How Could Survivor Have Screwed Up This Badly?

Information technology took 36 days afterward Survivor contestant Kellee Kim first complained well-nigh Dan Spilo'southward unwanted touching for production to act. Photo: Robert Voets/CBS

"Two hours of riveting Survivor." That's how host and showrunner Jeff Probst teased two early November episodes, which included a articulate, unambiguous analogy of sexual harassment and its fallout. Probst's expectation that the audience would find repeated unwanted touching, gaslighting, and the literal silencing of a victim to exist "riveting" is just office of the seismic sea wave of existent-life horror that's swept over Survivor in its 39th season.

On Wed night this week, viewers learned that Dan Spilo had been ejected from the game because of an "incident" that was not filmed. The ejection was long overdue: Information technology took 36 days after a Survivor contestant, Kellee Kim, commencement complained about Dan'southward unwanted touching for the production to actually practise something to protect its cast members. It'south nigh every bit if Survivor, MGM Telly, and CBS ready out to demonstrate how institutions and people in power fail when dealing with charges of misconduct, because they've done nothing but fail all season long, damaging real people'southward lives and the franchise itself.

We only know what's been broadcast, but that's quite a lot. Starting with the very first episode, the show'due south camera operators filmed what other players referred to equally "inappropriate touching": Dan draping his arm across a woman'southward leg at night, putting his mitt on Missy Byrd'southward leg while she was talking to someone else, touching Kellee's face up and hair. Kellee repeatedly asked Dan to not touch her, and all the same he connected to do so on multiple occasions, and Survivor connected to practise cipher. The coiffure filmed every bit some contestants joked virtually Dan'due south touching; they filmed as Missy bodacious Kellee she was non alone in being the recipient of unwanted physical contact. "When I kickoff got here, Dan was similar, super-kind and super-helpful, but so one dark, the hands were wandering," she told Kellee. "It's a game and then I'thousand assuming nobody would want to say something, because you don't desire to make a scene."

Subsequently that conversation with Missy, Kellee broke down in a confessional interview with an unseen producer, and the show broke the 4th wall to requite u.s.a. his response: "If at that place are issues, to the bespeak where things need to happen, come to me and I will make certain that it stops. I don't want anyone feeling uncomfortable," the producer said. That "if" is unconscionable: That conversation happened three weeks after Kellee outset said she felt uncomfortable, and after the unwanted touching — and the filming of it — continued.

Survivor did do something then, just with baffling inadequacy. Producers met with players, off camera, and on-screen text informed TV audiences that "producers met privately with Dan, at which time he was issued a alarm for his behavior." The specifics of the warning were never explained, and the meeting was so ineffective that the players had no thought what it was about. One contestant, Aaron Meredith, told Parade it was "a very vague blanket argument telling me if I always felt unsafe, I should permit production know."

Meanwhile, Jeff Probst told the Fifty.A. Times that the multimillion dollar production backside Survivor just didn't know what to exercise. "The biggest question centered around whether or not Dan's unwanted touching, that made some of the women uncomfortable, was enough to warrant pulling him from the game," he said. "From our point of view, there was no clear reply."

Afterwards an off-photographic camera "incident" during this week's episode — which "did non involve some other player," every bit a championship card said — the testify finally took action, pulling Dan from the game. Since contestants would not interact with anyone else during filming, any happened probably involved a member of the show's coiffure. No crew members accept come forward with accusations against Dan, and the product has nonetheless to explain what the "incident" was.

The Survivor rules and cast contract make it explicitly clear that "harming, or threatening damage to, other contestants or crew members" is grounds for ejection — though it likewise gives producers the power to remove any player for any reason. And reality-TV producers, especially in competition shows, control 100 percentage of the surround in which the game is played. Of course, they shouldn't interfere with game play. Merely they do regularly intervene for condom reasons: Survivor has involuntarily removed players from the game fifteen times for medical reasons. Why was this case treated differently? CBS said "the production volition intervene in situations where warranted." Yet it did not arbitrate, for nearly the entire season. How could Survivor have screwed upwards this badly?

The answer may be in something that happened x years ago, when Probst tried to quit Survivor. As he told the New York Times, "My Achilles' heel for a lot of my life was that nobody saw me equally a storyteller, that they saw me equally a white guy with dark hair who was just a game-show host. And that, in terms of my own self-image, was the thing that could gut me." Survivor fans, TV critics, and the Idiot box Academy saw Jeff Probst as one of reality-TV's best hosts, but that wasn't enough. He became showrunner, and now his ego is in control, prioritizing being a "storyteller" above all else, and that'southward direct affected the people who make the show possible: its cast and crew.

The way Probst has repeatedly framed what happened this season illustrates his priority: story first, with real people whose real lives are affected as stand up-ins for big themes. After Kellee beginning spoke out in Nov, he described the flavor so far equally "one ofSurvivor'due south most compelling and socially relevant seasons of all time. […] Tonight, the unabridged ii hours centered around the seismic shift that is taking place in our culture regarding how men and women chronicle to and respect each other. This is non unique toSurvivor.Survivor is a microcosm for our real globe. Situations merely like this one are playing out in offices and bars and colleges across the country and the world."

Let'south hope that in offices and bars and colleges, people in authority would respond to clear, filmed evidence of unwanted touching immediately and unequivocally. If Probst really wants his show to be "relevant," and for his storytelling to affect change, he could kickoff by taking responsibleness for its ain complicity in what happened to his cast and crew. Dan was responsible for the unwanted touching, but by failing to act, Jeff Probst and Survivor wrote this story.

How Could Survivor Take Screwed Up This Badly?