Screw it, CBS, if you’re not going to release your new cast today so that I can talk about it, I’ll find something ELSE to talk about. Maybe not the most timely of topics, but dammit, it needs to be addressed.
Now, this is a blog that I’ve been mulling over for a while. The loss of Aubry Bracco to Michele Fitzgerald in the finale of “Survivor Kaoh Rong” has shaken the “Survivor” community like I’ve not seen in a long time, and while the debate has largely died down, I doubt it will ever go away entirely. Still, I’ve felt a need to contribute something, but didn’t mainly because I felt I had nothing to say. And true, I will freely admit that a number of the points I’ll make here are unoriginal. The fact remains, however, that understanding the reasoning behind this outcome helps us understand “Survivor”, and now that I have some points that I feel I can bring to the discussion anew, the time is right.
The finale of “Survivor Kaoh Rong” was less than a year ago, but let us set the stage nevertheless. After what turned out to be a pretty exciting season, we went into the finale with expectations high. What we had here was a rare situation like with “Survivor Philippines” where no matter who won, the audience would be happy. We had Aubry, probably the audience favorite due to most “Survivor” fans being nerds of some form or another, who had a great transformation story, helped make arguably the biggest move of the game, and pretty well dominated strategy post-merge. We had Cydney, fellow strategy dominator and all around badass woman. Ok, she was maybe not as well liked as Aubry, but that’s mainly nerd-bias coming into play. Cydney was Aubry’s strategic equal, and the one who ultimately organized the dominant alliance. A victory from her would be well-deserved. We had Tai, America’s sweetheart, and so unlikely of a winner that you couldn’t help but root for him. And we had Michele, who while perhaps the least exciting of the four, did have something of an “underdog finalist” narrative going for her, had made some subtle gameplay moves, won a lot of respect for smacking down the sexist comments of former ally Nick Maiorano, and just seemed like a nice person in general. About the only thing the audience, and even the players, COULD agree on was that the only real foregone conclusion would be having Aubry in the finals. She wins there, no question. Strategically dominant, and even her enemies seemed to have a lot of respect. Note Scot Pollard’s “Giving her all in every aspect of the game.” comment, and Kyle Jason’s “There’s as much brawn in her as there is in me.” comment right before Scot got booted. Add onto that the recent trend of “Survivor” juries generally going for the player with the best strategic gameplay, and having Aubry in the finals seemed a lock for a win.
And then, with a “Final Three” twist, Aubry, Michele, and Tai were our finalists. We got a closer vote than we usually get, with a 5-2 victory, but that victory went to Michele. And thus began the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.
Seriously, this was fandom rage over a winner that I hadn’t seen in a while. Say what you will about recent “Survivor” seasons, but there was usually little complaint about the ultimate winner. Certainly there were times where people politely debated the outcome. People who said that Parvati deserved the win over Sandra in “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, detractors of Sophie Clark from “Survivor South Pacific”. Hell, if you want to get really recent, some even debate whether Hannah or Ken should have won “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X.” But that’s the thing: it’s debate, not rage. No, if you want to go back to the last time we had real rage over the outcome of a season of “Survivor”, you’d have to go back to Natalie White’s victory in “Survivor Samoa”, seven years ago at the time of this writing, and six and a half as of the “Survivor Kaoh Rong” finale. Pretty good track record, all things considered, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about the winner of “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, and how it happened.
When this initial outcome happened, I was really at a loss for what to say about it. One the one hand, as an Aubry fan in general and a lover of unlikely people overcoming odds, it’s more than fair to say that I was in Aubry’s corner, and would very much have loved her to win. On the other hand, I’m not someone who thinks “deserving” really enters into “Survivor”, so declaring Aubry the “correct” winner seemed wrong. More to the point, it detracts from Michele’s game. She played well. Her play style wasn’t very “showy”, but in many ways, that’s the smart way to do things, since it makes you less of a target. Arguing that Aubry “Was the better player” or “should have one” inherently detracts from the good game Michele played, and would be too insulting for my taste. Still, the outcome detracted from the season, but I had no way to express that without insulting Michele. Until now.
Ok, here’s where argument stealing comes into play. In anticipation for the upcoming season, I’ve been surfing around the “Survivor” Web, just to read what I can to tide me over until CBS announces the cast already. In doing so, I came across a recap of the finale of “Survivor Kaoh Rong” on the website “Inside ‘Survivor'”, which phrased it perfectly. To paraphrase: In general, the storyline of any given season of “Survivor” can be boiled down to “This is why person A won.” or “This is why person B lost.” As “Survivor Kaoh Rong” ultimately does neither, we get a weak ending to the season.
Bam. Right there. It’s not about who played better than whom, but about what the editors chose to do. I can understand not wanting to give us a “Why Michele won.” storyline this season. As I said, her game isn’t very “showy” and doesn’t make for good television. Fair enough. But then you need to explain to us why Aubry lost, and you didn’t do an adequate job of that, either. You were too busy making her beloved by the fans to DARE show us her spots. Oh, you showed us a couple, here and there. Her breakdown on day two, and her indecision in voting Peter out. But ultimately, the back half of the season, what most people remember, can be boiled down to “Cydney and Aubry kick ass.”, and in the case of the former flaw, it was redeemed in the same episode it was brought up in.
Now, some of you may point to what my readings seem to indicate is the most accepted explanation for Aubry’s loss, namely that she didn’t talk too much to people outside her alliance. Which I would accept, within the show, as fair enough, IF THEY ACTUALLY BOTHERED TO SHOW IT! See, this is part of that “Show Aubry’s spots” thing. If she played a social game where she alienated people, fair enough. If Scot and Jason in particular (as they seemed to be the freest votes going into Final Tribal Council) hated Aubry’s guts, then give us confessionals of them hating Aubry’s guts. If they felt that strongly, you must have SOME material you can use! But no, we get confessionals of them talking about how much of a threat she is, and giving the aforementioned compliments that made it LOOK like there were no hard feelings. Extended clips and behind the scenes things are all well and good, but the storyline of the season is what we get on tv, and what we got on tv was that Aubry was beloved by everyone on the jury, save perhaps for Debbie (due to her betrayal) and Julia (due to being besties with Michele).
Now, some might argue that a “This is why person B lost.” storyline inherently makes that person unlikeable, and the producers didn’t want to do that to Aubry. A fair enough point, but the producers have shown that they can show why someone lost, and still have them be at least somewhat likable before. Russell Hantz’ loss on “Survivor Samoa” may be the primary example of a “Why person B lost.” story, but it’s not the only one. The model the producers needed to follow was “Survivor All Stars”. I know, it’s weird to copy anything from “Survivor All Stars” but here it was necessary. We had a winner, Amber Brkitch, whose game, while not the most exciting, was the winning one. So, the producers showed why Boston Rob ultimately lost, by highlighting how he was personally offending most of the other players. Now, this didn’t make Boston Rob the darling of America, but he was well liked enough to be a prime vote-getter in the popularity poll at the end of the season, and the fanbase still had a lot of respect for him at the end. Despite the story of the season being about his failings, a good number of people still liked, or at least respected, Boston Rob. If Aubry’s social game did have those failings, then you could show us those, and we would still like her as a flawed, but pretty good player. Instead, you had to highlight the good points, and make it seem like an Aubry win was a lock. Not saying Aubry was a bad player by any stretch, but if there was a coherent reason she turned a lot of the jury off, then we need to know it.
As it stands, I do have two ideas about why Aubry lost that fit within the evidence presented on the show only, but the outcome isn’t a good one. If we go by the show’s logic, Aubry’s loss was due 100% to anti-nerd bias. True, we still have the problem of Aubry being shown in the most positive light possible, but we do at least have confessionals that state that our potential swing votes may be anti-nerd. Jason’s “Shoving geeks in lockers.” comment comes to mind. And if that’s the case, then, well, it sucks. Yes, the jury is allowed to vote based on whatever criteria they wish, and if that involves implicit bias, so be it. But here’s why it’s unsatisfying: It’s something Aubry can’t fix. It implies that, however good of a game she played, Aubry would never win on this season because she herself was never going to be an acceptable winner to these people, and she can’t do anything about it. True, one can try and build bonds with people, try and be someone they’re not, but at the end of the day, if someone’s biased against you, you may not be able to overcome that hurdle. Therefore, no matter how well you play the game, even if your physical, social, and strategic games could not be better, people would still not vote for you because of bias. And that rubs people in general, and me in particular, the wrong way. Would a vote based on Aubry’s social game still be hard to take. Yes, but I could see it as a flaw to overcome in the future. “Being a nerd” is not a flaw, nor should it be, and may not be possible to overcome.
The other part of this is simply connection. Debbie and Julia, as I’ve said, were pretty well locked Michele votes in this Final Three, and I think we underestimated how much Scot and Jason followed Julia’s lead, making Michele’s win a dead certainty. Again, understandable, but what could be done about it? Some might argue that Aubry could have made moves earlier in the game that could have put her up against people she could have beaten, and it may be true, but I argue that this leaves too many variables unchecked to really be of any value. For example, let’s say that Aubry had joined with Tai to vote out Michele instead of Jason at the final six. True, it gets rid of Michele, but what if Jason goes on an immunity tear after that? Aubry, being perceived as a threat, maybe doesn’t even MAKE Final Tribal Council. I’m all for speculation (this is “Idol Speculation” after all), but there are just too many unknowns here for such speculation to be of any merit.
In the end, the season is what it is. Still very good, but with a misstep in the editing that made the ending less satisfying. People have debated the details of the outcome in more depth than I care to, and ultimately we’ll probably never know the true reasoning behind the outcome that jibes with all the evidence. Having it fall on the editing team hopefully helps them prepare for the future, and let’s me sleep at night. Able to be bitter about the outcome, but happy in the knowledge that both our winner and our runner-up played great games.
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
idolspeculation 