an answer to the god-question and an icky feeling

Yes, Virginia, there is a God. There quite simply must be. This whole Survivor: All-Stars freakshow hasn't ended in total disappointment. Even though Rob and Amber ended up with the money, the magazine covers, the guest spots on Letterman, Leno, and Oprah, and a big fat wedding, Rupert still came out on top (in my humble opinion, of course!)

I have to say, though, something happened to me during this season of Survivor. Something snapped. Or crumbled. Or melted. Or withered. Or got moldy. I'm not sure what it was, but I left this season with a very icky feeling. The kind of feeling that might make someone not want to ever watch again. Can you imagine?

And, scary enough, I think I owe it all to Jerri. Remember her? She's the one I hated from the Australia season. In the middle of the little "town hall" after the big finale, she was saying something about how the show is fundamentally all about entertainment. The audience booed. Loudly. After the commercial break, Jerri's seat was empty, and Jeff pointed out that she had left.

Television can be nasty sometimes, and I think Jerri was trying to remind "the mob" that these were real people on their television screens, not just actors. And when someone looked like a villain on TV, it didn't necessarily mean that they were a bad person in real life. Let's face it. CBS took hundreds of hours of footage and put it all in a big casserole dish. But when they took it out of the oven, they had to make sure it tasted good . . . so they cut our pieces for us and served it to us, hot and steamy on paper plates.

(And boy did we eat it up!)

But in the end, it really was just television. And I feel a little bit icky having been a slave to it these past 16 weeks. Why was I so susceptible?

Well, for one thing, these people (television producers) are really good at what they do. They get paid lots and lots of money to make sure I keep my ass on that couch every week. (Yeah, million dollars? Ha! Ask someone at CBS who really won Survivor.)

And another thing is that group dynamics are fascinating to me. I love this stuff. In the beginning, I think I fancied myself a little bit of a Survivor, actually. And I loved watching these real people struggle through different challenges to come out on top. Great stuff.

But I don't think I would ever apply for the show now. I could never win, for one thing (except the Rupert award, maybe). And I don't think I like the kinds of messages it perpetuates in our country. Where's the game shows that promote non-violence, trust, and intimacy? Come to think of it, where are the television shows that promote those things? Hmmmmm. I guess they don't sell cars and trucks, do they?

So it's late now, and I've been ranting for a bit, and I don't mean to sound as if I'm never going to watch television again. I'm sure I will. But it sure felt icky tonight. And maybe that's the start of something . . .

Posted: Thu - May 13, 2004 at 10:07 PM

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an answer to the god-question and an icky feeling

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