SurvivingSurvivor: Reading Mark Burnett'sField Guideand De‐naturalizing Social Darwinism as Entertainment

The Survivor in Contemporary Culture and Public Discourse: A Genealogy

“…As its producer Mark Burnett testifies in his books Survivor: The Ultimate Game, The Official Companion to the CBS Television Show (Burnett & Dugard, 2000) and Survivor II: A Field Guide, The Official Companion to the CBS Television Show (Burnett, 2001), the program's terms of survival correspond to social Darwinism and the discourse of capitalism: individualism, competition and elimination (through eviction from the program) (see also Murray, 2001). The program's logo, with the word "survivor" in the center, includes three terms: outwit, outplay, and outlast.…”

“…No discussion of the survivor can be complete without mention of CBS's popular reality TV show "Survivor", and the plethora of similar programs that populate airtime schedules across the world, sparking new interest in the social Darwinist "survival of the fittest" discourse (Murray, 2001) and providing a central site for the production and celebration of the survivor in popular culture.…”

“…In other words, the power of reality TV is not in showing an individual coping with a real-life trauma, as in other cultural locations where the survivor is 146 S. Orgad produced, but in offering viewers the survivor as a metaphor. The show is designed and framed as a site for self-exploration, the survivor embodying a process of self-discovery of the "true self" rising above inferiors by outlasting and outmaneuvering them (Murray, 2001). For example, the survivor serves as a site for the exploration of tension between the need to affiliate to a group for identity, and the need to express individual independence and pursue self-interest.…”

Internet Jokes: The Secret Agents of Globalization?

“…At the same time, however, Galander analyzed the overall philosophy of these shows as utterly Western, as they present "consumerism as a value, gambling and risk‐taking as fun, entertainment as an end, and material wealth as an ultimate social value" (p. 14). In a similar vein, Murray () analyzed Survivor (which was actually conceived in the UK and first aired in Sweden) as being "infused with American cultural myths of success and social mobility" (pp. 43–44), as well as and with self‐commodification and social Darwinism that valorizes inequality.…”