A Praise For Survivor From a Huge Reality TV Fan

     I've been waiting to do this post for almost the whole year now. First thing's first, I am a big fan of reality TV shows. I like reality shows such as The Amazing Race, The Circle, Big Brother, but my favorite one has to be Survivor. Now, I know reality TV often gets a bad reputation, but I'm here to prove why this genre has wonderfully cinematic moments and can show true moments of human emotions, using Survivor as my example.

    I actually don't have to go back very far in Survivor's 43-season history to provide an example of the excellence of this show. Just this past week, the current season released an episode that provides one of the best moments in the show and reveals such a unique and honest look into the emotions of betrayal of close friends. 

Let's set the scene: Survivor is a game show where each week, players are forced to vote one member out of the game, with the winner ending up being the last one remaining. In this season, two gentlemen named Jesse and Cody have "run the show", in a way. They have created power for them to basically decide who gets out, and have ruled together as best friends. However, Jesse fears that Cody might win against him in the end, so Jesse gathers up enough secret friends and they are able to vote out Cody. Jesse has just betrayed his best friend Cody, and this scene shows it happening:


    Now this scene feels so special and raw to me. Cody feels shocked and disgusted, and everything about the editing and soundtrack emphasizes this perfectly. The music that was playing essentially stops when Cody is voted out, and the camera switches to each contestant's facial reactions allow everyone's contrasting feelings to be displayed super efficiently. The beauty of reality TV is you get real emotions like this, all while using the behind-the-scenes filmmaking tricks that make a scene and show so much more impactful.

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