Survivor Media's great for finding a way to draw attention to themselves, whether it's embedded journalists, contrived celebrity romances, or injecting social issues into a story line. They can plausibly defend an altruistic motive for any them, but at the end of the day the goal's always the same. "Psst, Hey, John Q. Public, I need you to look over here, just one more time."

Survivor can suggest they want to explore every aspect of the human dynamic as it plays out in the forum of their show. Really, they're just doing it for the publicity, and give them credit for that because it worked. Ask yourselves this, What wouldn't a television producer do to keep his franchise alive? Do you think Janet Jackson's nipple pops out because it wants to? It popped out because it was told to.

Me? I don't care. I think it raises lots of fun questions. What if they make the immunity challenges racially stereotyped? How about if they make the reward challenge rewards racially stereotyped? What if Probst slips? "The crackers win immunity". Then you might have an issue. Unfortunately, you can't hardly make a joke about any of that without offending someone or being labeled racist. The problem is racial jokes in the wrong hands are, well, racist. Racists screw everything up for everybody.

I think back to that classic Saturday Night Live skit with Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase. Chase is conducting a job interview with Pryor using a word association that becomes increasingly racially charged. I wonder if any one would have the stones today to run it like it that today.  ¶ 11:52 AM