SubJeff on 6/5/2014 at 18:03
I don't think every relationship should be like mine, I just recognise that the genders are different.
demagogue on 7/5/2014 at 01:23
If they have shows like The Real Housewives of X, then an all-male survival show is fine IMO. Gender isn't something you have to play up and in a lot of things it's nice to be gender-blind. But it's still something real that you can play up too, as long as it's not discriminatory on its face, which I don't think this is. Groups of men behave differently than mixed groups, and that can be interesting to notice.
The show premise sounds interesting enough.
As for British sensibilities, it always did strike me is odd that, of all the Europeans, Brits were the most zealous for building an overseas empire out of peoples & habitats that were about as opposite to their sensibilities as could be. It makes you wonder how could they have been so excited about digging their fingers into regions they're so squeamish to actually visit and deal with. I mean it's like the more squeamish, the more interested in dealing with as deeply in the 'thick of it' as they could... It's a funny cognitive dissonance, I thought. Edit: Interestingly, though, some of the most interesting British writers like Orwell of course grew up overseas, so didn't have such illusions or aversions as much & were a lot more open minded. I don't doubt your experience in Africa made you more open minded & curious about the world too.
I don't mean that to sound rude by the way. American culture also has its blundering side, of course. But it's true that most Americans have some frontier spirit in them, rolling around in mud & being honestly curious about the world out there especially in its most alien forms. It's why something like Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" could have been hailed as crystallizing the American spirit when half of it is basically about rolling around in stacks of hay and romping in the wilderness.
Muzman on 7/5/2014 at 03:09
Quote Posted by SubJeff
I've never seen Survivorman but if the wiki entry is anything to go by then this show is even more hardcore than that. These guys don't have a support crew anywhere near, as far as I can tell, and they really are on their own. And it's for 4 weeks. I'm sure they've an emergency phone or something, and the environment isn't especially horrible (it's not cold or wet or a desert), but if they're letting them get dehydrated enough that their urine is like Guinness I'd say that's pretty legit. Of course these guys will have had a full medical workup before the show.
I doubt that really adventurous people would have been allowed to go; I can't imagine them including any ex-forces people on as it'd be no fun. I probably would have been excluded on account of my outdoor experience actually but I'd have love to have given it a try.
Someone has to film it and support all that gear. Even if its some of the guys doing it, there'd be a decent support network somewhere. The footage is the investment. ((
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS1QCpvfna8) It's on the next island over apparently. About 20 minutes away by boat. Better than most "hardcore" efforts admittedly)
The last part is why the show is lest interesting to me though. Sure it's doing a much better job than Survivor's cartoon silliness. But, despite the reigning dogma about what's going to appeal to people, I actually don't care at all about "
What would ordinary people do in extraordinary situations?!". It's probably not without some interest somewhere though.
Generally I prefer to watch people who know what they're doing know what they're doing. That is Grylls' whole appeal in the first place. That's why Stroud's stuff is cool too. Plus he knows a lot already, but finding out all the stuff he doesn't know that's so specific to the area from usually crusty old native dudes is great. And the scenery is different every episode.
SubJeff on 7/5/2014 at 07:08
Squeamish is exactly the right word for most Brits! Look at the horse meat scandal we had here. Yeah it was mislabelled food but part of the backlash was the squeamishness over eating horse, which of course our French cousins (and many others) don't have.
Muz - I'm interested to see how quickly they adapt. I get that it's not for everyone. You're an Aussie and I think that of all the English speaking peoples Aussies and Saffers would be the most comfortable on the Island. What do you think? I've never met a squeamish South African or Australian (thought Scots may not have been fully converted yet :p ) and certainly all the South Africans I encountered in Africa were pretty outdoorsy and very sensible and not wimps about being stabbed or stung or otherwise assaulted by nature.
One thread that has grown from the Island on twitter is the backlash against Tony, the ex-policeman. He was the voice of reason on a few occasions, insisting the guys did or didn't do certain things. People are saying how annoying he is, even though its clear he's the most sensible and safe (so far). That's another Brit thing - the dislike of "know it alls". I learnt this really early on in life and so in RL I don't offer advice unless asked or if I see someone is going to do something dangerous. I let people make mistakes because it seems Brits would rather mess up there stuff or hurt themselves than admit that someone else knows better than them. It's one thing that drives me insane about people here; there is almost a celebration of ignorance and a rejection of sense. Kids get picked on for being smart/doing well at school. I never encountered this in Africa, where studying hard and doing well was celebrated. The cool kids at my school (not me) were almost all grade A students.
faetal on 7/5/2014 at 08:34
The cool kids at my school were grade A students too. Depends where you go to school I guess.
Ostriig on 7/5/2014 at 08:56
Quote Posted by SubJeff
Squeamish is exactly the right word for most Brits! Look at the horse meat scandal we had here. Yeah it was mislabelled food but part of the backlash was the squeamishness over eating horse, which of course our French cousins (and many others) don't have.
I'm going to take advantage of the age old TTLG tradition of going off-topic to grind one's own axe - damned BBC can't put an article up on that shit without reminding people that "the meat came from Romania" even though they themselves at one pointed (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21464052) quoted the French inquiry into the affair stating clearly that the mislabelling had happened further down the line.
Quote:
French Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon said the meat had left Romania clearly and correctly labelled as horse. It was afterwards that it was relabelled as beef.
"From the investigation, it would seem that the first agent or actor in this network who stamped 'beef' on horsemeat from Romania was Spanghero," Mr Hamon said.
There was "no reason to doubt the good faith" of the Romanian abattoir that originally provided the meat, Mr Hamon added.
Anyway, as for grilled bears, I don't care much mostly due to sour grapes at not having yet had the opportunity to have bear steak yet, but there's one thing that always gets me about these survival shows - what if someone really gets hurt? I mean, ok, if a pilot has an accident at a grand prix, you can have an investigation and figure out whether it was someone's acceptable or unacceptable fault or bad luck, but the point of the event is for dudes to go really fast around a track. With these things, though, it's all about putting people and groups of people in potentially life-threatening situations, right? So how do you manage just the right level of threat aside from making participants sign a "not the company's fault if bit by cactus" form?
Kuuso on 7/5/2014 at 09:37
One of the contestants died in the French version of Survivors 2013. It was on the first day as well. The show's doctor committed suicide shortly afterwards. It's a bit of a mystery that one. They're investigating it, if the producing company did any mishaps.
DDL on 7/5/2014 at 10:55
I think "Spanghero" should be Survivorman's sidekick. With the power of...spang.
Also, this show would be much more interesting if they had a predator in it.
Like, if they just grabbed one of the participants while nobody was looking, and then replaced them with a spine hanging from a tree or something. See how quickly everyone goes totally off-reservation.
(except "spine in a tree" would probably end up being the most likeable character)
SubJeff on 7/5/2014 at 16:51
Quote Posted by Ostriig
the point of the event is for dudes to go really fast around a track. With these things, though, it's all about putting people and groups of people in potentially life-threatening situations, right? So how do you manage just the right level of threat aside from making participants sign a "not the company's fault if bit by cactus" form?
I've no idea. What I do know is next week they'll be handling cayman crocs though, and it doesn't look like they've got support. I imagine there was a real danger of them getting bitten. And this week one guy had a pretty nasty cut on his foot after going in the water. It was all the worse because despite not being deep it was a large area of flesh that was damaged.
