#babe we know

[sweetpaintedladie]

his gravitational pull is insane

[some-mad-lunge]

Quote Of The Day

"Everything Robert has done he’s done cause he loves me." ~ Aaron

[rosyjuly]

sure thing!

instagram.com/reel/ClB6SqHudOI/

(clickable link) anon. i'm obsessed with this. the slow heart with her hands. starting out with a pic with mats with HIGHLIGHTER YELLOW hair. NONE of the pictures being candids. cathy looking into the camera in almost all of them. thank you. now THIS is the blueprint. i want all breakups to be announced in a similarly deranged and uncomfortable fashion.

[thisisbabetown-blog]

A Babe We Know: MDB on Survivor

By Carleigh

This interview is spoiler-free except for a note regarding Season 33 theme at the end of the article.

Last night Survivor extinguished the torch of its 32nd season and the first half of its sixteenth year on television. If you know one thing about Survivor, it should be that it was a game-changer for television in demonstrating that reality TV was a powerful option for networks.

If you know one other thing it’s that there is so much more to it than that.

Each season 20 people are divided into tribes to survive for 39 days. Every week they compete in challenges for both rewards and immunity from Tribal Council where contestants on losing tribes vote each other off until three remain. The final contestants must then convince a jury of the ten players previously voted off to vote FOR one of them to win one million dollars. Production doesn’t commit to many other rules which constantly changes the game and forces players to strategize in new ways. Many seasons have themes categorizing tribes (for example this season is Brains vs Beauty vs Brawn) and often include contestants returning for more than one season.

While this season’s finale viewing numbers won’t hit close to the first season’s phenomenal 50 million, it should hold steady to the last several seasons with nearly 10 million finale viewers. That’s a solid number but through my adult years watching the show I haven’t encountered many others analyzing the tribes’ moves week to week. When it came up that Omaha-to-Madison transplant, Mary Dahlman Begley

was also an invested fan I was ecstatic. While I’ve been pestering her with questions and theories ever since, last weekend we finally sat down to pick apart the deeper facets to our appreciation for the show.

Here are a few highlights:

CDPK: Would you want to be on Survivor? Do you think you would do well?

MDB: Yeah, I would do it. I think I would be pretty good at the social part because I’m generally good at talking to people. But I think I’d end up overplaying my hand, thinking I had alliances that I didn’t. I’m fairly trusting of people but also cynical.

One thing I know for certain is I would be bad at challenges. I have bad balance, no endurance and I don’t run. I think I would be a pretty amusing character though. That’s for sure.

CDPK: Do you have a strategy in mind?

MDB: I would play up different parts of my background. You can’t be completely devoid of context or else you have no cards to play. Like I’m a receptionist right now and I think I would say that [to play off perceptions of traditional gender roles] and make myself less threatening. I think that classifying yourself is maybe not the most progressive or feminist thing I could engage in but sometimes it’s important.

CDPK: Yeah, classifying yourself becomes an important thing to do to relate to people on the show. At the beginning you’re all trying to figure each other out and trying to put each other in a box so you might as well figure out the box you’re prepared to be put into.

MDB: Definitely. And thinking about avenues I could go down. I want to present as a version of me but would I tell people I was in a feminist punk band called Prom Queef? Not necessarily. But sometimes it can work in your favor. How I would present myself would play differently to different people.

CDPK: Sometimes I think people enjoy having their own realization like, “I never thought I’d get along with this person but I do.”

MDB: The sweet irony of a Vietnam refugee having a friendship with an American veteran [which happened on this season]- It’s so beautiful. You couldn’t write that on a TV show, it’d be too cheesy. I think that’s one of the most compelling things about Survivor. They have an essentially blank slate that’s a fairly level playing field and largely devoid of context. You can only build upon your relationships in the game and navigate any inner biases or attitudes you have. It’s a pretty true expression of those people’s character and maybe the human race in general.

Something I wanted to see if you agreed with is the assertion that Survivor is an equalizer. Everyone is going through the same conditions and you’re deprived of the normal context of your life. Usually challenges are varied enough that it levels the playing field a lot.

CDPK: I guess so. Especially because generally it’s only a few people really making outstanding performances in challenges. It’s more important to be able to talk to people and strategize that way. And for a good portion of it it’s just about keeping the tribe strong. Just don’t totally mess up a challenge.

MDB: Or be too good. Which wouldn’t be a problem for me.

CDPK: The only time I see it being unequal with the sexes is I just don’t know how women deal with their periods except to have an IUD.

MDB: But in 2000 [the first season] they wouldn’t have had them.

[My boyfriend] often asks me how I can watch The Bachelor as a feminist. “Tortured” is kind of how I can. But I don’t have to make a compromise when I watch Survivor because I sincerely believe it’s an equal playing field. Except for maybe any period stuff. But I guess broadly, men, they have larger body mass, need more food. Maybe that’s a disadvantage. I think it’s so far removed from the advantages and disadvantages of gender or other traits that cause bias in daily life.

CDPK: This is not scientific but people talk about how women can sometimes bear pain better than men. Maybe that’s relevant. I think it’s so much about just how uncomfortable you’re willing to be. Physically but also emotionally. I’m just going to sleep on this bamboo. I’m going to be covered in bug bites…

MDB: Gonna be sunburned.

CDPK: Yep! And I’m going to be rained on. And it’s going to be fine.

MDB: As a woman, I have to put up with shit. I’m a receptionist, I get called “honey,” I have to smile at people all the time. But because I know how to put on that exterior I feel like I have a certain amount of social intelligence that some other people don’t have to develop.

CDPK: I have not met many other people our age who admit to watching Survivor. Usually when I mention it people remark, “Oh that’s still on?” Do people ever think you’re watching Survivor ironically?

MDB: A lot of people think I watch it ironically. I get accused of things like that a lot. I like Carly Rae Jepsen and I also like to watch Top 40 videos, none of it is done ironically.

Few people get it. But I think that finding the people that do like it is really cool and powerful. I love that you love it. I love that [my friend] Luis loves it. Luis has interests that are so disparate from me. He loves video games and I hate video games. But this is something we both care about.

I always wonder when I’m going to stop watching but then I think ‘When is survivor going to end?’ Never.

Survivor Season 33: Millennials vs Gen X (ugh, I know) begins this Fall on CBS