Burnett's Book of Love

S01E16

I'm not really sure what I did to be so lucky as to get my hands on an advance copy of Survivor: The Ultimate Game, by Mark Burnett with Martin Dugard (New York: TV Books, 2000), so I'll just ascribe it to clean living. The less said about the exact circumstances of my acquiring it -- on September 8, fully four days before its official release date -- the better, I think. Plus, you don't care how I got it: What you want to know is what's in it. To lend veracity to my claim that I really did get the book, really did read it, and really am reviewing it, I will provide page number citations in parentheses.

The reader's best clue as to the tone and content of the book actually comes at the end, in Mark Burnett's brief biography: "He has given motivational, leadership, and team-building speeches for such clients as IBM, Citibank, Sony, USA Networks, Discovery Channel, and AdWeek Asia" (237). This line on Burnett's résumé hasn't been hyped quite as much as his more adventuresome involvement producing the Eco-Challenge for the Discovery Channel; in an odd way -- as much as I loved and was completely seduced by Survivor -- it disappointed me to learn that fact about Burnett, since it lent the whole show the air of a particularly intricate corporate retreat. Did the corporate lecturer in Burnett somehow craft the show in such a way as to favour Richard the Corporate Trainer?

The book suggests that the project's team-building elements were, predictably enough, concentrated around the time when there were still two teams -- and Burnett's management-speak occasionally creeps into the pre-Rattana chapters (or "Evolution"s, as they're mysteriously titled). "'Survivor' is about how you can manipulate complicated team dynamics under pressure," he writes (12). Burnett repeatedly gives Gretchen props for her management skills, quite apart from her traditional survival skills, noting that her work with children, as a pre-school teacher, provided her with "the greatest learning ground anywhere" (27), and crediting her with calming a weary B.B. when he'd apparently decided to throw the bug-eating challenge: "She wouldn't let him give into his weakness. Instead, she encouraged him with eye-contact and spoken communication to perform to the best of his ability" (48). Good call not trying to convince him using semaphore, girlfriend. In the midst of apparently neutral descriptions of vulnerable players Stacey and Dirk, Burnett slips into pat explanations for their problems; he implies that Stacey found firmer footing when "[s]he smiled more" (46), and suggests that the mere fact of Dirk's religious faith, regardless of the particular way Dirk may have chosen to express it (which, if you'll recall, was not shown much in the episodes as they were edited), alienated his tribemates: "There seems to be something threatening about a devout person of faith to non-believers....[T]hat person is quietly scorned as a reminder of imperfection" (59).

As the narrative continues -- each chapter is equivalent with the length of time encompassed in each episode -- and the group dynamics evolve in ways that no one could have possibly predicted, Burnett abandons the pop psychology; fortunately, the occasional titillating glimpse of actual psychology sneaks in. Each candidate participated in a session with psychologist Dr. Gene Ondrusek before being cast on the show, and met with him again on the island immediately upon being voted off. From these interviews, Burnett gleans some insights that, when dropped into the book without much (or any) context, come across as catty. And I love it! Jenna "was deeply insecure and had deep feelings of anger towards men" (104). Dirk was "a complex personality -- someone who adopts an outside structure system to bind up negative impulses. Rather than incorporate negative impulses into [his life, he] shun[ned] them out of great fear" (96-7). "Even in his sixties, B.B. was still proving his manhood to a father for whom even the best wasn't good enough" (38).

Burnett saves some of his most trenchant observations to round out the reader/viewer's image of Greg. "He had no interest in allowing Chief Jeff or television to be the arbiter of reality" (53). "Greg...was beginning to display signs of disturbing behavior. He had taken to walking the beaches speaking into an empty coconut shell. The coconut was his 'nature phone,' he said. A voice in the phone spoke to him. Greg was hard at work on a satellite dish to increase reception" (103). Considering that on the show, this affectation was portrayed as whimsical and cute, it's quite a revelation that the show's executive producer actually regarded this as "disturbing." Then there's the time a pair of Green Berets arrived on the island to assist in mounting a challenge (the last before Joel got the boot): "Greg...immediately changed from his bathing suit into a pair of shorts that were torn and exposed his genitals. [Hi, I would have liked to see that on TV. Or live, in my office. I'm not made of wood, people.] He got out his nature phone [and] began moaning that 'Survivor' was becoming paramilitary....[H]is barely suppressed rage was becoming an issue....He recited rambling monologues into the camera, talking of the inner voices that guided him, and alluding to his genius compared to that of his tribe members and the production crew" (108-9). "The happy otter look he feigned to disarm the world was being replaced by a hard stare. As his impotence grew, he began to allude to performing an act of violence against the island before he left" (110). Why didn't we see that on CBS? Just because the Tiffany network wouldn't want to be implicated if Greg started a forest fire using matches he won in some twee Reward Challenge, maybe?

By the time the tribes merged, Greg's reputation as a crackpot had reached what remained of Tagi. At the Tribal Summit on the Sand Spit, Sean told Jenna, "I watched him blow up at a camera man one time" (122). However, Greg was never so far gone as not to realize that his longevity on the island depended on his infiltrating the Tagi Alliance (123). What was only suggested on the show is explicitly confirmed in the book; Greg's persistent playing up to Richard is called "Greg's chickenhawk act" (138), and, in case that isn't clear enough, Burnett spells it out: "Greg was wooing Richard and the Alliance in the most obvious and unlikely way possible: Homosexuality" (127). By this point in the book we've already learned about the sexy dream Richard had about Sean (105), which, one assumes, may have had more than a little to do with the fact that Sean made it to the final five and, had Kelly not won so many challenges in a row, would have even made it to the final four. But I digress: My point is that Richard doesn't like blonds. Burnett even gets in a burn on Greg's sister Julie: "His five minutes of family video were either funny or deeply disturbing, depending on whether an individual understood the Buis family humour" (143). Upon his ouster at Tribal Council, when Greg made a show of crying for the cameras, Burnett claims, "No one could tell if it was real or he was just playing make-believe" (150); in fact, I think it was pretty clear Greg was faking it. Grudgingly, Burnett allows, "Compared with Sean's passive disregard for the game, Greg's action's [sic] were genius" (151), but that's faint praise considering Burnett's apparent contempt for Sean: "[I]f the Dark Side of the Force was to be stopped, a Rebel Alliance was imperative. Sean pretending otherwise meant he was either incredibly naïve or incredibly selfish" (146). Not both?

Greg sparked Burnett's suspicion as early as Pagong's first Tribal Council. As Jeff (or "Chief Jeff," as Burnett annoyingly persists in calling him) made with the ponderous solemnity in the middle of the faux-Mayan ruins and chest full of fake millions on the Tribal Council set, "Greg refused to play by either tribe's or television's rules, never giving a straight answer and always finding a unique way to tweak island life" (50). Despite Jeff's valiant attempts at earnestness, Greg was having none of it, and "said so while sitting around the fire pit as the voting was taking place" (51). As B.B. got his wish and started to make his way back to Kansas, Greg "called out a good-bye to B.B. in a loud pirate voice. 'Arrr...and a good captain you were," thus pissing on "the fourth wall -- that unseen barrier between television crew and castaways" (51).

While Greg's culture jamming is funny to...well, me, and probably to a considerable potential audience at home, Jeff "Anal" Probst had a different view: "Greg's clever manipulation had gotten under Jeff's skin. 'I don't ever -- EVER -- want that to happen again,' he said....Greg, in other words, was winning" (51). And Burnett simply couldn't have that; Jeff, the golden boy, was not to be upstaged. In fact, so much of the book is devoted to Burnett's slavish praise of Jeff Probst -- a man who, it is now generally agreed, stank up every minute of his Pulau Tiga screen time -- that I can't help wondering whether Jeff went...uh...the extra mile to land this sweet gig, if you know what I'm saying, and I think you do. Burnett respectfully touches on Jeff's extensive experience as "an on-air personality" (as if that were a real job requiring real skills other than the ability to move and speak) while also acknowledging his comparative obscurity: "A known persona brought baggage in the shape of public expectations. Whoever hosted 'Survivor' would need to spring fully-formed into the public consciousness" (56). In other words, he or she had to be a nobody, and Jeff fit the bill. When Access Hollywood, by which Jeff used to be employed, comes to do a report on the show, Burnett devotes several pages to Jeff's feelings on the visit, as if anyone cares (155-7). An anecdote about Jeff's taunting the castaways by telling them about sitting in his camp eating M&Ms, drinking a Diet Coke, and talking to a friend on the telephone is annotated in the margin of my book with "Jeff SUCKS" (73). Jeff does suck, and yet whenever Burnett mentions him, he can't resist praising Jeff's flexibility, professionalism, good looks, "likeability," and so on. Does Burnett owe Jeff money? Are they frat brothers? What, WHAT does Burnett see in Jeff that the rest of the world doesn't?

While Burnett is under no obligation to mute his obvious affection for Jeff, he does take pains to insist, "At no time did the production treat one castaway differently than any other" (158). That may have been so on the set, but it definitely is not in the book, and in fact, I can give you a quick rundown of Burnett's opinions of each castaway. He likes Sonja, but who didn't? There was barely time to form a poor opinion of her. He likes B.B. too, and seems to feel sorry to have put him among the "MTV Beach House" (passim) that was Pagong, who, save Gretchen, were too whiny to appreciate him: "Instead of empowering themselves by working harder, like Tagi, the Pagongs victimized themselves....Their beach, for lack of a better word, was a slum" (89). He seems to like Stacey, on the whole, and to agree with her post-show claims that she didn't get a chance to show her tribemates her best side, but he also demonstrates her inability to ingratiate herself in a group and pegs that as her downfall. He likes Ramona, but again, she's like Sonja; what did she ever do but vomit? Burnett is quite cruel in his description of Dirk: "He had a coating on his face resembling a beard. His face was sharp from hunger, accentuating his receding hairline" (97). Now, Dirk is fugly -- no one denies that -- but geez, Burnett, you cast him! Cut a brother some slack! Burnett doesn't like Joel, and devotes long passages to describing his struggles to be the "alpha male" of Pagong, in defiance of Gretchen.

And then there's Gretchen. Like everyone in North America, Burnett loves him some Gretchen Cordy, and the moment when she got voted off is as much a turning point in the book as it was on the show: "In one bold, glaring, awful vote, 'Survivor' had changed. The show's moral compass was gone. Whatever was good, whatever was honest, whatever was right about the backstabbing and duplicity and longing and fear and insecurity and outright deception in the game was gone" (132-3). Burnett confirms what we all knew watching the horrible episode when Gretchen -- glorious Gretchen -- was sent home to Tennessee: "[The Alliance] had looked uncomfortable because they were preparing to vote off salt and light....Gretchen was gone because she was stronger than any of them. She had to go. She might have won, otherwise" (133). Leading up to this turning point, Burnett reveals that Gretchen was the sentimental favourite even among the crew, who had nicknamed the childish Pagongs "Party of Five" (90); when her name was mentioned among the show's production staff, it would elicit such comments as "'Don't you just love her?' and 'She must be going crazy over there at Pagong.' The desire to see her win was almost unanimous. She was wholesome, she was a survivalist, she looked great in a bathing suit. She was worthy" (92). After her ouster, "a beefy sound engineer" hugged her and told her, "I am so incredibly bummed" (133). Me too, Beefy. Me too. Burnett attempts to maintain his neutrality over Gretchen's loss, but he fails: "It violated fair play, and the belief that the strong and fastest and smartest always came out on top. How to explain a game where the heavyset, slow, minimally educated, and wholly unethical stood the best chance of winning?" (137).

Burnett finds it difficult to muster any enthusiasm over final nine. His views on Greg are set out above. Jenna is "hard and mean" (82). Gervase is "a charming layabout" (162). Colleen "had a humanity about her every other contestant, save Gretchen, lacked" (126), but without Greg "she felt totally lost" (127).

In the book, Sean comes across as quite a different figure than he did on the show. Rather than being merely stupid, as we all thought, Sean turns out to be as much a schemer as Richard -- just an ineffective one. Burnett reveals that, despite Sean's denials and conditional language in discussing it, Sean knew of the existence of the Alliance as far back as Day Thirteen (88), and that he even appealed to Richard directly to join it (172). Burnett reports that crew members called Sean a "putz" (167) and that Richard told Sean to his face that "the alphabet thing was pretty stupid" (173). As to Sean's controversial choice of whom to invite along on the yacht in episode 1-11, the book reveals a range of possibilities not represented on the show: "You'll be given one of three scenarios to choose from: Is it going to be you on the yacht with a friend, you on the yacht with everyone, or you on the yacht with everyone except one person?" (187). This demonstrates exactly how political Sean's decision actually was, and even he (eventually) admitted that his choice was due to Richard's being "the epicenter of power" (205). In the end, the picture of Sean that emerges is of a canny -- if outwardly dim -- player who probably benefited more than he thought from Richard's attraction to him.

Burnett makes no bones about the fact that Susan lied up, down, and sideways to nearly everyone on the island, starting with Sonja, whom she'd promised to preserve from the tribal vote (33). Sure, he reminds us of the story of Susan's "very special friend" (177) who died, and of whom Kelly reminds her, and of her tearful insistence that "[t]here ain't no way I'd fuck Kelly over, no way" (177). But as we all know, that's not the end of the story.

Fortunately for the reader, Burnett does finally reveal exactly what Kelly did to inspire Susan's awesome wrath. As the book tells it, as Sue was sobbing out her confession of love for Kelly, Kelly approached Richard and "proposed an Alliance between the two of them" (177), cutting out Susan. As soon as he saw Susan, he told her what Kelly had asked him. Susan's white-hot rage was the natural by-product. I have to say, knowing that gives me a whole new appreciation for Susan. Susan's speech was harsh, but really, Kelly was a weaselly bitch.

Burnett loves Rudy, homophobia and all. His continual disquisitions on Rudy's service to his country, fame in Armed Forces circles, blah blah blah are too boring for me to repeat, so trust me -- Burnett would have been happy had Rudy won it all, and I wouldn't be surprised if he even loves him enough to let him on Survivor II.

Burnett also seems to agree with Susan about Kelly. He makes repeated reference to her issues with "rage" (17, 33, 189), asserts that she has "maternal issues" (215); perhaps it was these same issues that drove Kelly to write Susan a letter of apology for her attempted treachery (202), which Susan declared was written out of desperation. Burnett sums her up thus: "She was Las Vegas, a pleasant boomtown craving substance, but not quite sure where to find it" (215). Please. I was just there. Kelly is not Las Vegas. She's more like Branson, MO.

Perhaps predictably, Richard is the castaway about whom Burnett's feelings are the most ambiguous. The first line of the book (apart from the prologue) asserts, "Richard Hatch was destined to be the first castaway voted off" (21). Burnett marvels throughout the book at what Omar has dubbed "the historic Gay/Homophobe Survivor Treaty of 2000" between Richard and Rudy. He covers the Richard we saw on the show -- selectively fishing, organizing the Alliance and directing its votes, gloating, pouting, yada. At the Tribal Council that gave Susan the boot, Burnett reports that it was Richard's torch -- and not Susan's -- that extinguished itself during the deliberations (216), and when the fiercest storm of the thirty-nine days ensued, Burnett quotes a crew member as saying, "The jungle gods said who they wanted voted off, and were ignored....This storm is them showing their anger" (217). Are we to take from that anecdote -- coupled with Burnett's frequent reminders that Susan is the salt of the earth, a tough mama who's hunted bears with a bow and arrow and who's even lived in the rugged Ontario wilderness, is deeply in love with her half-man/half-couch husband Timmy -- that if Burnett had his way, Susan would have won? Burnett is not shy about revealing Susan's many faults and double-crosses, but he clearly thinks she's smart and strong, and resents Kelly on her behalf. With Gretchen out of the picture, I think Burnett would have been happier had the final two come down to Rudy and Susan instead of Kelly and Richard.

And now, a random assemblage of information/dirt that I feel you should know about.

On the boat on the way to the island, Richard told his fellow castaways that he was married (23).
Jenna was the last to leave the boat that took the castaways to Pulau Tiga, and only jumped when directly commanded to do so by Jeff (23).
Dirk apparently spoke with a "gangsta" accent picked up while playing basketball in college in Seattle (30, 60). Did you notice? Me neither.
If he won, B.B. planned to give the money to charity (38).
In the bug-eating challenge, Susan had to eat two helpings of each course, because Tagi had one member fewer than Pagong (48). Was that on the show? I don't remember.
The genre of program Burnett and his staff were producing in Survivor -- a combination of drama and reality -- was dubbed "dramality" (57). Now, that's just sad.
As early as Day Eight, the crew had predicted that Jenna and Susan would both emerge as the show's villains (58).
Greg's hero was Chuck Yaeger, his favourite movie The Outlaw Josey Wales, and was pegged as "a warm, fuzzy mountain man" following his pre-show psychological exam (72). Heh.
Dirk once told Kelly, "If I were to marry you, I would take your name." Not surprisingly, this gave Kelly the heebies (80).
Before the Rattana merger, Richard considered allowing Pagong members -- holding out particular hope of swaying Gretchen -- into the Alliance (85, 90).
After the starving members of Pagong won the fruit and chickens in the reward challenge on Day Fourteen, they celebrated at their camp by having A FOOD FIGHT which Gretchen was forced to break up (94). Then Gervase took a shit (95).
Despite the fact that CBS's literature lists Gervase's occupation as a basketball coach, he was actually unemployed when he went to Pulau Tiga (19, 119).
Before the Tribal Summit, when Sean and Jenna each scouted the opposite tribe's camp, Susan told Jenna, apropos of nothing, "You're losing your tits" (120).
When Jenna's video from home never arrived, she accused Jeff of conspiring with the production staff to keep it from her; in fact, that particular challenge was supposed to happen days earlier, but had been deferred in order to allow Jenna's mother more time to get the video to the show's production office (144).
The reason that the jury seemed to be stoned at every Tribal Council was that they were specifically forbidden from speaking to or interacting with the remaning Survivors in any way. When Richard attempted to curry favour with Jenna, once she was in the jury, by giving her a pair of shells for her daughters, Jeff admonished him, "Tribal Council is not a message center or gift exchange" (179). Oh, get a life, Jeff.

And now, a random assemblage of information/dirt that I feel you should know about.

On the boat on the way to the island, Richard told his fellow castaways that he was married (23).
Jenna was the last to leave the boat that took the castaways to Pulau Tiga, and only jumped when directly commanded to do so by Jeff (23).
Dirk apparently spoke with a "gangsta" accent picked up while playing basketball in college in Seattle (30, 60). Did you notice? Me neither.
If he won, B.B. planned to give the money to charity (38).
In the bug-eating challenge, Susan had to eat two helpings of each course, because Tagi had one member fewer than Pagong (48). Was that on the show? I don't remember.
The genre of program Burnett and his staff were producing in Survivor -- a combination of drama and reality -- was dubbed "dramality" (57). Now, that's just sad.
As early as Day Eight, the crew had predicted that Jenna and Susan would both emerge as the show's villains (58).
Greg's hero was Chuck Yaeger, his favourite movie The Outlaw Josey Wales, and was pegged as "a warm, fuzzy mountain man" following his pre-show psychological exam (72). Heh.
Dirk once told Kelly, "If I were to marry you, I would take your name." Not surprisingly, this gave Kelly the heebies (80).
Before the Rattana merger, Richard considered allowing Pagong members -- holding out particular hope of swaying Gretchen -- into the Alliance (85, 90).
After the starving members of Pagong won the fruit and chickens in the reward challenge on Day Fourteen, they celebrated at their camp by having A FOOD FIGHT which Gretchen was forced to break up (94). Then Gervase took a shit (95).
Despite the fact that CBS's literature lists Gervase's occupation as a basketball coach, he was actually unemployed when he went to Pulau Tiga (19, 119).
Before the Tribal Summit, when Sean and Jenna each scouted the opposite tribe's camp, Susan told Jenna, apropos of nothing, "You're losing your tits" (120).
When Jenna's video from home never arrived, she accused Jeff of conspiring with the production staff to keep it from her; in fact, that particular challenge was supposed to happen days earlier, but had been deferred in order to allow Jenna's mother more time to get the video to the show's production office (144).
The reason that the jury seemed to be stoned at every Tribal Council was that they were specifically forbidden from speaking to or interacting with the remaning Survivors in any way. When Richard attempted to curry favour with Jenna, once she was in the jury, by giving her a pair of shells for her daughters, Jeff admonished him, "Tribal Council is not a message center or gift exchange" (179). Oh, get a life, Jeff.
The masseuse on the Visa yacht was primarily employed as a tape logger in Survivor postproduction (190).
Despite what he told Jeff at the time, Rudy did throw the "standing still on the skinny beam" challenge (193).
Richard believes that "being gay is the main reason for [his] success" (227).