Schreiner’s Media Landscape

“Survivor” for me is like baseball: I don’t care until the playoffs and even then it’s iffy. Having been in TV for 31 years, I don’t have the same emotional relationship most people have with the glowing box. Instead of the font of all knowledge and entertainment, to me it’s still a glowing box. I consider “Survivor” a game show, not some kind of morality play where the powerful are vanquished and the meek inherit the earth: or as in the latest “Samoa” rendition, a million dollars.

But that’s what happened Sunday when Natalie was proclaimed by a jury of her peers a.k.a. the other losers the winner over Russell even though she spent the entire game in a form of catatonia, doing nothing but praying for divine guidance while riding Russell’s long, red, pointy tail and carrying his pitchfork. Dispicable as he was, Russell was clearly the superior player and most interesting (for viewers) . Yet he lost. Why? Regardless of what the jury (eliminated players) said on the show, what they did was punish Russell for:

1) Being the best and easily the most interesting player (you can bet CBS will bring him back)

2) Being honest when he said he will do anything to win including lie (he warned everyone and they didn’t listen)

3) Being a wealthy oil executive who started his own company

4) Because they lost, they’re still mad, and can’t handle reality

After the recent collapse of America’s banks, real estate industry and resulting recession, this is likely an expression of contempt and revenge against successful, powerful people with money and relative morals like Russell. It certainly has nothing to do with a “game.” But it’s also a pathetic and childish reaction of rewarding dependency, weakness and politesse in a game where supposedly only the strong “survive.” You kn0w, just like life- except not really. Natalie wins because she somehow “deserves” or “needs” the money and Russell doesn’t even though he earned it and she merely enabled him.

You win by hiding in the shadows until everyone else is done with the heavy lifting. Nice.

This is consistent however, with America’s current lifestyle, employment and business strategy of leaching off big corporations with deep pockets, big government bailout money, Medicare, defense contracts, but publicly criticizing the same institutions and their leaders while repeatedly sticking our hands into their pockets, not patient enough to wait until the corpse is cold.

It’s also concurrent with most Americans’ resurgent, post-9/11 belief in childhood myths, divine justice, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy. You can throw George Bush, Barack Obama and Tiger Woods in there too. If “Survivor” is reality TV, the show, its players and fans have never been farther from it.