Why I Will Never Watch Survivor Again

Why I Will Never Watch Survivor Again

Every semester I assign my ‘Taking the Red Pill’ students a project called Amazonius. They have to create a new place in the world from land carved out of three existing countries in South America. Already problematic, isn’t it? With echoes of the Middle East? That is precisely my point. After a few weeks of studying society and how we live within our own ‘Matrix’, we start looking to possible alternative ways of constructing a world that takes into account the entire ecosystem. I want them to create a new world, with new universals. The old ways, our currents ways, have led us to an environmental, economic, social and humanitarian nightmare. I want the kids to think differently and to make real changes. Sooner than later.

I have always secretly wanted to go on Survivor. It’s the idea of making new world, Lord of the Flies-style that excited me. I imagined Jeff Probst coming up with a hilariously insulting nickname for me, or maybe something more benign, like ‘Teach.’ I could see myself sitting around the fire, telling scary stories at night. Survivor seems genuinely hard, doesn’t it, even though it’s a television show? Who doesn’t want to challenge themselves for 40 days, to see what you are really made of? I wanted to know. I wanted to see if I could survive all of it — backstabbing liars, harsh weather, hunger, extreme thirst.

Not showering.

And then, the pig killing happened.I was in university when it happened and I remember my friend Antje and I being appalled. In 2002, Mike Skupin killed a little black pig, smeared its blood on his face and danced around the camp like a white man impersonating what he thought an aboriginal hunter would do. People were naturally horrified by the cruelty of the killing, and it wasn’t just the vegetarians. He sharpened a stick and stabbed what appeared to be young, tame domesticated pig. It was sickening. According to ABC News, the event perhaps had even violated Queensland’s Animal Protection Act, and the government’s animal welfare department along with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was investigating. (Shortly after, Skupin was arrested, charged and convicted of child pornography.) Would this be the end of the gratuitous killing, I wondered? I was horrified by the use of animals, not just as commodities and food sources, but as a twisted form of entertainment. Why else would child pornographer Skupin smear the blood on his face and strut proudly about? What was next?

No. I wanted to see more people like Tai Trang, the 51-year old gardener who worked very hard to save a chicken earmarked as food, from slaughter during Season 32. Despite being misunderstood and even a bit laughed at, Tai eventually brought the other cast mates around and ‘Mark’ the chicken was spared. “We cannot be so human-centric, because without everything, the whole-ecosystem, we will be doomed sooner than we think we will be,” he said, echoing my own philosophy. Humans feel like everything revolves around us and we are the only living thing that matters in the universe. That is why we eat what we want, we kill what we want, we wear the skin of other living beings as fashion. That is why Skupin painted his face with that little pig’s blood. Indeed, Tai made such an impact that the famous pop star Sia showed up, unannounced, to the Survivor finale and gave Tai $100,000; 50 for him and 50 for an animal rights charity of his choosing. “I could not let Tai go home without saying that your authenticity and care for animals really inspired me,” she told him.

I thought this was a turning point in the show and perhaps in our evolution. Would the show turn a corner? Were we moving forward and considering the whole environment?

Alas no.

Not the goats they killed and ate. Just cute pygmy goats.

I started watching Game Changers. Then I saw a ‘next episode’ preview with Sandra and the gang chasing some goats around and I knew. I knew they were going to kill that mama goat and the baby and I was sick to my stomach. Survivor pretended that the goats were not killed but as Sandra told EW: “But, I would have to say that the next episode when you got to see us eating these big pieces of meat? That is not fish and that is not chicken. And that’s the last I’m going to say about that.” So they killed the goats and they ate them. And they tried to make us believe they didn’t. But they did.

Back to Amazonius and building a new world. Three quarters of the students stick to the same paradigm of the Western Industrial Capitalist world. They mine the diamonds and gold, they cut down the trees and clear the rainforests, they establish similar governments and so on. But one quarter of the students inevitably surprise me with original choices to building a life, a city, a country, a world. They experiment with atypical fuel sources, alternate sources of generating energy, food, housing and THEY ABSOLUTELY MAKE MY SEMESTER. Much like the young students right now are challenging America and the NRA to change things up, my students step it up to challenge and rethink the way we see our supremacy over nature and the Earth.

I realise reality shows are under no obligation to impart moral lessons to us, but that is not an excuse for needless and audacious violence. Shouldn’t we at least try to elevate, rather than degenerate, as a species? As I write this, however, I read about a new show being planned by Netflix, that seems to offer a resounding ‘NO’ to my question. The world is turning into an increasingly gothic dystopia while we sit on our couches, binge-watching the whole thing.

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