Friday 14 September 2012

Survivor's Women

Jeff Probst recently lit a fire in the internet fandom by giving his theory as to why they don't bring back female returnees. (Video at Entertainment Weekly; transcript and reaction at Reality Blurred.) Speaking as a woman, it is safe to say I am not in full agreement with Jeff.


A Problem of Quantity, not Quality
One of the big problems that Jeff didn't account for is the amount of women who make it to the jury.  Jurors get a boost to their memorability because they will at least be on screen for the entire run of the season.  Generally speaking, if you get booted before the jury, you won't be coming back. (The upcoming Philippines being a notable exception; see also Boston Rob and Bobby Jon.)

In half of the 24 Survivor seasons aired, there have been more men than women left in the game at the time the jury starts.  In eight seasons, the women have had the majority, and four seasons have had the genders equally matched.  Bear in mind that the equally matched seasons have only been possible since Cook Islands, when they started tinkering around with the jury-starts-at-nine-players-left format.  If we look at those twelve most recent seasons, six have had a male majority, two have had a female one--Micronesia and Heroes vs Villains. (All-Stars also had a female majority, which probably says something about how returning players play, but that's another topic.)

In all fairness, the first true example of gender disparity was in Vanuatu where the ratio was 1:2 in favour of women at the time the jury started.  However, since then, we've had three seasons of 2:1 in favour of men: Fiji, Redemption Island and South Pacific.

I'm not sure why this is.  Perhaps starting the jury a few votes early has benefited all those alpha males who were previously on the bubble when they got voted off for being an individual immunity threat.  Perhaps it's just a current trend--after all, there was a four season run starting in All Stars where women had the majority at the jury-stage.  And there are probably a multitude of other factors which would require analysis of the individual season.

Nevertheless, in recent seasons there are more men than women making it to the second half of the game, which brings more possibilities for being remembered.  More screentime, the potential for individual challenge glory, flipping, the last member of an alliance standing, idol-plays, power-struggles...  Perhaps if the Powers That Be are concerned about the lack of memorable women, their first step should be to look at how to get a bigger pool of women to choose from.

Casting
This brings us to casting, which was one of the factors Probst was worried about.   Are they casting women capable of getting to the jury stage, without just being a pawn in other people's games?  What can they do to improve that?

For me, the big thing is to tone down the eye candy.  Take the upcoming season which has not one but two beauty queens.  Or how about South Pacific where their female footballer, Mikayla, was from the lingerie league.  Actually, if you take just about any season, you can expect four or five women in their twenties, all of whom will look like models even if they aren't. I am very tired of that homogenised beauty.

The older women are less likely to be cast for sexiness (though many of them are the more attractive for it), and I don't think it's a coincidence that they tend to be the bigger personalities.  Unfortunately, they're also the ones who are (usually) weaker physically, thus more likely to get voted off early and forgotten.  To be fair to casting, I do think they've done a great job recently in finding athletic older women (Dawn springs to mind, but all of South Pacific's older ladies were strong physically and the same for One World).

My casting suggestion?  Have just one or two Hot Girls (perhaps one per tribe).  Cast the rest of the young girls based on personality.  If you go recruiting, go recruiting from extreme sports or iron man or something, not from the pages of a Victoria Secret catalogue.  Be aware that the Parvati-game has been rumbled, so the outgoing flirt is less likely to get to the end (Brenda from Nicaragua, or more drastically, Elyse from South Pacific).  Go hunting for a different kind of female player to celebrate.

I mean that.  Celebrate her.

Stop Putting Baby in the Corner
One of the most startling things in Jeff's explanation was not directly related to gender.  He talked about casting returning players who could carry the season by themselves.  I think this possibly highlights the biggest problem of all.  Survivor is and always should be an ensemble piece.  On the other hand, Jeff is absolutely right, because recently the editing has steered away from that and put the focus on one leading man, leaving the rest as supporting players.

It's always a leading man, never a leading lady.  Three of the last four seasons with female winners have not been about how she won, but about how a guy lost.  For Natalie and Sandra, it was Russell (yes, back-to-back How Russell Lost; thank-you, editors), and for Sophie (to a lesser extent), it was Coach.  Kim escaped that fate, but then she had an all female final five--and even then, the first half of the game was all about Colton before his merciful med-evac.

I don't think this is intentional sexism on the part of the producers, rather that subjectivity is the defining factor.  I tend to be more interested in the female players because I am female.  They are more interested in the male players, and so, when they come to pick out the storyline for the show, they cast their favourite (invariably male) player in the lead role, limiting the women's screentime and limiting their chances to make an impact.

Case Study, Heroes vs. Villains
One of the big storylines in the first half of this season was the power struggle in the villains tribe between Russell and Rob. Coach was set up as the lynchpin, with Russell trying to woo him away from Rob's alliance. In the end, however, it was Jerri who was flipped and changed the course of the game (Tyson's error aside).

Jerri allied with Rob early on and despised Parvati, but she never trusted Rob (who made the mistake of only giving her cursory attention) and was smart enough to be aware that she was at the bottom of his totem pole. Sandra believed that Jerri trusted her the most and that she would always be able to talk her round, but as it turned out, she wasn't able to stop Jerri investigating other options. Parvati promised her final four, and Russell promised her final three. With that deal, Jerri made her choice, turning on Rob, and because Jerri had Coach's loyalty far more than either of the two R's, she was able to persuade him to flip with her. (He voted for Courtney rather than directly turning on Rob, but the effect was the same.)

I had to glean most of the above from watching the web-clips on the CBS site. What we saw on the show was the battle for Coach's affections with the occasional clip of an unhappy Jerri.  Then suddenly Russell and Parvati asked Jerri to flip, and she agreed.

 I could maybe buy that Coach was edited as a red herring, but why was Jerri relegated to his love interest for the first few episodes? Why did we never see her and Sandra talking? Sandra was a great character, ended up winning the whole danged thing, and got Jerri voted off in the end (equally, Jerri was within a whisker of getting the final immunity, which would probably have put Sandra in the last jury position).

Sandra, Parvati and Jerri were all candid, opinionated women who were playing hard and appeared in every episode of the season. Even if the producers thought Rob, Russell and Coach made for better television, I find it hard to believe that they couldn't have edited a few minutes from their storyline and crafted one for the women instead.

Demographics: the opposite of opposites attract 
When Gillian Larson got voted off second in Gabon, I read an interview with Jeff where he said that wasn't a problem, because Gillian was never going to be a great character anyway. I was baffled at the time, because I loved Gillian. It wasn't that I thought she was going to be a driving force in the game, but she was kooky, constantly over the moon at actually being on Survivor and had wacky insider African survival tactics. (Elephant poop! Come on!)

On the flipside, Jeff lists Amanda in his shortlist of memorable women (alongside Cirie and Parvati), and I have absolutely no idea what makes Amanda memorable. Her appalling tribal council performances? She's pretty and athletic, but that's a dime a dozen when it comes to Survivor contestants. I liked her well enough in China but was surprised that she was cast for Fans vs. Favorites. (If you were going to choose a single female character out of China for memorability, surely it should have been Peih Gee?) By the time she was finished in Heroes vs Villains, I was bored stiff with her.

I always tend to root for the older women though, because that's the demographic I'd be in (just barely, at 34, but on Survivor, that qualifies). I'm married with children and have a good idea of what my career path is from this point... I don't have a lot in common with the twenty-something fashionistas.  I also don't have a penis, so I can't really relate to the testosterone brigade.

Jeff, clearly, is not an older woman, and neither is Mark Burnett.  It's only to be expected that their favourite characters are male (and that most of their favourite women are models).  I know women do work on the show (in casting, even!) but I predict that a lot of the editing decisions are made by men.

Pro-tip: a lot of women watch Survivor, Jeff, and all the ones I know usually have a woman they're rooting for.  Take the gamble, restore Survivor to its ensemble origins and tell the women's story as well, even if you don't find it as exciting.  Get more female opinions on the production side maybe.  I think you'll be surprised at the reception to these 'dull' women.

Made The List?  Check It Twice
Even after everything I've said above, is it really so hard to find memorable women from the ranks of former players?  Let me have a go.

I'm going to restrict myself to the ten most recent seasons (China onwards), because the viewing public has short-term memories, and only women who made the jury or finals and did not quit!  I'll ignore Cirie and Parvati, since Probst already listed them, but whether or not players have (or will have) returned is otherwise not a factor.

I consider all of the below to be women who were compelling to watch and/or had at least one really memorable moment.  This is not necessarily a list of women I want to see back (some of them I don't want on my screen again any more than Russell Hantz), and I have omitted some women who I would love to see back, just because I don't think they fit the definition of 'memorable' that the producers are looking for (then again, they do keep casting Amanda).

China - Peih Gee; Jaime; Courtney
Micronesia - Eliza; Natalie
Gabon - Corrine; Sugar
Tocantins - Taj
Samoa - Laura; Shambo
Heroes vs Villains - Sandra
Nicaragua - Brenda; Jane
Redemption Island - n/a (editing just sucked for everybody but Rob and Phillip)
South Pacific - Dawn 
One World - Alicia; Kat; Kim

That's seventeen players, Probst.  Add in Cirie, Parvati and Amanda, and you've got enough for an entire season (perhaps a return to the Amazon is in order?).  The ball's in your corner.

5 comments:

  1. Awesome article. Hoping someone in Survivor world is listening!

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    1. I'm sure there's a wealth of stuff that I have no idea about with casting and editing, so I'm not really expecting TPTB to use this as their business model from now on. On the other hand, I really would love for them to bring Peih Gee back.

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  2. Great post. I generally like Jeff Probst as the host, but his sexist attitudes can be too much sometimes. The only reason he lists Amanda as an interesting player is because of her looks. The casting has been disappointing overall in recent years, but especially with women. When almost everyone lists Parvati as their model for game play, it gets old. I do think there's potential this season with Lisa and Denise, but we'll see how it goes.

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    1. Yeah, I think Jeff generally does a really good job as the host, but I never agree with his opinions over who the good characters are.

      I think the female line-up for the current season is actually very promising (beauty queens aside). OK, so the girls are all implausibly good looking, but RC seems to be everybody's favourite to win without any comparisons to Parvati, Denise is just fantastic as an athletic and pragmatic older woman, and Dawson looks like she can't *not* be memorable.

      I suppose we'll see if Jeff shares my appreciation post-show.

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    2. I'm with you on Jeff's weird assessments. His continued love of a guy like James and other pretty bland guys still kind of baffles me. And I won't even get started on Russell...

      I am excited by this cast. I think a lot of the women look interesting, and the returning guys aren't your typical over-the-top villains.

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