Sallie Tisdale - The Lie About the Truck: Survivor, Reality TV, and the Endless Gaze

The Lie About the Truck

Survivor, Reality TV, and the Endless Gaze

Sallie Tisdale

FOR AUSTIN, TAYLOR, KAYLEE, AND SPENCER:

May you always remember to look up from the screen

O n the first day of Survivor: China, the 15th season of the show, Courtney turns to the camera and declares, I am in my own private hell. Courtney, 26 years old, is thin and ghostly pale. She works as a waitress in Manhattan. People in New York dont act like this, she says. Im marooned with, like, flight attendants and Sunday school teachers.

Several weeks later, Courtney is one of six remaining contestants. One of the others is the flight attendant, Todd, a 22-year-old gay Mormon from Salt Lake City. Todd has been in an alliance with Amanda, an unemployed hiking guide from Montana, since early in the game. Amanda says they are playing the same way: burrowing in, lying low. Doing what were told. Were doing a lot of work.

At the reward challenge, each player is briefly reunited with a family member (loved one, in Survivor talk) and the pairs compete to finish a maze while blindfolded. Denise, a school cafeteria worker from Massachusetts who calls herself the old ladyshes 40wins the reward. She chooses Amanda and Todd to share it, and their relatives get to spend the night in camp. Denise wanders away with her husband, while Amanda and Todd sit in shallow water with their sisters and talk strategy.

Amanda says, Honestly, its not a good idea for us to backstab anyone anymore. But I think as long as we take Denise to the final four, shell understand. Will she? Every player is given some amount of money, but the top three contestants win big money$85,000, $100,000, and $1 millionand so everyone longs to be one of the final three. Only a fool is nice about being number four.

Would you vote Denise before Courtney, or no? Todds sister asks.

Yeah.

I freakin love Denise, I really do, says Todd, but

But Denise is a working-class mother who hasnt backstabbed anyone.

In the final three, she can play her sob story, says Amanda.

Thats right, says Todd. We, Amanda and I and Courtney, are all pretty much on the same level, because we have pissed a lot of people on the jury off, so its a pretty even chance between all of us, so

Its like a dream, Amanda adds. Perfect.

Later, Todd says to the camera: You cant stop the game. The game keeps going. So, you know what? You want to feel comfortable and you want to feel you can trust people. And you just cant, though. You got to keep on your toes. You got to keep yourself nervous, or else youre gonna get screwed.

For the rest of the day, the remaining players meet in pairs and trios, shifting from ally to declared enemy and back. They tell the same story to different people in different ways, then they tell different stories, and parts of stories; they tell each other the truth and versions of the truth and bits of truth and complete untruths, until no one is sure of anything.

Im definitely the swing vote tonight, Denise says, in her broad Massachusetts accent. For me, personally, I mean, this is do or die. When I get up thereI mean, I dont know right now who Im gonna pick. What happens when I come back to camp after I make this decision? Whos gonna be flipping out? This is a game for a million dollars, and right now writing someones name down is a million-dollar signature. Im a little nervous, Im a little scared, Im a little in turmoil, Im a little flipping out.

Erik is voted out that night. A few days later, Peih-Gee is gone. The remaining players walk back to camp in the odd blue-gray glow of the night cameras.

Final four, bitches! says Todd, slapping hands.

The next day, Todd, Courtney, and Amanda talk about voting off Denise. Todd is trying to avoid them going all girl power on me and voting me out. Then Todd and Denise talk about voting off Courtney, while Courtney and Amanda talk about voting off Todd. Everyone likes him, Amanda, his ally, his closest friend in the game, points out. At last she sees that Todd is her biggest threat. Shes afraid he will play the Im-the-smartest-guy-here, Im-the-only-guy-left card.

Courtney, her collarbones jutting out like coat hangers, says, I know, but Denise is gonna cry. Courtney thinks shes in a great position. In her pregame interview, she said her main hobbies were reading and learning new things, and her main inspiration in life was the laughter of children. On the show she is brutal, unrelenting, her affect a narrow range between complaint and cruelty. She calls herself the biggest bitch on the planet. At one point in the game, she says, I have never been anything except my own winsome personality, tilting her head and smiling with contempt.

Amanda wins final immunity by balancing the tallest tower of porcelain cups and bowls. Now Amanda is the swing vote, because no one can vote for her. Courtney tells Todd that the smart thing is to vote off Denise, as they have secretly planned to do from the beginning of the alliance. Denise was always supposed to be number four.

Youre, like, the schemer, and Im the tagalong, and she won two immunities, says Courtney.

Todd says, Obviously, I want to win, but if I have to lose, I dont want to lose to Denise.

Are you kidding me? says Courtney. This isnt, like, welfare. You know? Like, she doesnt deserve it just cause, you know, she sucks at life.

W hat the host, executive producer, and kazillionaire Jeff Probst likes to call the greatest social experiment on television has been running for 40 seasons over 20 years. After 597 episodes, ratings are stable (numbingly consistent, said one critic). Viewer demographics are broad. The show usually leads its evening in primetime, as it has season after season, year after year. A critic for Time wrote, This is the real miracle of Survivor: It just keeps goingand, so far at least, where it goes an entire genre follows. Survivor has been nominated for Emmys 64 times, and won several, including Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program. The show has won ASCAP, Gold Derby, OFTA, and BMI Awards. Peoples Choice Awards. A GLAAD Award for Outstanding Reality Program in 2018. Survivor spawned itself in multiple countries, and in turn spawned imitations of many kinds: elimination challenges, castaway shows, shows about strangers marooned together, and shows about actual survival.

Profits are closely guarded and tricky to define. The first season grossed $52 million. Forbes reported that Survivor: Pearl Islands a few years later made about $73 million. After 40 seasons, CBS has a loose hand on the reins; as long as the show is a golden goose, they seem willing to leave it alone. Survivor is wildly popular around the world. Over the years, its been played in Belgium, Sweden, France, Denmark, Israel, Norway, and the Philippines; there have been versions in South Africa, India, Slovakia, Turkey, Argentina, Pakistan, Georgia, and the Czech Republic; in Brazil, Finland, and Bulgaria. All these shows are licensed by Castaway Television Productions, based in London, which controls the shows look and is supposed to police the behavior of the production crews. You dont have to speak the language to follow the show elsewhere; there are only a few variations from place to place (usually, the music is better in other countries). Players will be voted off until only one remains. Almost everything else is the same, everywhere on Earth: not just the idol, not just the buffs, but the arguments, the flirting, the mistakes, the acres of bare skin marred by insect bites and bruises, the pseudo-primitive aesthetic and faux-religious rituals. The extinguishing of the torch.