ROVIN' & RAVIN' WITH
MIKE
Copyright © 2000 by Michael
Segers, All rights reserved
Surviving Survivor
All summer, I had been hearing about the CBS
hit series, Survivor, about water-coolers in offices all across America
crowded with folks discussing the latest episode—not at the water cooler in
the office where I work. But, when I heard commentators on rival network NBC
discussing it, I felt that I should see what was going on out there on that
island. I managed to catch the twelfth—next to the last—episode, but not to
worry, since CBS is going to rebroadcast the whole series during the NBC’s
coverage of the Olympics. Now, as surely everyone in America knows, Rich (not to
mention CBS) is rich, and in coming years, people will remember what they were
doing when the final survivor was announced, much as folks my age recall where
they were when they heard of JFK’s assassination. After all, it is estimated
that almost a half of the television sets in America were tuned to CBS for the
big night.
After I survived an hour of Survivor,
the biggest surprise for me was that I was speechless—something that should
surprise anyone who has roved and raved with me. I have nothing to say about the
show, except who cares? Nodding to ABC’s hit, I suggest that CBS
consider re-naming this soapless opera, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire—This
Badly?
True tribal societies are models of
cooperation, not of the kind of one-upmanship that motivated the people on this
show. Nickelodeon took advantage of Survivor frenzy to have a marathon of
Gilligan’s Island episodes. Perhaps another cable network similarly
took advantage of the situation by showing the 1963 epic of backstabbing, It’s
a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
I got the idea of drawing analogies
between the absurd situation of CBS’s island hell and the absurd situations of
this summer’s extended political ads, the Democratic and Republican national
conventions. I should have learned by now that if I ever have a good idea, I
should quit rovin’ around the Internet, because I will find that someone has
already had it, and instead of an article, I’m left with only a link. But,
this is quite a link, to a collection of editorial cartoons, about half of which
make the connection to the political conventions that I had thought of, with the
rest ranging from Gilligan to Harry Potter to… Fidel Castro! A word of advice:
the first cartoon is repeated about halfway through the series, so don’t think
that you have reached the end so soon. So, get "Survivor! The
Cartoonists' Take on the TV Show."
There is another humorous site dedicated
to Survivor, but unfortunately, I cannot share even its URL on a family
friendly freenet.
Learn more about the island,
Pulau Tiga, which had a peculiar history before CBS discovered it (it was created by
volcanic action on a single day). Not all the island is so rough. Visit the
Pulau Tiga Resort.
The episode that I saw had a Reebok
commercial in which Nate and Brian, two hapless rejects from Survivor or
perhaps from The Blair Witch Project shoot a dog full of arrows. That’s
something to make you want to rush out and buy a new pair of sneakers, isn’t
it? It turns out that the boys have starred in several commercials during the
run of Survivor, including one which CBS declined. You can learn more
about these heroes of television commercials (if you are so inclined) and even
view their banned episode.
The word survivor has in recent
years taken on a special connotation. As far as I know, this process began with
Terence des Pres’s haunting book, The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the
Death Camps. By calling these people survivors, we reclaim them from
victimhood. Not only do they survive, but also, as Faulkner said about the human
race, they prevail. The survivors of the death camps have triumphed over Nazism
or Stalinism; the survivors of child abuse have triumphed over their abusers.
The series Survivor is not
about triumph but about defeat. While I’m sure many of the "social
conservatives" will have a lot to say about a gay nudist winning, I wonder
if they will comment on other signs and symptoms in this island adventure. A few
days after I watched the episode, I spoke with a friend who mentioned that he
too had seen that episode—just that one episode. I asked him what he thought
of it. He said that although he watches a good bit of television, he could not
imagine watching the whole series. Later, I mentioned it to my mother, who has
never been much of a television person but has become quite a fan of Millionaire.
She said, "It just doesn’t sound like anything I want to watch."
Maybe the acorn really doesn’t fall that far from the tree….
If you want to watch some survivors in action, skip the reruns of
the CBS series and instead turn to NBC to marvel at the young people who have
survived their rigorous training and the fierce competition to reach the
Olympics. I’m sure that some of them will go on to become millionaires, but
they will do so the old-fashioned way, with a lot of hard work and
determination, with dry feet (but sweaty workout clothes) and their hearts
full—as I hope yours are—of noble thoughts. Oh, by the way, if you happen to
stumble across a fabulous recipe for rat kebabs, please keep it to yourself!