[Headie]

Youtube video

San Juan Del Legends <3

[JerseyWins]

I guess Chris kinda wasn't deserving but when it's a F3 of Chris/Gavin/Julie ... yikes at picking a winner lol... at least what he did (his journey to the end) was something not seen yet in Survivor

But after all, Chris must've been most deserving if he managed to get the jury to want to vote for him despite already being voted off (such bad logic that everyone who wins was a deserving winner because you have to get the jury to want to vote for you in the end and obv the winner every season accomplishes that)

[Macie Lightfoot]

There's also a lot of inherent sexism within the game and the structure of the game that has gotten us to the point where the F3 is traditionally two men who split votes and a woman who people just pat on the head and condescendingly congratulate for making it to Day 39. Women like Gonzalez and Mari and Molly were singled out immediately for being massive threats and "Parvati 2.0" which absolutely comes from Probst reducing to Parvati's gameplay to "she flirted with the men and then voted them out." Plenty of people have earned just as much of a target on their backs, but for some reason there's a repeated fear of what a woman can do on Day 39 that starts on like Day 6. We also saw this with Elaine almost getting booted first this season because "if she makes it to the end she'll sweep the Jury" which is laughably dense logic to have during the premiere. We've also seen repeated instances of "male/female are a POWER DUO and we are...... going to weaken the guy by taking out the girl :3" This was the Chelsea vote this season, the Liz vote in Kaoh Rong, the Elyse vote in South Pacific, and sooooo many more in between. The players have conditioned themselves to believe that smart women are only harmful and never beneficial, whereas even a shifty dude is often kept around because "he's an asset in Challenges," the logic that saved Dean early on despite the fact that he was embarrassingly bad at anything physical and mental. Despite alpha males continuing to win year after year after year, we continue to hear about the dread all girls alliance and Parvati 2.0s and never about the Ben 2.0s or the Boston Robs or literally any other successful male archetype.

AND this doesn't even bring us into the bastardized format of the show now. We moved from a F2 to F3 because Jeff was upset about players like Terry getting axed right before the FTC and getting "robbed." The F4 fire-making twist was introduced because Jeff was upset about players David and Spencer and Malcolm and Ozzy getting axed right before the FTC for being too threatening and getting "robbed." There used to be a level of finesse needed to minimize your threat level and get people to not take you out before the FTC, a level of finesse that many of Probst's favorites lacked. Because of this, Jeff has decided to reward their gameplay by completely breaking the format to favor the in-your-face, alpha male type of gameplay. Idols and Advantages are rehidden immediately after they're played, creating a revolving door type of effect where the same players can and have become immune over and over again. Twists like Redemption Island and the Edge of Extinction were literally created to give people like Russell Hantz and Boston Rob and Joe Anglim a second chance if they were ever booted. And even with all of these changes to the endgame, Idols can still be played at F5. We're at a point now where you can play Survivor with the subtlety of a foghorn, play an Idol at F5, win your way through F4 either by means of Immunity or fire, and then win Survivor because of how much you've "overcome" or because of how flashy your game was. There are fewer consequences for playing recklessly. Camp dynamics create a dynamic where it's more difficult for women to leave camp, leaving men to more often find Idols an Advantages and thus a free ticket to the F4, and then these men can just put on a show and win $1,000,000. We saw Michele "play like a girl" and win through her social game, and as a result Probst completely changed the format of the show where you can now "play like a guy" and win year after year after year like Adam and Ben and Wendell and Nick.

And again, it does matter when the statistics have become frighteningly one-sided. It does matter when the show is literally preaching women empowerment while still operating in a way that fundamentally rewards male players. Just because you're content with the outcomes since the players you root for do well in this format doesn't mean you should stick your fingers in your ears and tune out what's right in front of you.

The last part is true as could be. Janet was explicitly taken out at 5 because she was the best fire-maker and the Jury loved her. The whole theme of the finale was "if Janet makes it to the end we're ****ed, so we need to nullify her Idol" which is still a laughably stupid concept. Even when we do get a woman who can win under this F4 fire-making format, she's not even allowed to get there because of an IDOL NULLIFIER that was literally won through the flip of a coin under the pretense of "teaching Dean a lesson about Jury management." This entire franchise has become a comedy of errors.

[JerseyWins]

Originally Posted by Macie Lightfoot

There's also a lot of inherent sexism within the game and the structure of the game that has gotten us to the point where the F3 is traditionally two men who split votes and a woman who people just pat on the head and condescendingly congratulate for making it to Day 39. Women like Gonzalez and Mari and Molly were singled out immediately for being massive threats and "Parvati 2.0" which absolutely comes from Probst reducing to Parvati's gameplay to "she flirted with the men and then voted them out." Plenty of people have earned just as much of a target on their backs, but for some reason there's a repeated fear of what a woman can do on Day 39 that starts on like Day 6. We also saw this with Elaine almost getting booted first this season because "if she makes it to the end she'll sweep the Jury" which is laughably dense logic to have during the premiere. We've also seen repeated instances of "male/female are a POWER DUO and we are...... going to weaken the guy by taking out the girl :3" This was the Chelsea vote this season, the Liz vote in Kaoh Rong, the Elyse vote in South Pacific, and sooooo many more in between. The players have conditioned themselves to believe that smart women are only harmful and never beneficial, whereas even a shifty dude is often kept around because "he's an asset in Challenges," the logic that saved Dean early on despite the fact that he was embarrassingly bad at anything physical and mental. Despite alpha males continuing to win year after year after year, we continue to hear about the dread all girls alliance and Parvati 2.0s and never about the Ben 2.0s or the Boston Robs or literally any other successful male archetype.

AND this doesn't even bring us into the bastardized format of the show now. We moved from a F2 to F3 because Jeff was upset about players like Terry getting axed right before the FTC and getting "robbed." The F4 fire-making twist was introduced because Jeff was upset about players David and Spencer and Malcolm and Ozzy getting axed right before the FTC for being too threatening and getting "robbed." There used to be a level of finesse needed to minimize your threat level and get people to not take you out before the FTC, a level of finesse that many of Probst's favorites lacked. Because of this, Jeff has decided to reward their gameplay by completely breaking the format to favor the in-your-face, alpha male type of gameplay. Idols and Advantages are rehidden immediately after they're played, creating a revolving door type of effect where the same players can and have become immune over and over again. Twists like Redemption Island and the Edge of Extinction were literally created to give people like Russell Hantz and Boston Rob and Joe Anglim a second chance if they were ever booted. And even with all of these changes to the endgame, Idols can still be played at F5. We're at a point now where you can play Survivor with the subtlety of a foghorn, play an Idol at F5, win your way through F4 either by means of Immunity or fire, and then win Survivor because of how much you've "overcome" or because of how flashy your game was. There are fewer consequences for playing recklessly. Camp dynamics create a dynamic where it's more difficult for women to leave camp, leaving men to more often find Idols an Advantages and thus a free ticket to the F4, and then these men can just put on a show and win $1,000,000. We saw Michele "play like a girl" and win through her social game, and as a result Probst completely changed the format of the show where you can now "play like a guy" and win year after year after year like Adam and Ben and Wendell and Nick.

And again, it does matter when the statistics have become frighteningly one-sided. It does matter when the show is literally preaching women empowerment while still operating in a way that fundamentally rewards male players. Just because you're content with the outcomes since the players you root for do well in this format doesn't mean you should stick your fingers in your ears and tune out what's right in front of you.

The last part is true as could be. Janet was explicitly taken out at 5 because she was the best fire-maker and the Jury loved her. The whole theme of the finale was "if Janet makes it to the end we're ****ed, so we need to nullify her Idol" which is still a laughably stupid concept. Even when we do get a woman who can win under this F4 fire-making format, she's not even allowed to get there because of an IDOL NULLIFIER that was literally won through the flip of a coin under the pretense of "teaching Dean a lesson about Jury management." This entire franchise has become a comedy of errors.

I have to just agree to disagree with a lot because I fully disagree with so much of this but cba to reply to everything. Maybe I'll make a bigger post at another time but I'll just say a few things:

"Twists like Redemption Island and the Edge of Extinction were literally created to give people like Russell Hantz and Boston Rob and Joe Anglim a second chance if they were ever booted."
- Is this not sexist thinking when in reality the women can easily win any of the challenges they put out there?

"We also saw this with Elaine almost getting booted first this season because "if she makes it to the end she'll sweep the Jury" which is laughably dense logic to have during the premiere."
- This had absolutely nothing to do with her gender and absolutely everything to do with her likable personality & her story coming in.

"The players have conditioned themselves to believe that smart women are only harmful and never beneficial, whereas even a shifty dude is often kept around because "he's an asset in Challenges," the logic that saved Dean early on despite the fact that he was embarrassingly bad at anything physical and mental."
- This is just not true & you're looking at it with tunnel vision of what you want to see as "inherent sexism within the game" when in reality a lot of the females that were viewed as smart & voted off in current and past seasons just simply weren't subtle enough in trying to not look smart with the cast. The same subtlety that Tommy showed when he took a back seat a lot and tried to not look threatening - he let Lauren look like the mastermind because she was more out there and literally willing to show how smart & powerful she was in the game compared to Tommy who downplayed a lot to a lot of people. Sandra is an excellent example of a subtle "smart" player that makes herself look like a goat when she is very aware of the game and how to get through and get the votes in the end. As she was then awarded for it twice. She is a woman.

"Women like Gonzalez and Mari and Molly were singled out immediately for being massive threats and "Parvati 2.0" which absolutely comes from Probst reducing to Parvati's gameplay to "she flirted with the men and then voted them out." Plenty of people have earned just as much of a target on their backs, but for some reason there's a repeated fear of what a woman can do on Day 39 that starts on like Day 6."
- This doesn't just happen to women. Men are just more likely to be seen as a benefit in challenges based on their performances OR their muscular build and therefore are kept around a lot of times in the early couple days. And then the physically fit men that can win challenges are constantly viewed as immediate threats at the merge and compared to "Ozzy 2.0" & "Joe Anglim 2.0" and typically get voted off one of the first few times they don't win immunity. But you probably have no problem when it comes to that strategizing against a physical man. Anyway, comparisons are made, people are voted out for the comparisons that are seen as crucial to take out in order to win. Nothing groundbreaking. Nothing about gender.

[Macie Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by JerseyWins

- Is this not sexist thinking when in reality the women can easily win any of the challenges they put out there?

These are twists that were literally introduced for specific purposes and if you are in denial of that then you're just blind. Redemption Island was crafted as a built-in second chance for Rob and Russell, and Edge of Extinction was created so that Joe could instantly propel himself back from the dead and into the final with one Challenge win.

Originally Posted by JerseyWins

- This had absolutely nothing to do with her gender and absolutely everything to do with her likable personality & her story coming in.

Again, my point is that for some reason it's the women who are instantly pegged as "we can't possibly let them get to the end because they'll win" threats, and it's laughably dense for this to repeatedly happen within the first six days of the game.

Originally Posted by JerseyWins

- This is just not true & you're looking at it with tunnel vision of what you want to see as "inherent sexism within the game" when in reality a lot of the females that were viewed as smart & voted off in current and past seasons just simply weren't subtle enough in trying to not look smart with the cast. The same subtlety that Tommy showed when he took a back seat a lot and tried to not look threatening - he let Lauren look like the mastermind because she was more out there and literally willing to show how smart & powerful she was in the game compared to Tommy who downplayed a lot to a lot of people. Sandra is an excellent example of a subtle "smart" player that makes herself look like a goat when she is very aware of the game and how to get through and get the votes in the end. As she was then awarded for it twice. She is a woman.

I'd actually go down a different path and say that it's another symptom of BIG MOVEZ culture because the players immediately freak out about Day 39 threats the second they hit the beach. When the vote comes down to Dean and Chelsea, almost every group of players in this current era keeps Dean because he brings "physical strength" and everyone assumes that it will be easier to get him out later rather than round up the numbers to get out Chelsea. The logic is actually really ****ing stupid because these people just proved that it's not difficult to round up the numbers to get out Chelsea since, hello, they literally just did that. We've seen it with Dean/Chelsea, with Taylor/Figgy, with Peter/Liz, with Joaquin/So, with Ozzy/Elyse, etc. The only instance in recent memory where the roles were reversed was Tommy/Lauren because there was that entire period of time after the swap and early merge where Tommy was repeatedly named as a target to weaken Lauren, but even then the cast failed to deliver on that one.

Sexism/implicit gender bias in Survivor isn't an all-or-nothing matter either. Citing Sandra winning twice in the previous decade, long before the game was littered with Idols and Nullifiers and Advantages and Fire-Making twists, doesn't negate the current gender imbalance of successful men compared to successful women.

Originally Posted by JerseyWins

- This doesn't just happen to women. Men are just more likely to be seen as a benefit in challenges based on their performances OR their muscular build and therefore are kept around a lot of times in the early couple days. And then the physically fit men that can win challenges are constantly viewed as immediate threats at the merge and compared to "Ozzy 2.0" & "Joe Anglim 2.0" and typically get voted off one of the first few times they don't win immunity. But you probably have no problem when it comes to that strategizing against a physical man. Anyway, comparisons are made, people are voted out for the comparisons that are seen as crucial to take out in order to win. Nothing groundbreaking. Nothing about gender.

Oh I think it's absolutely possible to acknowledge how ****ing stupid the "muscular guy = physical threat" fallacy is, especially when modern Challenges don't favor muscular men at all. Like practically every tribal Challenge is an agility obstacle course followed by a puzzle and practically every individual Challenge is endurance, and the real threats are the people with better strength/weight ratios. That being said, there's also a huge difference between a guy getting taken out for being a physical threat and a girl getting taken out for ~being the next Parvati~. Physical Challenges are a cornerstone in every season of Survivor; someone playing "like Parvati" is not. Molly's entire boot episode was multiple people proclaiming her to be Parvati 2.0 and I still don't even know what they mean by that.

[Macie Lightfoot]

Also here's my damn edgic chart

[Matthew.]

Did someone say Edgic?

Spoiler:

1. The amount of time that took to resize properly…
2. I counted the Dan exposure episode(s) as one single episode as they ran back to back.
3. Noura’s edgic
4. Merry Christmas!

[JerseyWins]

Also from the ranking thread to further prove the blinders you have towards seeing anything anti-female related that isn't really there:

18. Dean (Never passed up an opportunity to target a woman, exclusively aligned himself with straight white men, unironically called women of color goats despite being a complete dumbass of a goat himself

1) He was trying to keep strong physical threats in the game to save himself from the "inherent sexism" within the game that is targeting all the physical men at merge. Except he actually thought of Elizabeth in the same light. It wasn't just men. It was physical threats he was trying to get through with as long as possible. Tommy didn't win anything but he might've performed well since the beginning to group him in as well
2) Which yeah he didn't align with just straight men, he even mentioned a F2 with Elizabeth in FTC and included her in trying to protect in the game. Weren't his couple of main allies: Chelsea, Tommy, Aaron, Elizabeth? That's two women, 1 white man, 1 POC man
3) No offense but they... were goats lol. It was Noura & Karishma? But yeah so was Dean. He also saw himself as a goat but thought he was moreso making himself look that way and could actually win in the end. On finale night he said something like "from goat to ... *listed his immunity necklace, idol, nullifier*" thinking he was suddenly not a goat after turning it up with advantages & a big challenge win.

Anyway, that entire "Dean is a sexist dumbass" reasoning was trying to find something anti-female that wasn't actually there which is exactly what the above post is as well.

[Jigs]

Many "threatening" women have been voted off early, yes, but what about David Samson? Garrett Adelstein? Jason Linden? Garrett was booted for his physical prowess when they could've ousted J'Tia. Jason from this season was also booted over Lauren.

In a lot of ways, women are more powerful than men at Survivor because the Spencer Bledsoes of the world are very transparent whereas the Parvati Shallows will mist you right up until the F4 when they win immunity and you realise they made it to the FTC and you're screwed.

Of course that doesn't excuse people like Mari Takahashi randomly being voted out for being a threat, or Molly Byman getting blindsided because the mere thought that she may potentially run the game at some point was too much for the rest of her tribe. But other women have had roles in these blindsides too. People like Molly and Mari were not ousted by Men Only clubs. Castaways like So Kim were blindsided early in an instance where another powerful woman led the charge (Carolyn).

Ultimately, I know the statistics of women reaching the FTC and winning pale in comparison to the male castaways we've had, but people like Kim, Denise, Natalie Anderson and ofc Parvati have managed to be successful even when they were painted as huge strategic threats OR after a long trajectory of adversity where they could've easily been voted out at any time (Denise is the biggest example of this).

I agree with what you said about the F4 firemaking twist and the EOE twist being put in place to prevent Probst's favourites from being robbed. However, to claim that it is inbuilt for the purpose of only benefiting men is not only untrue but kinda a discredit to women on your part for assuming they don't also have an ability to make fire or win a challenge????????

[JerseyWins]

Originally Posted by Jigs

Many "threatening" women have been voted off early, yes, but what about David Samson? Garrett Adelstein? Jason Linden? Garrett was booted for his physical prowess when they could've ousted J'Tia. Jason from this season was also booted over Lauren.

In a lot of ways, women are more powerful than men at Survivor because the Spencer Bledsoes of the world are very transparent whereas the Parvati Shallows will mist you right up until the F4 when they win immunity and you realise they made it to the FTC and you're screwed.

Of course that doesn't excuse people like Mari Takahashi randomly being voted out for being a threat, or Molly Byman getting blindsided because the mere thought that she may potentially run the game at some point was too much for the rest of her tribe. But other women have had roles in these blindsides too. People like Molly and Mari were not ousted by Men Only clubs. Castaways like So Kim were blindsided early in an instance where another powerful woman led the charge (Carolyn).

Ultimately, I know the statistics of women reaching the FTC and winning pale in comparison to the male castaways we've had, but people like Kim, Denise, Natalie Anderson and ofc Parvati have managed to be successful even when they were painted as huge strategic threats OR after a long trajectory of adversity where they could've easily been voted out at any time (Denise is the biggest example of this).

I agree with what you said about the F4 firemaking twist and the EOE twist being put in place to prevent Probst's favourites from being robbed. However, to claim that it is inbuilt for the purpose of only benefiting men is not only untrue but kinda a discredit to women on your part for assuming they don't also have an ability to make fire or win a challenge????????

Yup, all of this

[Macie Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by Jigs

Many "threatening" women have been voted off early, yes, but what about David Samson? Garrett Adelstein? Jason Linden? Garrett was booted for his physical prowess when they could've ousted J'Tia. Jason from this season was also booted over Lauren.

None of those people you mentioned were voted off explicitly because "if they make it to Day 39 they WILL win" which kind of was my point. The only time in recent history that a man was targeted immediately for being an end-game threat was David going after Garrett in the Cagayan premiere, and everyone collectively thought that was stupid and went against David instead.

Originally Posted by Jigs

Ultimately, I know the statistics of women reaching the FTC and winning pale in comparison to the male castaways we've had, but people like Kim, Denise, Natalie Anderson and ofc Parvati have managed to be successful even when they were painted as huge strategic threats OR after a long trajectory of adversity where they could've easily been voted out at any time (Denise is the biggest example of this).

Three of these women you mentioned won against other women in the FTC so it was going to be a woman winning either way lol. But then you get instances where The Way Women Should Play The Game leads to them being held to a different standard and then receive more vitriol from the Jury and fewer votes. Especially if it's an older woman who fills the mother role, then forget about it. Men play a cutthroat game and they're praised for it, but a middle-aged woman plays a similarly cutthroat game and they receive backlash because That's Not How A Mother Should Play Survivor. You have someone like Rick Devens cry at multiple Tribal Councils because his own actions and abrasive behavior led him to being on the bottom, and the Jury eats it up and is chomping at the bit to vote for him. His crying is seen as ~endearing~ because he cares about the game so much or something. Julie then cries and has a breakdown at Tribal Council because her alliance left her out of a vote and then she's seen as hysterical, emotional, and someone no "self-respecting" Jury could ever vote for.

This largely is a bigger issue with societal gender bias that seeps into the game, but then the show doubles down on it by creating advantages and twists are are designed to help a certain type of player and then we end up in a situation like now, where we've had an 8-2 male/female split of the past winners and the last five FTCs have only had two votes cast for a woman to win.

Originally Posted by Jigs

I agree with what you said about the F4 firemaking twist and the EOE twist being put in place to prevent Probst's favourites from being robbed. However, to claim that it is inbuilt for the purpose of only benefiting men is not only untrue but kinda a discredit to women on your part for assuming they don't also have an ability to make fire or win a challenge????????

The benefit of fire-making isn't because men make fire than woman. The benefit is that the players that play loud, brash, in-your-face style of games (traditionally male players that Probst loves) don't actually have to have any finesse to survive a vote or actually play Survivor the way it was originally designed to be played. Considering that you can still play an Idol at F5 and then win your way through F4, you can conceivably never actually have to be in the majority or have a good social standing with anyone. Ben was all alone as early as F7 in HHH, but then he was able to play an Idol for three TCs in a row and then make fire and all of the sudden he's in a position to win a million dollars. Survivor used to be a game that required actual skill with social skills and tribal politicking, but now it's just a glorified scavenger hunt that does benefit the men since they are traditionally the hunters and gatherers around camp and are thus in a better position to find that random blue piece of string in the jungle that doubles as a Super Duper Immunity Idol while women are left to tend to matters around camp.

[Jigs]

For what it's worth, I just remember how Dawn was treated by the jury in Caramoan and I thought she played an excellent game and deserved votes but the jury just did not see that in her future at all.

I didn't watch HHH but I'm slightly familiar with Ben's game and yeah, that's **** tbh. It was bad before, but I think that HHH is the season when Survivor became truly ridiculous with the constant toying of the format.

[JerseyWins]

Randomly just skim-rewatched the Survivor finale to kill time before going out and wow... it's definitely one of the best I've seen, still keeps all of its greatness on rewatch.

Dean closes out the first 3-4 commercial breaks STRONG with really excellent charismatic confessionals and all. The entire 10 minutes after Noura's F4 immunity win is just ****ing hilarious and while Dean had the majority of the rest of the big highlights for me, Noura blabbing in those 10 minutes is for suuuuure the best part of the finale Lauren/Tommy/Dean all do their part too in different ways.

And Dean just steals the show in the FTC period. WHEW this is a finale! Shame it's for such a mediocre overall season lol

[Headie]

I saw a thread on Sucks that said Sandra's winning games probably wouldn't even get any votes in modern Survivor because that type of gameplay is so snubbed nowadays.

[Calderyon]

I do admit it would be nice to see Survivor get back to it's roots, no hidden immunities, no hidden advantages, no clues to anything. And no twists.

Only tribal and individual immunities via challenge wins, reward challenges and everything else is social interaction between contestants.