The phenomenon of the current competitive reality show, such as Survivor and The Apprentice, is connected to the ancient gladiators,in the same fashion as the current team sports that are popular are connected to the ancient gladiator games. It is human nature to love the spirit of competition. There are many different forms of competition. There is physical competition, mental competition, and emotional competition. That is the idea behind the competitive
reality shows. Sports are an example of physical competition, Jeopardy is an example of mental competition, and Survivor is an example of emotional competition.

I personally do not like the show Survivor, but it gets great ratings.
People like to say that the perfect world would be a pure communism,
because nobody would ever be competing with each other, just working together. This fails to see the pure nature of humans, however,
humans love competition. Survivor attempts to be the purest form of
competition for humans. A Darwinistic Survival of the Fittest type atmosphere. People form alliances, but they are always for a goal of personal success.

Survivor fills a niche in our society, an arena in which people compete
in a way that is different than all others in which we see everyday.

--Ben

 

“Survivor”, is a show I enjoy watching mainly because I enjoy watching the challenges and the way people seem to deal with each other in a cut throat manner when a million dollar prize is given to the “Sole Survivor”. There are connections to the ancient gladiator games and Survivor because in some challenges they the contestants sit on a log and you have to be the last one on the log. This causes the contestants to wrestle each other until the other one falls and loses the game. This is a connection to the gladiator games because during a gladiator fight, the winner is that last one standing and the loser is the one who has fallen.

“Survivor” is an enjoyable show to the public because it gives challenges where the results are if you win you stay another day but if you lose you can be the next “victim” going home. Also the human emotions that come out of Survivor, the back stabbing and the sadness and angry face you see on the contestant that got voted off allows the audience to see an event of voting people out of the tribe that they would usually not see or take part of in a normal life. Also I believe the challenges that the contestants take part in are enjoyable to watch, to see how competitive the human spirit can be and to be able to see the winner.

--Krissy

 

I believe that shows like survivor are made to make people feel like they are connected to the show. On a typical soap opera, in no ways does the viewer feel that s/he is connected and could be in a similar situation. However, in a reality show such as 'survivor ', people can pretend that they are being part of the game and they can see what causes someone to lose and what causes someone to win. It probably makes the viewer feel good that someone loses because it can then make themselves feel stronger because they can say things like 'Wow, he is stupid. I would never have been that dumb!' They can say these things and never have to back them up. The same happens at sporting events. When someone scores a goal, for example, someone might say, 'They are so bad' even though they themselves could never come close to the skill the goalie has. The same happened with the gladiatorial games. The people could say that there is no way they would have given up that fight so easily and they don't have to back up that statement. It gives people a sense of being stronger than the competitors so they like to watch such games.

--Teddy

 

I believe that shows such as Survivor or other reality shows in which ordinary people must live with another, are popular because the viewers find them comical in a sense but it also presents the human in his natural form and natural mindset. When these regular people
are placed in a situation where they must “rough it” in the wilderness and all the while deal with other people that may have a conflicting personality, tempers do seem to fly. The viewers love watching reality TV shows because they know that it is not them out in the wilderness living off small rations of food. The fact that we can now watch others and see their emotions fly as they struggle to live in the wilderness, is what provides the draw to watch these shows.

--Peter