As TV networks continue to unveil their season premiers, I thought it was time to revisit an issue that has irked me for some time now. Society's fascination with "Survivor", the CBS "reality" show (and I use the term loosely) continues to floor me. I wrote this piece in 2005, but funny enough, it is still as relevant today as it was back then:
Okay... the new TV season has started and yes, we got stuck with another few months of Survivor. I don't remember where they are located this time. Does it really matter? What difference does it make anyway? Yes the faces are different, but it's the same thing...
Anyway... the first year, Survivor was entertaining to me, but this is what, the 9th one now? (or something like that). Each year I seem to get more and more disturbed by the show. Watching this year's season premier made me reflect on what it is that we are actually watching when we tune in to Survivor. On the surface it seems mildly entertaining, but what about the underlying social and psychological aspects? What are we actually watching when we see Jeff Probst hold up a piece of pizza, making his worn, tired, starving, emotionally and physically drained contestants almost burst into tears? It made me think of how sad it is that we, as a society, consider THAT entertaining. What we are actually witnessing is nothing more than a "humanized" version of the experiments BF Skinner did with his lab rats. Skinner demonstrated the learning theory of operant conditioning, using lab rats as a means. It is a learning theory based on rewards. He used food pellets in exchange for "tricks" as it were.... The rats soon learned that by pressing a button, food came down the shoot. They continued to press the button, and food continued to appear. These rats learned all sorts of neat tricks. The same theory applies when we train our pets: the completion of a desired action = a reward. Skinner used rats and treats. CBS uses people and money. It is such a sad social commentary when we have people WILLINGLY put their lives in danger and resort to the lowest common denominator in humanity just to make a buck. These people become neanderthals, humiliating themselves and each other, lie, cheat and back stab. By completely disregarding any sense of human decency and manners, they basically eliminate all the things we teach our kindergarten children, and revert back to uncivilized, cromagnon ways. The best part is -- millions of viewers swallow it whole every single week. Nice.
In fact, I am actually appalled by the fact that our so-called 'civilized' citizens (especially the contestants who line up for miles to be picked) subscribe to these tactics used by CBS and Mark Burnette--well, any reality show for that matter. We claim to be such an elevated species-- far above any other organism on the planet, but in actual fact, we are the ones who are the animals. In fact, I will go as far as to say that we are worse... we have the ability to reason, where an animal does not. They function merely on instinct. Their behaviour is based on survival, not humiliation or greed. As rational human beings with the ability to reason, people who defy their sense of character, humiliate each other (and themselves), put themselves in physical danger, lie, cheat, back stab, and do whatever CBS tells them to do in hopes of winning the prize, are really no different than lab rats. They will continue to jump through the proverbial hoops laid out by CBS, and North American society will continue to watch them do it --and call it great TV.
HAVE YOUR SAY: What is society's fascination with watching other people humiliate themselves? Has reality TV gone too far?
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