(Slide 1)

Origins and General Info

Survivor is a highly popular reality-tv show that has been airing on CBS since May of 2000. The 22 nd
season is currently airing and it has been renewed for (at least) two more. The premise of the show
revolves around a group of people who have been marooned at some isolated location and must survive
by providing food and shelter for themselves, while competing in physical challenges and eliminated
players until a final player is awarded a monetary prize.

(Slide 2)

Just a short history here, like any great American reality show nowadays, it seems to have found life
somewhere else entirely. The original concept was created by Charlie Parsons, a British tv producer and
was called Expedition Robinson. That show first aired in Sweden in 1997 and in case you were
wondering it still airs today.

(Slide 3)

Each season begins with two tribes, although three season started out with three or four tribes, before
finally being merged into one tribe mid-way through the season. Two types of challenges exist in each
episode, the Reward Challenge, where one tribe or person is receives food, car, time with a loved one,
etc rand the immunity challenge in which one tribe or person is saved from that week’s elimination. At
the end of every episode, there is tribal council and the players vote someone off. At the last tribal
council a jury decided between the remaining two or three players with the winner receiving a million
dollar prize.

Throughout the seasons, the rules and format of the shows have changed, in order to keep things fresh.
Luxury items seems to be a thing of the past and exile island is the “it” things. Fans favourite players
have even come back in four special seasons, eventhough the show hasn’t been around for that long.
Despite this new elements, the show, at its core, remains virtually unchanged.

Reality Television or Game Show

(Slide 4)

There are many genres of reality television shows. While some focus on just watching groups of people
living out their lives, some are dating show, talk shows, prank shows even renovation shows and are
usually nothing more than just some elaborate social experiments. The reality television phenomenon is
that is sweeping mainly though network stations is really a hybrid of reality based television and game
shows.

(Slide 5)

Survivor is prime example of this hybrid, similar to the real world, the surreal life, or wife swap you see a
bunch of strangers living together and the challenges and problems that arise from throwing a group
into an “unknonwn” situation. At the same time though, the contestant are competing against one
another in order to be the last one standing and receiving a million dollars, which is ultimately what
game show or competition shows are.

(Slide 6)

How does Survivor differ from other shows?

No one can deny that while we all know the shows are scripted and/or edited to highlight these
moments, there is a reason why the show focuses on them. While shows like The Real World brought
people together in a social experiment, Mark Burnett, the creator of the Survivor, decided to take that
one step further. He said it was easy to get good television out of people being forced to live together
and admitted that he thought he could make great television by making it worse for them. He took the
hybrid of reality show and competition show one step further, therefore making it one of the first show
to popularize the watching of someone else’s real pain as entertainment.

(Slide 7)

Value Systems and Pleasure in Watching Someone Suffer

This says something about the value systems of our society. What does it say about us when we take
pleasure in watching someone suffering. This isn’t a new trend in reality tv though, we’ve been watching
people getting hurt on Amercia’s Funniest Video long before Survivor and the rest of the reality-tv gang
came around. This appears to be an underlying theme in any reality show and a reason why I believe
that reality shows are so popular. In a way, it’s how we make ourselves feel good about who we are and
what we do. We can look at the people on tv and say that you would never do that or that you could do
it better.

(Slide 8)

Influences of Survivor

Survivor wasn’t the first show in which pleasure in suffering for entertainment value was used and it
surely will not the last. You can see influences of Survivor in other reality shows, such as Big Brother
which was relative tamer and more boring in the first seasons but now follows the format of “how can I
make this worse for the contestants” and even going so far as to having challenges similar to Survivor.

(Slide 9)

Similarly, MTV has even jumped on the Survivor-like bandwagon when they combined two of their hit
shows, The Real World and Road Rules. However , it wasn’t until the 7 th season, known as the Gauntlet,
that the teams no longer travelled in buses and rvs in between challenges and when voting to eliminate
teammates started to happen. Coincidentally, in this season of Survivor, you can see influences of the
MTV series in which players who are chosen for elimination, challenge each other for the right to stay in
the game.

(Slide 10)
Understanding the Survivor format is quite easy and can transcend cultures and time. Survivor is not
only appealing to the market in which it began but has spread throughout the world and several
different version in many countries exist. Survivor may not have gotten as popular as it did if it aired 20
years ago, but it is still a show that would have been appealing back then. Would the effects be the same
a couple decades from now? Probably not, since trends in television viewing change but it does appear
that reality shows are here to stay at least for the foresable future.

(Slide 11)

The influence of Survivor has even been seen on the animated series The Simpsons in their episode
Helter Shelter, when the family participated in The 1895 Challenge when they went lived in a Victorian
house and pretended to be living as people did in 1895.

(Slide 12)

Hyppereality

While reality television is supposed to be showing up a reality, you never really get a true sense of
reality. All survivor does it offer up a hyperreal version of what it would be like to be marooned. In the
first few seasons the contestants were dropped off with a crate with some essentials before the show
finally moved to a format that was more fitting of really ended up in the middle of nowhere with
nothing. If you actually washed up on a beach on some deserted island, there would be a good chance
you wouldn’t have tools at your disposal or have taken time to do survival training first. Also you surely
wouldn’t be scheming behind other people’s backs to vote them off the island.

(Slide 13)

Survivor as Commodity

Survivor is also something that can succeed outside of it’s reality tv genre. It has been made into a
commodity, just like everything else in pop culture seems to be. A wide range of merchandise bearing
the Survivor logo is available, but what I find really make Survivor a commodity is the fact that there
have been Survivor computer and board games made, a thrill ride and even a musical, which allows
audience members to participate in the whole Survivor experiences without having to go on the show.
Slide 1 Survivor – number of seasons, network it aired on and general premise of show
 22 seasons
 Airs on CBS
 Contestants marooned in isolated location, competing in physical for a
million dollars
Slide 2 Original concept is a show called Expidition Robinson
Slide 3 More in-depth explanation of what Survivor is, explaining general elements
 2 tribes that later merge into 1
 2 kinds of physical challenges: Reward and Immunity
 Tribal Council
 Elimination of one contestant per episode
Slide 4 Types of Reality Shows
 Talk shows, prank shows, dating shows, game shows, social experiments

Slide 5 Survivor is a hybrid

 Social Experiment + Game Show
Slide 6 (Paraphrased from something read online)
Survivor takes the social experiment a step further.

According to Mark Burnett “ I wanted to force people to live together and then
wondered how I could make it worse for them”
Slide 7 Survivor was the beginning of reality show in which viewers took pleasure in
watching other suffer.
Slide 8 Influences of Survivor
Slide 9 The evolution of MTV’s The Road Rules
Slide 10 Survivor airing in different countries
Slide 11 Simpsons “Helter Selter” episode
Slide 12 Hyppereality
(not sure how I would turn this into a slide)
Slide 13 Survivor as a Commodity
 Merchandising
 Computer and Board Games
 Musical