Keeping a long-running TV show like Survivor fresh after 13 seasons is a tricky job, but Survivor producers seem to have it cracked – the new season of Survivor is all about the racial segregation.
Survivor's decision to use the new season to pit teams of black, Asian, Hispanic and Caucasian islanders against each other has caused all kinds of controversy; not necessarily a bad thing since controversy equals viewers and viewers equals cash – just so long as Survivor's sponsors don't freak out at the idea and drop the show like a hot turd. And, would you believe it, that's exactly what's just happened – General Motors has decided it wants nothing more to do with Survivor. Whoops.
Here in England, Survivor was never really a hit – if we want to see people doing horrific things in a jungle, it'd had better be people who haven't been famous for 20 years on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here or we're just not interested. But American's can't get enough of Survivor – it's about to start its 13th season of watching people stand on a log in the sea for three days and abnormally complicated voting procedures.
Only, Survivor is bringing something new to the table this time – it's exploiting good old-fashioned racial tensions. For the first time in the show's history, the contestants on Survivor 13 will be segregated into teams according to their race. There'll be an Asian team, a black team, a Caucasian team and a Hispanic team, all seeing who can stand on a log in the sea for the longest. Survivor's producers are no doubt hoping that the show will prove that the world is a happy rainbow of people and we all can't live without each other, but Survivor's sponsor GM doesn't agree – it's cacked it and buggered off.
Not that GM is admitting that it's leaving Survivor because of all this racial hoo-ha, though – it's simply because Survivor doesn't have enough product placement opportunities. GM slave Ryndee Carney says:
"I think it's just a coincidence. I know it's not cause and effect… There's a limited number of possibilities as to how you can integrate a car or truck."
So it's just an unfortunate coincidence that GM announced it was pulling out of Survivor a couple of days after this whole racial thing was announced, and politicians demanded that the show be taken off the air, then. Survivor itself agrees with GM's versions of events, as CBS slave Chris Ender says:
"They notified us several months ago, well before the plans for the upcoming format were put into motion."
However, this still leaves Survivor without a sponsor and – what with all this racial controversy – it looks unlikely to pick a new one. Now, as far as we can see, Survivor can go two ways here; option one is to do what we secretly suspect it wants to and, since the show doesn't have a sponsor, replace the existing contestants with a selection of militantly fundamentalist right-wing racists, while option two is to pander to the audience and Survivor sponsors, drop the race aspect of the show and replace it with a Battle Of The Reality TV Douchebags theme, starring tax-evading Richard Hatch and the man who shot a puppy with a bow and arrow standing on a log in the sea for a bit.
Read more:
GM Drives Away From Survivor – E! Online
[story by Stuart Heritage]
TypicalBS says
Nice headline, yet is not indicitive of what happen is it?? They pulled out long before they ever knew about this “racial” thing. But nooooo, this is just typical of the world we live in. This is why I can’t stand liberals because they have no clue when or why to pick a fight or make a stand. The only thing I hat more than liberals are republicans. The two party system is killing America, please can’t we get a moderate mind? Someone who thinks?? PLEASE!?!?!?