Outwit, Outplay, Outed

Source

When people think about reality television, one of the first shows mentioned is almost always Survivor. Running on CBS since 2000, the show is cure toy airing it's 35th season and shows no sign of slowing down. It should be no surprise that a long running show like survivor would have controversies associated with it, but long standing fans of the show were shocked last season when Jeff Varner outed Zeke Smith as transgender during tribal council.

For anybody who is never seen survivor before, wasn't watching that season, or has since forgotten that infamous tribal Council, let me give a quick recap. Jeff Varner is a man who has played Survivor twice before. He is from North Carolina, in his 50’s, and is openly gay. Zeke Smith on the other hand is 28 years old, is currently playing back-to-back seasons of Survivor, and is not “Out”. Varner, aware that he is on the bottom it the Tribe and will probably be voted out that night declares to the audience that he knows something about Zeke that no one else does. That he (Smith) is not the guy we think he is, and that he (Varner) is not going down without a fight.

Source

At tribal council, Varner begins to make a speech about deception within the tribe, before turning to Zeke and asking him “Why haven't you told anyone you are transgender?” This is a negative stereotype in the representation of transgendered individuals. It is often associated with a fear  that an individual may pretend to be transgender in order to spy on people of the opposite sex. What is extremely important is that after the outing, there was an immensely positive response for Zeke by his tribe mates, host Jeff Probst, the producers and by news outlets across the country and the world.

 Starting with his tribe mates, the members of Nuku immediately confronted Varner, stating that the outing was unnecessary. Contestant Debbie Wanner proclaimed that Zeke’s gender identity was personal and had nothing to do with the game. Varner tried to backtrack and apologized multiple time over the coursed of the night, but his words could not be unspoken and at the end of tribal council, Nuku unanimously voted out Varner.

In a later interview with Entertainment Weekly, Varner stated that he believed that Zeke was already out. Because filming for survivor game changers took place while Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X aired, he had no idea what Zeke’s narrative for the season had been. Varner states his assumption that Zeke had been “touted” as the first transgendered survivor player and his gender identity was only a secret from his current tribe mate. As millions of people saw this was a very dangerous, and ultimately incorrect, assumption to make.

Following the episode being aired, fans took to social media in storm. Many people were casting the blame on to Varner, but some were also blaming CBS.
They claimed that while Varner was the person who outed Zeke to the tribe, it was the Survivor producers and CBS who outed him to everyone watching at home. Honestly, I am not sure how I feel about that issue. Of course Varner must have responsibility for what he said, but should CBS have removed the incident from their broadcast? For me, it comes down to Zeke. In a lengthy interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Zeke said it had never crossed his mind that it shouldn't air. He also stated that he had been given unprecedented control over how the episode would be handed. Whether or not CBS should have edited out that part of tribal council should be weighed with the fact that Zeke never asked them to.