Why nature doesn't look like "Survivor"
I've been following Steven Johnson since I came across his wonderful essay on narrative structure in TV at the time that I was thinking a lot about the narrative structure of The Cowboy Girl. This weekend I'm finally getting around to reading the full text of the book that arose out of that essay, Everything Bad is Good for You. It's a wonderful book, in the tradition of very smart people making formerly-counterintuitive arguments. But it also puts an old story that's long puzzled me into interesting light.
When the TV show Survivor first came out, a major network started a conversation with the nature writer Gary Ferguson about going on the air as a Survivor analyst. The opportunity never panned out, in large part because, as Gary shared with some of his friends, he couldn't figure out what he could possibly say about Survivor. "It has nothing to do with nature at all," he said. "Being out in nature is about appreciation and teamwork. But the show is made-up world full of invented threats and invented competitions."
In retrospect, Johnson's appreciation of reality TV also validates Ferguson's perspective. Reality shows, Johnson says, are not about the setting, but the social dynamics. The success of Survivor is not its depiction of people surviving in a natural environment, but people adapting to new, complex social environments. The setting is just a vaguely-familiar hook, in the same way that many game shows have a setting similar to a high-school quiz. It's silly to analyze the setting: Survivor analysis doesn't need a nature writer any more than Jeopardy analysis needs a social studies teacher.
At the time we couldn't appreciate the distinction (Johnson fears that many of us still can't). But I still wish Ferguson and the network had gone ahead with their plans to highlight it.
I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com
When the TV show Survivor first came out, a major network started a conversation with the nature writer Gary Ferguson about going on the air as a Survivor analyst. The opportunity never panned out, in large part because, as Gary shared with some of his friends, he couldn't figure out what he could possibly say about Survivor. "It has nothing to do with nature at all," he said. "Being out in nature is about appreciation and teamwork. But the show is made-up world full of invented threats and invented competitions."
In retrospect, Johnson's appreciation of reality TV also validates Ferguson's perspective. Reality shows, Johnson says, are not about the setting, but the social dynamics. The success of Survivor is not its depiction of people surviving in a natural environment, but people adapting to new, complex social environments. The setting is just a vaguely-familiar hook, in the same way that many game shows have a setting similar to a high-school quiz. It's silly to analyze the setting: Survivor analysis doesn't need a nature writer any more than Jeopardy analysis needs a social studies teacher.
At the time we couldn't appreciate the distinction (Johnson fears that many of us still can't). But I still wish Ferguson and the network had gone ahead with their plans to highlight it.
I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com
