On ‘Survivor,’ Talking Politics Could Get You Voted Off the Island

On ‘Survivor,’ Talking Politics Could Get You Voted Off the Island

The show’s 47th season, which features Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter, premieres Wednesday. But even in heated election years, presidential politics rarely intrudes.

• Share full article

By Kellen Browning and Alexandra Berzon

Kellen Browning watched early seasons of “Survivor” with his family as a child, and then rediscovered it when he was in high school. Alexandra Berzon, like many newer fans, binged old seasons of the show during the pandemic.

In the summer of 2016, as Donald J. Trump was locking up the Republican nomination for president, Sarah Lacina was dominating in her second appearance on the reality television show “Survivor.”

Ms. Lacina, a young police officer from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, maneuvered strategically through the game, voting out her opposition and bonding with an array of allies to earn the votes of a majority of other contestants on an island in Fiji and win the $1 million prize.

Then, back at base camp after the cameras had stopped rolling, Ms. Lacina donned a red Make America Great Again hat — an action that felt to some of the more liberal contestants like a jarring reminder of the real world.

“I was floored,” said Andrea Boehlke, a fellow player who voted for Ms. Lacina to win. “I went, ‘Wait, this is a joke, right?’”

It was one of the rare moments that electoral politics pierced the bubble surrounding a show that has spanned 25 years and 46 seasons.

On Wednesday evening, in the thick of another heated election year with Mr. Trump on the ballot, the 47th season of “Survivor” will premiere on CBS. One of the contestants is uniquely known for his politics: Jon Lovett, a 42-year-old host of the popular liberal podcast “Pod Save America” and a former speechwriter for Barack Obama. But there is no indication that his presence on the island will lead to any more of a political season than usual.

The reality show involves stranding from 16 to 20 contestants in a remote locale for weeks with minimal supplies, dividing them into groups — known as tribes — and subjecting them to grueling physical challenges. But the main feature is an intricate social game in which players form what is essentially their own society and political system, periodically voting one another off the island at a ceremony called tribal council.

“Survivor” has delved into a wide variety of heavy topics over the years, including gender bias, L.G.B.T.Q. representation, intergenerational differences, sexual misconduct and racism. Once, the show divided players into tribes based on race, for what it billed as an experiment and a response to criticism that the show cast few nonwhite contestants. Producers have long suggested the game is a microcosm of society, where issues present in real life often come up organically on the show as well.

Very rarely, though, has the reality television juggernaut veered into any robust discussion of campaigns, presidential candidates or divisive policy questions — even as those conversations have increasingly come to dominate workplaces, family gatherings and even pop culture and sports.

Interviews with a dozen former contestants spanning multiple seasons, as well as longtime members of the production, offered various explanations as to why.

Jeff Probst, the show’s host and executive producer, said in an interview that he was “fascinated” that politics continues to rarely come up. He suggested that the primal nature of the show, where contestants are far from the vitriol of social media and focused on basic needs like food and shelter, might make the topic seem beside the point.

“I do think there’s something there about not being around it all the time, and being in a group of people who are shivering and trying to find something to eat,” Mr. Probst said. “It just loses its importance.”

Sophie Clarke, a 35-year-old health care administrator who won a season of the show filmed in 2011, added: “When you’re starving on an island, the last thing you care about is Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.”

Another factor, former contestants said, is the constant state of paranoia that exists during the game. Players are looking for any excuse to form an alliance or find someone to isolate and vote off.

“If someone just gets a whiff of you having different beliefs, or if you say something about a sensitive subject to someone and you put your foot in your mouth, you could be getting your torch snuffed,” said Parvati Shallow, a 41-year-old former “Survivor” winner and life coach who played the game four times, referring to the show’s ceremonial method of ending a player’s time in the game.

The only time Ms. Shallow recalled politics coming up was during the show’s all-winner season, filmed in 2019. A contestant named Nick Wilson — who later became a Republican state senator in Kentucky — briefly referred to his conservative beliefs. Ms. Shallow, a liberal, recalled quickly steering the conversation back to safer ground.

Mr. Wilson, a lawyer, said he had made a conscious decision to avoid talking politics while on the show, even as he was mulling a political career.

“You don’t want to give anybody a reason to look down on you in any way,” said Mr. Wilson, 34, whose first season was in 2018.

Tiffany Nicole Ervin, a 33-year-old artist living in Los Angeles who competed in the show’s most recent season, said that on “Survivor” she tried to avoid liberal political talk, a frequent part of her normal life, in an effort to fit in.

“Your main objective is to figure out how you can make these people feel like you’re just like them,” Ms. Ervin said.

When being stranded is still an escape

As U.S. politics have grown more caustic, former players said, both contestants and viewers look to “Survivor” as an escape, rather than as an opportunity to witness more conflict.

And the show itself has changed, evolving from an examination of how people from disparate backgrounds might clash to one of personal growth and strategy.

“In the year 2000, you looked to ‘Survivor’ to see people behaving badly, and looked to politics to see people acting in a civilized manner,” said Rob Cesternino, a two-time “Survivor” player who now runs a podcast network focused on “Survivor” and other TV shows. “In 2024, you see people in politics acting uncivilized, and the sportsmanship on ‘Survivor’ is held to a standard that is way beyond what we see our politicians have to follow.”

Ms. Lacina, now 40, said the reaction to her MAGA hat — and what she recalled was subsequent outcry from fans and “Survivor" alumni after she says she posted a photo of her child with Mr. Trump on her social media — caught her off guard. She felt as if she was being falsely caricatured when she thought that she had far more complex political views than could be summed up by a picture or a hat. (On the show, for example, she had defended a transgender contestant who was outed by a fellow player.)

“It shouldn’t matter what I wear,” she said. “You just got to know me for 39 days, and you’re going to let a piece of clothing all of a sudden define who I am as a person.”

Ms. Boehlke, 35, who characterizes herself as liberal, said the moment with Ms. Lacina was such a shock not because she regretted picking someone who supported Mr. Trump, but because politics had just never come up.

Mr. Lovett, a “Survivor” fan before going on the show, has spent most of this year fixated on the minutiae of the 2024 presidential election as part of his job at Crooked Media, the liberal political media company he co-founded with other Obama administration alumni in 2017. But there was one notable gap — when he was in Fiji for about a month in April filming the new season.

He said he entered the game not planning to lie about his background if it came up, but hoping to stick to his profession as a podcast host rather than his time in the White House, conscious that being outspoken about politics does not play well on the island.

“Sometimes people talk themselves into being afraid to say they’re lawyers or being afraid to be honest about their age,” Mr. Lovett said. “I worried more about trying to not be myself” and having to keep up a pretense.

The real world intrudes

From the beginning, real-life cultural tensions have made their way to the island. The first season of “Survivor” featured an openly gay contestant — who went on to win — bonding with a grizzled former Navy SEAL who had never been around a gay person before.

The season divided by race, filmed in 2006, was controversial. Yul Kwon, who won the season, called “Survivor: Cook Islands,” said he almost quit when producers revealed the theme just before filming started.

“I was really worried about how this could play out,” said Mr. Kwon, 49, an executive at Google, “and more broadly how people would interpret what happened and politicize it for different political agendas.” Still, that season ended up producing a number of popular players of various racial backgrounds.

One recent season is most remembered for criticism of how it handled female players’ complaints of inappropriate touching by a male contestant. A year later, in 2020, Black former “Survivor” players successfully pushed CBS for more diverse representation on the show.

“Survivor” has not shied away from airing difficult or controversial discussions that occur on the island. In a season filmed in 2021, two Black contestants expressed dismay at two other Black players’ being voted out back to back, leading to a lengthy reflection at tribal council about unconscious bias.

Mr. Probst said producers were equally “not afraid to tell a story that involves politics on ‘Survivor,’” especially if the moment captured something important about the season. (At one point many years ago, Mr. Probst said, the show considered a season themed around political division. They ultimately decided against it.)

“But we wouldn’t go out of our way to just force a political conversation simply because we’re on during an election,” he said.

Mr. Lovett said the show was heartening as a democratic experiment at a time when Americans have deep anxieties over politics.

“I really like that there’s this form of a democracy that a bunch of people get to watch in the run-up to an election that doesn’t make them feel pessimistic,” Mr. Lovett said.

He added: “We’re on season 47, and we still have zero insurrections.”