Wanda's Words of Wisdom - Survivor: Exile Island, recap show by Wanda Shirk
Recap Reflections
I planned to take a two-week vacation from writing columns and not to comment on the recap show, but Survivor-withdrawal has been setting in (we're feeling like Shane separated from his nicotine), and the thoughts that have been rattling around my head regarding the new footage of the March 15 episode seem to want to gel in print. There were four particular new character insights that were striking.
The first was Tina finding oysters and declaring that she would keep them for herself and not let the rest of her tribe know of their location. This recalls to my mind a psychological concept called cognitive dissonance, stressed by my persuasion class instructor when I was a speech major in college. It happens when your mind has classified something – a person as "good" or "bad," an idea as "right" or "wrong" -- and then you get information that counters your perception. Your mind compartmentalizes the new information, refuses to contemplate or accept it, perhaps like a Bible believer knowing that stories such as the Tower of Babel are explanatory myths but still clinging to belief that the book is of divine origin. Since I'm a huge Tina fan, loving her for her outdoor strengths and skills as well as aching for her in the blows life has dealt her, I find it hard to deal with her truly selfish decision.
The decision reminds me of Cindy's car choice in Guat. There's self-interest; then there's the interests of the group, the interests of others. The person of good character, we believe, is willing to sacrifice self-interest for the interests of others. This utilitarian ethic of the greater good, expounded by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, makes so much sense in most practical situations that a choice which benefits only self seems totally wrong, unethical, even immoral. From the point of view of self-interest, both Cindy and Tina would have had much to gain in appreciation from tribemates by choosing self-sacrifice. (Cindy's choice was more obviously against her self-interest because her tribemates knew she was depriving them; Tina's tribemates were not aware of her find.) At any rate, my brain wants to hide that revelation about Tina's selfishness because I still want to think of her as "all good" and undeserving of being voted out first.
Another puzzle concerning the oysters: the Casaya and LaMina tribes took the islands of the older men and older women. I'm not certain, but I think it was LaMina who went to the island where the older women were. I'm surprised that to this point, no one else seems to have found those oysters. Had Tina shared her find, she could at least have left a legacy that would have been appreciated by those who remained, and even if she still had been voted out after sharing her food source, Ruth Marie, at least, might have had more twinges of regret about the vote.
A second new character insight regards Bruce, and is similar to the Tina one in that I hate to accept it. Bruce's insistence on washing his hands with the limited drinking water is totally inexplicable to me. As the oldest man, a teacher, and not just a backpacker but a backpacking instructor, Bruce was bringing to the game a lot of things I loved, things which he and I had in common. To see his adamant insensitivity to the tribe's need for drinking water just flips me out! It is so counter-productive to a winning strategy; I just can't comprehend how intelligent people can behave so immaturely. That kind of behavior is what we would have expected of a "dumb kid," not the tribe's nature-skills, survival leader. It changes his respected-elder status from "senior citizen" to "senile citizen." Childish. Incomprehensible. Disappointing.
A third example of cognitive dissonance, but this time a reverse, a good-in-the-bad-guy story, comes with the picture of Shane as the dad whose heart totally belongs to his son. While we admire the physical strength Shane has brought to his tribe, nothing about his character has seemed admirable: he's easily annoyed, arrogant, and an addict. He seems to assume that he's boss and running the show, and his bluntness is never tempered with consideration for someone else's thoughts or feelings. He's such a dirtball that your wildest imagination cannot conceive of him cleaned up for the reunion show (I keep wondering about that. Most people clean up so well and look so different then; can Shane ever look clean?) But we know there is one person he loves. He lives for his son Boston, would die for Boston. He has Boston tatooed over his heart. (My son has his son's birthdate tattooed in inch-high digits inside his right forearm!) Even though my instant flash-back mental pictures of Shane are ugly portraits of him chewing his fingernails and smoking the smallest butt of a cigarette, I have to factor in something good about Shane. He loves his son.
The fourth new-footage scene to make the Ides of March show memorable was the Sally-Austin conversation. It was heartbreaking to hear Sally tell of her fundamentalist parents rejecting her after her divorce. Their religion leaves no room for people to make mistakes; they have only angry judgment for anyone who doesn't get it right the first time, even though that includes about half of all marriages. There is no comprehension that sometimes people or situations change, and that responding to those changes even with reversals of major decisions is often the necessary thing, the right thing, the best thing to do. We wonder how Sally's parents, watching the show (could they possibly not watch their daughter on Survivor???), react to seeing the pain they cause her, compounding the hurt of a losing a spouse with the hurt of losing parents. Is there any hope for them?
On the flip side of that coin, it is interesting to see Austin's compassion and to note that he is an alum of Jerry Falwell's fundamentalist Liberty University. Yay for Austin for showing the best of what Christianity (or Islam, or other spirituality) can offer: caring interest, concern, and support in the face of someone else's pain and sorrow. Our respect for Austin grows. (Will the admirable young men -- Aras and Austin and Nick -- reunite after the merge?)
Eager to see the turns of events with each tribal council, we grumble a little bit about rerun and recapitulation shows, but they do have good things to show us and to teach us. So MUCH goes on that time constraints just don't allow to be seen in the 45 minutes a week of the regular shows. Jolanda called me to reminisce about how three of us were evicted in the first show of Palau, and how many interesting scenes might have been included if there had been a recap scene for our show -- scenes like tall, dark Janu teaching tall, dark Jolanda some show-girl dancing, or Jolanda and Ian arguing about animal-protection issues versus the need for food, for protein, when the first crab was caught; scenes like my taking the machete to my slip to bandage Gregg's and Willard's cut fingers, the later of which ultimately received stitches.
Yep, recap shows can offer lots of interesting things that time doesn't otherwise allow.
Next: The disunity at Casaya foreshadows changes of allegiance in the upcoming merge.
Read Wanda's buddy Jolanda Jones' thoughts on past Survivor episodes here Jolanda!
Visit Wanda on the World Wide Web at WackyWanda.com.
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