Reality TV

Last summer in the Barbie movie there was a moment when a Barbie won an award and said “I worked hard for this and I deserve it”. It was discussed in a lot of articles because women are so often expected to downplay their own efforts, so this seemed so beautifully self confident and perfect. A lot of the articles talked about how powerful that moment was, and thought provoking.

I was thinking about that when Kenzie unapologetically said “I want this money for ME because I’ve worked hard and I deserve it.” It was pretty awesome to see her win after simply and clearly stating that. I hope more women start holding that attitude and recognizing their own efforts out loud.

The Soda/Tiff “rules” was the dumbest part of FTC. The jury can vote however the hell they want, but the finalists deserve a chance to speak. Production needs to assert themselves.

The next dumbest was Q interrupting people answering a question to redirect the question to someone else, invariably how did the question effect Q.

What the hell are they gonna say now that Schwartz admits Jo is crazy ?! Lala riding so hard for a liar !! Are we gonna have an apology to Katie next season ??? Probably not, but wow just a slap to her face for the shit she’s been saying !!! Jo is spooky 😬

Just want to preface this by saying that I was a Maria fan. I was rooting for her, I loved her background story, especially as someone with immigrant parents. I was tearing up when she got voted out. I’ve been listening to her exit interviews and I’m honestly just confused with her reasoning on not voting Charlie. Here are a few quotes why (from Access Hollywood):

“I felt like you had to make moves and you had to own those moves and be a dominant player and show a dominant game” - in regards to her own game, but not when it came to Charlie? Charlie was making moves, was super strategic, and when it came down to it, she did not honor what she said she was looking for.

“To me the sanctity of what was playing for, as a competitor, that was taken from me” - this was about Liz helping Kenzie in the immunity challenge. Maria says she was seething when this happened. So it’s confusing that she still voted Kenzie even though in a way, this moment is a big reason why she didn’t make it to the end.

“I was one of five people that didn’t vote for him” - she is not just one of the five, she was Charlie’s number one! She is trying so hard to downplay her betrayal. I wish she would just own up to it.

I think it’s sad that Charlie and Maria could have had such a great friendship, but this betrayal and inconsistency is hard to move past.

Editing to add: I think that Kenzie is a very deserving winner! I just think Maria’s decision making and reasoning is inconsistent with what she has said across the season/post interviews.

In last week's episode we see Carl continuously ask Lindsay to be soft. Numerous studies have shown that women are sick of being the household manager. Women don't want to make appointments, grocery shop, make dinner, take care of the kids, keep the house clean and then care for their partners on top of that. Studies have also shown that sex directly increases with men taking on more household duties. This damn near scientifically concludes that women can't be soft if, like Gabby said in the aftershow, men aren't giving them a soft place to land. Personality aside, I think a certain kindness comes from not having everything on your back and on your mind all day.

Another anecdotal piece of evidence is Madison from Southern Charm. The way she treated Austen and her husband are night and day. With Austen she never had peace of mind and never felt assured, and with her husband you can see how he takes care of her emotionally and provides for her basic needs. Therefore, she has more bandwidth to win best exterior in her neighbourhood and plan elaborate dinner parties etc. She's able to be the better version of herself because she's not in survival mode in her relationship. The scene where her son was injured by another kid - the way Madison's husband swooped in and took care of her son and then came back and cared for Madison, made ME want to marry her husband.

I'm not saying every woman's dream is to be taken care of, or a stay at home wife and mom. However, I find it interesting how many articles and studies there are about how women are preferring to stay single than partner up with useless men and how that's creating the rise of the incel who refuses to meet their partner where they are. And then you see people like Carl patting himself on the back for doing NOTHING but he feels like he should be celebrated for at least THINKING about doing something. And then raging out at Lindsay for not being "soft" with him. How can he have such cognitive dissonance that Lindsay would ever feel comfortable supporting him while he does nothing??

Anyways, I want to get your thoughts on whether a woman can be made "soft" by her partner or if it's all personality based?

Liz says she would have revealed the secret at FTC that she was indeed NOT a millionaire, thinking this would be the cherry on top of her gluten-free game. This strategy really makes no sense, how does lying about your wealth the whole game and then flipping at the end and claiming you actually need the money suddenly endear the jury to vote for you?? Isn’t this like Russel Hantz-level jury management?

Did Ross really just say Jorgeous is likely the best dancer ever on the show? Like, really queen? I love Jorgeous but we are talking about the same show that has had Kennedy Davenport, Laganja, Alyssa Edwards, Brookelynn Heights, and Shangela. This is just the US franchise. I get so annoyed when the judges make comments like that.

EVERY JUROR GOT THEIR OWN QUESTION AGAIN.

They finally dropped the stupid free for all Outwit Outplay Outlast thing where it was just a big messy conversation with three loosely guided topics, and they finally let every single juror ask one question to the final three. It felt so classic, and it was so appropriate for a season of Survivor that felt less New Era than it has in forever. A surprisingly pure season of Survivor without so much as a single idol play, a return to the old final tribal council format, and a classic primarily social winner. 46 was so good.