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"Survivor" Desegregates
The South Pacific has finally caught up to the South.
Just two episodes into its astoundingly ill-received "social experiment," Survivor: Cook Islands merged its four ethnically divided tribes into two larger mixed-race groups, officially ending its much-hyped reign of televised segregation.
Which must hardly seem worth it, in the end.
"Drop your buffs," host Jeff Probst ordered the contestants. "You have been living together as tribes divided based on ethnicity. It is now time to integrate."
The uniting came about on day seven of the competition and aired within the first five minutes of the third show of the season, begging the question of what, exactly, viewers were meant to gain from the ostensible lesson in diversity.
"There's a creative line you're walking of how long to keep a group a group before you split them up," Probst said in a conference call earlier this month. "Knowing what Survivor is, we're going to integrate you.
"Now the question is, do you stick with your own ethnic group, or, more likely, will you look to make alliances with people who can provide shelter or fish or who you like."
The tribes were reformed into the Raro and Aitu tribes chosen by randomly appointed captains from each of the four original groups.
"We're back to America," said Parvati Shallow, a new Raro tribe member who had been part of the all-white tribe. "We're a melting pot. I love it."
The unity itself was short-lived, with Raro's Cecilia Mansilla, a 29-year-old Peruvian-born technology risk consultant who now lives in Oakland, quickly given the boot.
Survivor: Cook Islands has drawn criticism since the moment its premise was announced, with members of the New York city council, various civil rights groups (including the NAACP), media critics and bloggers seeming to unite in their condemnation of the tribal divisions into blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics.
Before the new season aired, major advertisers, including General Motors, Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and Home Depot, pulled their sponsorship, taking nearly $26 million in ad revenue with them, though the advertisers and CBS claimed the mass exodus had nothing to do with the show's controversy.
Viewers, too, have jumped ship. About 17.7 million tuned in for the season premiere--the smallest audience for a Survivor premiere since its inaugural season--and 17.4 million stuck around for week two. This week's episode drew 16.6 million, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research.
In a press release Friday morning, CBS ignored the slippage and touted the fact that Survivor: Cook Islands "topped the highly promoted premiere of [ABC's new telenovela] Ugly Betty."
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