August 31, 2006
August 26, 2006
August 25, 2006
Racist Survivor
I never really got into Survivor, but my parents–even my mom–are obssessed with the show. I dimly remember that Survivor was always high on idiotic stunts (nudity, eating rats, and so forth), but I am shocked that they would now actually divide up the starting groups by race. Black, white, Latino, and Asian.
If this isn’t a last gasp of a dying franchise, I don’t know what is. Host Jeff Probst referred to Survivor as a “social experiment”; well, even if it is, it has a painfully juvenile attitude about it: let’s just put ‘em all on an island and let ‘em fight it out.
I question the US against THEM attitude this kind of division is bound to produce. Because it really, really is pitting black against white and on and on. Ethnic groups battling over limited resources? It may be the reality of life in the United States but it’s an exploitative way to bring up the issue.
How could any audience member truly feel comfortable rooting for one group over the other? (Assuming that it’s most fun to watch a show, pick a group, and root for your team.) As soon as you say, “I like the Team Asian because they’re clever/stupid/hilarious/entertaining” you’ve blurted out a stereotype–not necessarily of your own accord but as a result of the way the show is set up.
August 22, 2006
The Potato is not a vegetable; it is a tuber
the infamous veggie poster
I had one returning student during my first session at CTY this year. I knew she had been slandering me when I overheard another student exclaim to the other: “…and she, like, makes you eat a whole PLATE of vegetables at lunch!”
This fearsome reputation is wholly unfounded. Really. But I suppose it takes its root in my one veggie rule: each student had to eat one serving of vegetable(s) at lunch. A few carrot sticks: sure! A small bowl of salad: absolutely. But the announcement of this rule on the first day of class always causes a mysterious keening noise to emit from the mouths of my students.
The first few days of lunch had you piling leaves of iceberg lettuce or tomatoes on your plates. Then there were the spud-lovers: a plateful of french fries drenched with ketchup (or alarmingly, mustard). One girl I sent back into the cafeteria for vegetables came back with a single, insolent kernel of corn.
You can’t say I didn’t warn you, kiddies. I explicitly said: “lack of veggies leads to bowel unhappiness.” You ignored me and continued to kick your neighbor’s chair instead. And the happy results? One of you had to use the bathroom over 5 times throughout the day (I knew because I had to stand in the hall and wait for you to finish). Another one of you turned green suddenly in the bookstore and begged to use the bathroom; after finishing, you came up to me and said, frankly: “that was good because I have been constipated for 3 days.”
So I created the veggie poster. No to potatoes (baked, fried, or tottified), corn, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, etc. Would anyone out there like to debate whether or not corn counts as a veggie? Because I got a lot of lip from the kids about that.
The end result was that I struck terror in the hearts of children. Which, after all, is what camp is all about.
