 2006 9:31:25 GMT -6
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14482071/
‘Survivor’s’ new racial divide
Dividing this season’s teams by race is just a bad idea
The tribe has spoken: Dividing the teams by race is just plain creepy.
COMMENTARY
By Linda Holmes
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 4:42 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2006
Leave it to "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett to find the one thing you definitely didn't think he would do. As announced on this morning's "Early Show," the cast of the 13th "Survivor," set in the Cook Islands and scheduled to premiere Sept. 14, will initially square off in teams divided by race. That's right: the season will begin with a bloated cast of 20, and they will be divided into four tribes, which the show is calling the White Tribe, the African-American Tribe, the Asian-American Tribe and the Hispanic Tribe. If your reaction is "oof," you are not alone.
Given its long history, "Survivor" has been surprisingly resilient, but its greatest challenge has been avoiding staleness. Burnett and his team of strategic mad scientists have unveiled tribe shuffles, season themes like pirates and volcanoes, and most recently the division of teams, for a brief time, by gender and age — older men, older women, younger men, and younger women.
But nothing compares to this. It's not even sporting to rattle off the reasons why it's a terrible idea. Start with the fact that it smells like an attempt to "represent" everyone, and expecting five people to be representative of millions or billions is begging for trouble. Consider what happens if, for reasons unrelated to race, four of the first five people to leave are Asian? What if the final four are all black? Or all white? What do those headlines look like?
Dividing this season’s teams by race is just a bad idea
The tribe has spoken: Dividing the teams by race is just plain creepy.
COMMENTARY
By Linda Holmes
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 4:42 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2006
Leave it to "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett to find the one thing you definitely didn't think he would do. As announced on this morning's "Early Show," the cast of the 13th "Survivor," set in the Cook Islands and scheduled to premiere Sept. 14, will initially square off in teams divided by race. That's right: the season will begin with a bloated cast of 20, and they will be divided into four tribes, which the show is calling the White Tribe, the African-American Tribe, the Asian-American Tribe and the Hispanic Tribe. If your reaction is "oof," you are not alone.
Given its long history, "Survivor" has been surprisingly resilient, but its greatest challenge has been avoiding staleness. Burnett and his team of strategic mad scientists have unveiled tribe shuffles, season themes like pirates and volcanoes, and most recently the division of teams, for a brief time, by gender and age — older men, older women, younger men, and younger women.
But nothing compares to this. It's not even sporting to rattle off the reasons why it's a terrible idea. Start with the fact that it smells like an attempt to "represent" everyone, and expecting five people to be representative of millions or billions is begging for trouble. Consider what happens if, for reasons unrelated to race, four of the first five people to leave are Asian? What if the final four are all black? Or all white? What do those headlines look like?