The tribe has spoken, Nico and the Survivor SA production team. It’s time to get real! South Africa has so much reality going on there’s no need to stick the castaways on a deserted island, argues Gasant Abarder in his latest #SliceofGasant column.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here, exclusive to Cape {town} Etc.
I can’t think of any big original TV reality shows in South Africa that haven’t been ripped off from either Australia, America or Britain. Big Brother, Masterchef, My Kitchen Rules, Idols, The Voice and Love Island.
The South African version of the last-mentioned was an abomination and generally, the local versions are let downs. The genuinely homegrown ones have been so lekker. Think Telly Fun Quiz back in the day, Noot-Vir-Noot and recently Maak My Famous – the latter two both headlined by the super talented Emo Adams.
The one reality TV show that is rather entertaining, watchable, has great production values and a fantastic host in Nico Panagio, is Survivor SA. (Love Island SA, take note please. You made us feel Rapidly Blue.)
But even with Survivor SA, we should be far more authentically Mzansi. The latest edition, Immunity Island, has the 20 castaways outwitting, outlasting and outplaying each other in the tropical paradise that is the Wild Coast.
We have a rampant crime rate, endemic corruption, rolling blackouts, attempted coups, folks behaving as if all of us have been jabbed, and unacceptably high road deaths – even during a pandemic. Each one of us should get immunity idols for just making it through each day alive. The ideas are ripe for the picking – no obstacle courses are required to win a challenge.
Think about it. Survive SA: Stiek Uit – Out-live, Out-konkel, Out-vraat!
You can’t make it up. Jam 20 castaways in a minibus taxi meant for 9. The player with the lowest heart rate and the most stable blood pressure after the ride wins the challenge.
Another challenge could be just navigating your way through Victoria Road, Camps Bay, where, seemingly, COVID doesn’t exist. If you can still get a negative test, after passing countless restaurants and bars pumping with mask-less patrons not observing social distancing, you win immunity.
How about managing to make your family a slap-up dinner after getting just a 30 minutes’ notice there will be hours of rolling blackouts courtesy of Eskom?
With the cost of living right now, if you can make it through the month with your salary, you should win the entire bloody thing. But okay, I hear you. We can’t all win a Survivor SA title. There’s only, after all, R1-million per season to give away.
If you don’t want the vaccine, it’s fine. No one is forcing you. So, after seeing an utterly disgraceful anti-vaxxer protest outside Groote Schuur hospital on Saturday, we should coerce them to play for the big cash prize. Let’s stick them all on Seal Island, just off Hout Bay, with CCTV style cameras where episodes are put together from afar.
It’s a great location. Especially when the tide is high.
Whoever’s torch goes out gets dumped directly into the sea. If they can make it to shore in one piece without getting eaten by a great white shark or bitten by a Cape Fur Seal they go back to Seal Island to play another day. No wi-fi, data or Facebook allowed!
We will send them a boat – piloted remotely – with a ready supply of their drug of choice, Ivermectin. The US Food and Drug Administration recently advised against the use of the drug, unless you’re a horse. Not to be taken, even when you’re feeling a little hoarse. The anti-vaxxers take it, you know, just in case. Despite millions of COVID-related deaths around the world the virus doesn’t exist, according to this bunch.
This is the same group who enjoy the Colonel’s mystery 11 herbs and spices and cold meats derived from various animals without question. But they won’t have the vaccine because it’s a scam, gives you 5G and allows Bill Gates to monitor you. Because your life is so exciting that Bill Gates wants to know all about it, right?
We love Nico and won’t expose him to Survivor SA: Seal Island. Instead, as a generous gesture of goodwill, Helen Zille will facilitate proceedings from the remote control – as she does with Mayor Dan Plato.
C’mon, Nico and the MNet honchos. The Tribe has spoken. Give the people what they want. Survivor SA: Seal Island – Un-vaxxed, Unscientific and Unrepentant!
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Image: Survivor SA Instagram