Surviving Survivor: Reading Mark Burnett's Field Guide and De‐naturalizing Social Darwinism as Entertainment

That "the survival of the fittest" is part of current public discourse in America needs no introduction beyond acknowledging its existence. Recently, the television phenomenon called Survivor, now four seasons running, has made a smashing entrance into popular culture and sparked a new interest in "survival of the fittest" discourse and its parent, social Darwinism.' Often employed in media commentary on the show, these discourses have been authorized by Mark Burnett, Survivor's creator and executive producer, as principal and meaningful ways to understand the show. Knowing this, a viewer may be inclined to contextualize the show within Burnett's discursive frame, for a common sense viewing may privilege what the creator of a cultural production says in order to understand more about it-what it is, why it was made, and what it means. It is, no doubt, interesting and illuminating to consider, for example, what Alice Walker says about The Color Purple or what Picasso says about Guernica, but how much authority are we to lend these comments and how obligated are we to understand cultural productions through them? More specifically in regard to Survivor, what should TV viewers and culture studies do with what Mark Burnett says about the show? One thing is for sure: we should approach it as we would a dominant culture's self-representationwe should interrogate it, considering, in this case, not only what Burnett says but also what is at stake in saying it the way he does. Survivor is not as exceptional as Burnett repeatedly suggests. The show follows a persistent trend in popular culture that thrives on producing ways and knowledges for consumers to use, understand, and derive pleasure from products. A glance at popular culture reveals TV, movie, music, and sports media overbrimming with celebrities explaining what it's like and what it means to do what they do. Also common in these discussions are statements about a specific product's cultural relevance, or "lessons" to be learned from consuming it. Toward a similar end, Burnett cites Survivor's unique ability to illuminate the "core essence of humanity" (Field Guide 144) and to teach culturally relevant lessons about living and succeeding in a corporate capitalist society. I contend that there are serious implications when Mark Burnett, a producer granted a slice of cultural authority, recommends in interviews and in his profitable Official Companion books that his corporately-sponsored show aired on a corporately-owned network be viewed through an ideologically-interested lens. Besides purveying an uncritical perspective he calls "social Darwinism," Burnett boasts that the show reveals real selves and reproduces the real world; this too begs interrogation, as the show is broadcast over a cultural medium that commercializes and commodifies virtually any world it images. Configured in the discourse of social Darwinism, Burnett's efforts to produce a transparent television program have been extraordinary and opportunistic. Following the explosive success of the first Survivor on Palau Tiga and anticipating another hit in Survivor II: Australia, Burnett published two books in the interim, both of which package and market the show as social Darwinism in practice. These books provide an opportunity to study one element of the show's encoding. Examining the dominant discourses deployed in these books and the cultural assumptions they reproduce for consumption can inform our understanding of the cultural work that Burnett wants the show to perform. K a n Yn y2 *y& 0d* a F * IY W Y4 . * .: *** `j . *o _. t, `*" **'? Here, I will examine how Burnett's construction of a dominant viewer is densely encoded with ideological meanings. Infused with American cultural myths of success and social mobility, this dominant viewing employs social Darwinism toward effacing discursive contradictions and naturalizing an imperialistic gaze and the commodification of both the self and pleasure. …