Cory's Reads #12: Come On In!
The loss of a Survivor staple sheds light on the show's success and its shortcomings
RIP “come on in, guys.”
One of Survivor host Jeff Probst’s most iconic catchphrases was retired in the premiere of the show’s 41st season. Or perhaps more accurately, it was modified. From this point forward, Jeff will be saying “come on in!” Drop the “guys.”
It was a rather strange decision, and it has been met with unsurprising derision. I don’t want to entertain the countless fans (so often found in the comments section of the Survivor Facebook page) who are boycotting the show over its decision to “go woke.” But I am nevertheless disappointed by Jeff’s decision. I’m a fan of tradition, what can I say?
It all started during the premiere episode’s marooning. Greeting the season’s 18 new players for the first time, Jeff identifies Survivor 41 as a season of change and new beginnings. And so in that spirit, he poses a question to the cast: is “guys” outdated? Should the longtime host retire that portion of the catchphrase, which he uses prior to each challenge? It’s a progressive question for a show that first aired in 2000, and has stuck around amidst an ever-evolving TV landscape. Granted, Jeff’s concern seems to fall on deaf ears. Only Evvie — the 28-year-old PhD student from Westchester, NY — responds to Jeff’s question, assuring him that she, as a queer woman, does not feel excluded by the term “guys” and would like it to remain a part of the show’s ethos. Just like that, Jeff backs off. “Come on in, guys” will remain intact!
That is, until just several minutes later in the episode, Jeff uses the phrase to welcome the cast to their first immunity challenge of the season. Chatting with the players about their first couple days in Fiji, Jeff addresses 31-year-old flight attendant Ricard Foyé, who decides to revisit Jeff’s concern from Day 1. As a gay man married to a transgender man, Ricard is well-equipped to have such a delicate conversation. He expresses his discomfort with the term “guys” and suggests that Jeff does drop it after all.
Jeff couldn’t be happier. Stretching his botoxed cheeks to their absolute limit, Jeff grins, thanking Ricard and offering a sigh of relief as he no longer has to say such an offensive phrase!
Now, I am by no means belittling the significance of inclusive language. I have long admired Survivor for its willingness to confront complex social issues and examine how they translate to the isolated beaches of Fiji (and elsewhere, once upon a time). And if people are truly offended by gendered language, they deserve to be accommodated. Still, I couldn’t help but leave Survivor 41’s premiere with a bad taste in my mouth. Indeed, is there a better microcosm for the state of American politics than the show’s recent bout of performative activism?
A woman has not won a season of Survivor since 2016, when Sarah Lacina won the show’s 34th iteration. Lacina’s victory is one of fifteen female victories across the show’s 40 completed seasons. It also marked the final season of the original Survivor format, wherein the final two or three was determined by a vote, much like every round prior. From season 35 onward, the final three is determined by a firemaking challenge, the participants of which are chosen by the winner of the final immunity challenge. While the format change is not inherently gendered, a woman has never won that new firemaking challenge. While all players can and should practice their firemaking skills throughout the course of the game, men do tend to be the fire-starters for their tribe.
Perhaps an even graver concern is contemporary Survivor’s emphasis on idols and advantages. Ever the Survivor purist, I have my own reservations regarding how the influx of idols and advantages dilutes the social and strategic pressures of the game. Not to mention, watching players go on a treasure hunt just isn’t all that interesting. But such an evolution in Survivor gameplay is also markedly gendered, as men are granted more opportunities to go out and search for an advantage in the game. Again, this disparity between men and women is not explicit. All players can go out and forage through the Fijian jungle. But men tend to take on the responsibilities of collecting firewood or going fishing, allowing them to leave camp and participate in this increasingly crucial part of the game. Women, on the other hand, are often expected to cook the food or maintain the shelter, requiring them to stay at camp.
Beyond searching for advantages, these gender roles offer women limited strategic capacities as well. If you are at camp more often than not, it becomes quite difficult to inconspicuously strategize with others so long as you are under the auspice of your tribemates. And even when woman do finally reach Final Tribal Council, their Survivor “résumés” are heavily scrutinized. Julie Rosenberg, third-place-finisher in Survivor: Edge of Extinction, entered Final Tribal Council as (in this writer’s humble opinion) a rather deserving winner. Julie’s competition comprised Gavin Whitson, a charming Southerner with a decent albeit unspectacular body of work to his name, and Chris Underwood, who had been booted back on Day 8, but managed to return via a controversial twist in the game. Julie was an emotional player throughout Survivor’s 38th season. At one rather infamous tribal council, an insecure Julie flipped on her old Kama tribe to join the Lesu minority in voting out her ally Julia Carter. Julie’s emotional volatility was deemed a weakness, and she was never taken seriously as a potential winner. And yet, Julie’s emotional ups and downs were responsible for some of the season’s biggest blindsides! Her style of play was not rooted in the kind of brash masculinity so often seen in other recent winners, but she did win two individual immunities, and managed to maneuver her way to the end despite a crumbling Kama alliance. I have a sneaking suspicion that a man could have played Julie’s exact game en route to a victory.
I register all these complaints to elucidate precisely why the show’s most recent change is rather irrelevant. Sure, Jeff may be using more inclusive language now (never mind the fact that, just moments after making the switch, Jeff used the term “guys” in a different sentence) but the systemic issues plaguing the show remain unaddressed. No doubt, Survivor 41’s cast is the most diverse in the show’s history, abiding by CBS’s new 50% BIPOC mandate. Such diversity deserves praise, and understandably begets related accommodations. But Jeff and the Survivor production team could have easily made this change behind closed doors. If Survivor 41’s first challenge kicked off with a simple “come on in!”, I doubt anyone but the most ardent of fans would have noticed. Instead, the show tried to turn it into a “moment” and faced some much-deserved flak as a result.
Fortunately, Survivor 41 is shaping up to be a pretty good season nonetheless! The diversity of its cast unsurprisingly makes for some compelling gameplay, but the show’s producers still can’t seem to get out of their own way. While they have thus far put forth some intriguing twists on the Survivor format, they have also adorned it with perhaps a few too many bells and whistles. Jeff kicked off Survivor 41 with a promise that viewers will be immersed in the game like never before, privy to information that even the players do not know. And yet, for the first time in my Survivor viewing life, I am utterly confused as to how the many overlapping twists are going to resolve themselves. The show’s new Shot In The Dark twist is a good one, but how does its requirement that you lose your vote gel with Xander’s recent retrieval of the Beware Advantage, which has already stripped him of his vote? The Beware Advantage is similarly a good one, but what happens if Xander is voted out? Or if a member of Ua and Luvu never finds it? Does Xander never get to vote again? Does he have to repeat that stupid phrase — perhaps the most unsettling departure from the otherwise mature nature of the Survivor franchise — at every immunity challenge moving forward? If you aren’t a Survivor viewer, these questions may sound preposterous, and that is partly because they are. A show with as fervent a fanbase as this one’s certainly deserves the leeway to innovate and explore, even if it results in bizarre moments like Jeff addressing the camera directly. But one can only hope that such innovations actually improve the quality of the show, and serve as more than just empty gestures towards equality.
I sometimes fear that America’s obsession with identity politics, while coming from the right place, only obscures the need for material change. I suppose that isn’t much of a revelation, but there is something fascinatingly conservative about these sorts of conversations. Our need to address everyone with the proper pronouns and to memorize the many identities housed under the LGBTQIA+ initialism stems from American individualism more broadly. Our need to self-identify, and demand respect for that identity from anybody and everybody, is a very American thing. Of course, these concepts are being dealt with and worked on across the globe, but Americans seem to treat identity politics with a rather bizarre reverence. The slightest step out of line is a cancel-worthy offense. But fucking up is part of life! Offending others and growing from it is part of life! Being offended by others and growing from it? Also part of life! I know this is a rather uncomfortable conversation to have, and I am aware how dangerously close I am to parroting conservative radio show hosts’ concerns over PC culture and “kids these days.” But removing the word “guys” from a catchphrase isn’t likely to effect much change, and it may even damage the push for true material improvements. Evvie, a member of the identity group supposedly excluded by the term, was perfectly fine with the term! Doesn’t that count for something? Jeff, in asking the Yase and Ua tribes for their flint, said the phrase “guys, I’m gonna need your flint back.” You know why? Because “guys” is an incredibly common term! It has become so ubiquitous, it has almost lost its gendered associations entirely. I don’t judge Ricard for expressing his own opinion on the matter. He is perfectly entitled to feel that way. But I do think his suggestion is emblematic of that American obsession with individual identities, and Jeff’s subsequent glee is not unlike a Kente-clad Nancy Pelosi, or a rainbow version of the WalMart logo.
We are still early in Survivor’s new era, and the show has proven its ability to confront complex issues throughout its history. Such moments, however, are driven by the cast. And so Jeff and his crew can manufacture these kinds of moments all they want, but only the cast of Survivor 41 can ultimately deliver the jaw-dropping, memorable, and thought-provoking moments that have defined the show across its 21 years on television.