I’ve found that a dinner party reaches its effective end when everyone starts discussing what shows they are streaming.
So down cutlery!
I’ve been watching Alone lately, the original US version along with its British, Danish, and Australian variants. The American contestants offer mania, bravado, and loudness. The Brits, plopped into Canada’s Northwest Territories, perhaps because hedgehogs and moles weren’t menacing enough, spend a lot of time frightened and not fishing. One of the Danes rebirthed himself through a driftwood mother, while the Aussies’ capable good cheer made them fun to follow.
But no matter how each group faced being “alone,” the format of casting people into the wilderness to live alone offers up a hodgepodge of “Noble Savage” stereotypes and Old Testament ideas about dominion over nature. Only the Australian version engaged Indigenous advisors to share their Culture and Country with the participants and audience.
Justice Murray Sinclair’s recent passing dealt a major blow to Canada’s reconciliation and decolonization efforts. The obstacles are many, but a big one hides in plain sight – the implicit imperatives of a popular culture that valorizes living against rather than with the world we inhabit.
I’d say more, but here comes the pavlova.