D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
February 2010
Life Lessons from "Survivor"
When Robinson Crusoe meets Machiavelli, put your
money on the snake.
I confess, our family is ridiculously excited about the 20th season of the "Survivor" TV show that starts this month. It's supposed to feature an all-star cast of returning castaways, divided into "heroes" (those who played nice in their previous appearance) versus "villains" (the schemers). Having played real-life "Survivor" (and sometimes getting voted off the island, or darned close) in various offices and corporations for more than a quarter-century before escaping to New Mexico, I am of course betting on the villains.
Lest you think too ill of our household's viewing habits, I should quickly note that "Survivor" and the almost equally venerable "Amazing Race" are the only TV reality shows we watch. We have zero interest in "The Biggest Big Brother Loser" or "So America's Next Top Model Thinks She Can Dance" or whatever those shows are called, much less in watching the loathsome Donald Trump fire people. We don't even watch "American Idol" anymore, having successfully rooted Carrie Underwood to the crown a few years back and concluding that our work here was done. (Frankly, we never quite got over the injustice of Clay Aiken not winning, though his subsequent success has vindicated our judgment.)
Aside from these few guilty pleasures, we watch nothing but PBS, the National Geographic channel and college courses on cable. Honest. (Plus of course "Doctor Who" — hey, we're not monks!)
But "Survivor" and its lab-rat view of human nature has gripped us from the very first season, in which the inimitable Richard Hatch schemed and allied his way to the $1 million prize. Hatch invented the show every bit as much as the producers did: No doubt they originally envisioned "Survivor" focusing largely on the desert-island survival struggles of the "castaways," rather than being as much Machiavelli as Robinson Crusoe. Though Hatch did earn his island keep by catching fish, his ultimate triumph derived more from clever forging of alliances (a key element in every "Survivor" season thereafter) and timely backstabbing.
In short, Richard Hatch earned a million bucks by adeptly playing office politics. He was hardly the first person to do so — just the first to "outwit, outplay and outlast" the competition in prime-time TV. Not to mention the first to do so while intermittently naked.
The "Survivor" ethos — all too familiar off-island to millions of cubicle-dwellers — was memorably expressed by losing contestant Sue at that first final "Tribal Council." In her impassioned speech to fellow jury members, Sue said she "couldn't decide whether to vote for the snake [Richard] or the rat [ultimate runner-up Kelly, who'd cast the crucial vote ousting Sue]." But she came down on the side of master manipulator Richard, reasoning that's the way "Mother Nature intended it to be, for the snake to eat the rat."
We watched that epochal season-one conclusion with our daughter, who was then in high school. I vividly remember our different reactions when Richard was announced as the winner: I did a fist-pump and hollered "Yes!," as if our beloved Minnesota Vikings had finally won the Super Bowl. Our daughter shouted "No!," aghast. (Never let it be said that we take our TV viewing experiences lightly. You should see us during "Masterpiece Theatre.")
I'd been fervently rooting for Richard — not because I liked him, but because he'd played the best game. With no blueprint from previous seasons to follow, he improvised what has proven to be the archetypal "Survivor" alliance strategy. However much he might have played the "snake," Richard was only doing what the game required. Criticizing him for it would be like taking a chess grandmaster to task for his ruthless treatment of pawns.
Our daughter, however, was horrified at Richard's snake-like ways, manipulations and betrayals. She was rooting for Kelly, the other finalist, who was, well, nice.
Good for you, honey, I thought, while also thinking, Wait until you get out in the real world for awhile.
This fall's 19th season of "Survivor" starred an even more odious "villain," Russell Hantz. Not only did he play puppet master for much of the game, engineering a dramatic comeback for his outnumbered tribe, but Russell bad-mouthed all his fellow players in interviews that they wouldn't see until the show aired. He lied about his own life, concealing the fact that he was already a millionaire and claiming to have survived Hurricane Katrina. He even engaged in petty sabotage, pouring out water and burning one player's socks.
Nonetheless, like Richard in the inaugural season, Russell clearly deserved to win. He outwitted, outplayed and outlasted not only the competition but the show's producers, repeatedly finding hidden "immunity idols" without the benefit of their painstakingly prepared clues.
Our daughter is all grown up now and living in Denver, so we didn't get to watch the 19th "Survivor" finale together. But I was a bit surprised to learn the next day that she, too, thought the nasty and conniving Russell should have won.
She's spent some time in what guidance counselors call "the world of work" since that Richard Hatch victory, and I guess the school of hard knocks has dinged her youthful naivet. I don't know whether to be proud and relieved — maybe our little girl can "survive" out there, after all — or sad.
It's not that I imagine our daughter burning her co-workers' socks, emptying the water cooler and forming an alliance with Jerry in the mailroom to overthrow the CEO. But it's probably for the best that now she realizes the world of work is filled with Richards and Russells. Do they "deserve" to win in Cubicle Survivor? No, it's not a game and there's no excuse for checking your ethics at the office door. But will they often win? The wheeler-dealers currently cashing their Goldman Sachs bonus checks would tell you yes.
In a funny way, the make-believe world of "Survivor" is actually more benign than the real world. At the climax of "Survivor," in a turn-about, the contestants most recently voted "off the island" get to vote — not for the latest exile, but for the winner. So the finalists' fates — and the recipient of the $1 million — get decided by the very people the finalists have schemed to exile, those they've likely backstabbed and betrayed. That's why Russell couldn't escape the ignominy of second place, losing out to one of those who'd ridden his coattails to the final while being nicer about it.
In the real world, alas, Bernie Madoff's cheated investors didn't get to judge him. The former top executives of Enron were not left to the tender mercies of their penniless shareholders. That oh-so-charming VP who called you "amigo" in his silver-tongued British accent — right up to the moment he threw you to the wolves — didn't get his bonus calculated by the ex-employees he'd stepped on while scrambling to the top But I digress.
As each new season of "Survivor" unfolds, we often talk about who in our family would do best on the show. My wife, who could turn a few palm fronds and a dozen coconuts into a three-bedroom rambler, would certainly prove the most valuable to her fellow castaways. But I remind her that it's not his fishing prowess that won Richard a million bucks. She concedes that — like many of the returning "heroes" in this month's anniversary show, who were often beloved by viewers but lost — she would probably run afoul of the schemers and shifting alliances.
I couldn't stand the roughing it, of course; I consider "camping" to mean staying at Red Roof Inn. Nor would I be of much use around the camp, except for cooking (and even then, it'd be, "Where are my Calphalon pans? My Henckels knives?"). And the physical challenges wear me out just watching them on TV.
Then again, neither Richard nor Russell did much in challenges. They survived on cunning and the sort of realpolitik more familiar to the workplace than on desert islands. So maybe I'd do OK, assuming I learned anything from all those years under the thumb of real-life Richards and Russells. (If only that smarmy "amigo" VP could be on the show with me! How can you tell for sure that a jellyfish sting is going to be fatal?)
Our daughter, though, is becoming every bit as handy as her mom. And she's already survived — or escaped — her share of workplace Richards and Russells. So who knows? With a few more years of hard-knocks schooling, she might be the perfect combination for "Survivor."
At two seasons per year, I figure the 25th anniversary "Survivor" ought to roll around in the fall of 2012 — perfect.
Honey, time to start practicing making fire!
Happily ensconced in his home office editing Desert Exposure,
David A. Fryxell has only to outwit, outplay and outlast two cats. But they're wily!