'Survivor' Just Handled #MeToo in the Worst Way Possible

Temi Adebowale, Jordyn Taylor
Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Men's Health

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Survivor: Island of the Idols.

Wednesday night's two-hour Survivor episode featured the long-awaited merge, but it was the show's handling of a #MeToo situation that left viewers stunned—and not in a good way.

All season long, contestants have commented on Dan's touchiness; from seemingly unsolicited massages to a middle-of-the-night grope caught on camera, his behavior has clearly rubbed people the wrong way.

So when Kellee broke down in tears during an interview with producers, Survivor fans hoped the show would take a sensitive approach to dealing with the inappropriate touching allegations against Dan. They also hoped that Kellee would get the justice she deserved for being brave enough to speak out—especially given that other contestants had observed his strange behavior at various points in the season.

After Kellee's tearful interview, a message on the screen informed viewers that producers talked with the cast as a group, and also individually, about acceptable conduct on the show. The episode was teeing up to be a victory for social justice—like when a contestant on a previous season was summarily expelled after outing a transgender player.

But that's not what happened. Instead, Kellee was voted out, and the second hour of the episode was a whirlwind of victim-blaming and shaming people for genuinely trying to do the right thing. The chief target of ire was Janet, who (nobly!) tried to lead a vote against Dan after various other women told her he made them uncomfortable. It was later revealed that Lauren, Missy, and Elizabeth only pretended to need Janet's help, and that they'd intentionally used Kellee's allegations against Dan as part of their gameplay.

For her moral fiber, Janet was accused of trying to ruin Dan's life at tribal council.

Many Survivor fans expressed their outrage about the episode online, with a number of people saying that they will boycott the rest of the season.

Various former players shared their concern on Twitter:



And Janet and Kellee thanked fans for their support:


Host Jeff Probst talked to Entertainment Weekly about the episode, and how he decided to handle the situation at Tribal Council:

"This situation also highlighted another layer of the changing dynamic between men and women: You don’t have to feel unsafe to feel uncomfortable and making someone uncomfortable is not okay. This is new territory for this important conversation, and my hope was that everybody could share their point of view, in an open forum, about what had gone down and we could get total clarity. But, as you saw, players were still very much in game mode and reluctant to talk. And worth noting, Dan survived another Tribal Council."

The episode was distressing, and it perpetuated the dangerous myth that women who speak up about sexual misconduct are probably lying about it for their own gain. While some tribe members decided to lie about how Dan had made them uncomfortable, the truth remains that Kellee's experience with him was real, and she deserved more than she got.

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