Race to the Finish

Survivor: Cook Islands is about to reach the air, but it has already been the object of intense gossiping. (Still no such thing as bad publicity.) In late August word spread like the wildfire that contestants would begin the competition divvied up by race.

I think.

If this article in the Calgary Sun is any indication, the host himself is less than clear on the criteria for team membership:

"[Probst:] 'Ultimately, to win this game, you’re voting people out that are then on the jury that have to come back and vote for you. So, the person who wins is actually going to do the best job of merging with all different ethnicities.'"

He even throws off the staff writer trying to make sense of the whole mess:

"Probst says dividing the tribes by race is not meant to promote segregation, but to encourage the different cultures to mix."

Evidently we media consumers are to assume all those categories are synonymous or linked in some direct and unproblematic way. Or perhaps we should just assume that they are as far as journalists and game show hosts are concerned. Either way it ain't pretty.

Not to set myself up as social-theory cop, but this kind of terminological messiness does a disservice to anyone who wants to figure out what Survivor 13 might mean for the pop cultural world we inhabit. I'm pretty sure this would include many viewers of the show.

For instance, why do European-Americans consistently form the largest and most eager segment of the applicant pool--so much so that producers had to go out of their way to find nonwhites? Do you want to stick with the hack stand-up shibboleths about [insert group here]? Or do you want the chance for some deeper insight?

Well, treating race, culture, and ethnicity as interchangeable doesn't help. Nor does using phenotypic differences (which don't cluster into distinct races) as proxies for culturally-based groupings like ethnicity. Nor does assuming that differences in appearance or self-identification are the most salient factors, especially considering the majority of this season's contestants come from California.

I'd encourage you to look for editorial enlightening from my anthropological colleagues. However, as of this writing, no one has stepped up to that plate. Maybe the October edition of Anthropology News will feature some commentary. I fear that, even if anthropologists articulate a disciplinary position clearly or provide really thoughtful analysis, it's going to follow the way of all anthro-apology and diffuse out into the ether with no discernible impact. Until we can infiltrate soundstages and scriptwriting sessions - there's some applied anthropology! - we're just not going to make any difference, positive or otherwise.

What Survivor's competitors need is native peoples from their filming locations to show up and bust some knowledge upside their heads--like about what it means to be racialized, ethnicized, acculturated, marginalized, and otherwise buffeted by colonial governments and the mass culture industry. In this case the lesson should be delivered at the end of a spear by a cadre of grimacing, menacing Maori warriors. Aaaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!!