Miss Scarlet

Re: her comments about Rodney - 24 is old enough to know that misogyny is wrong and it disturbs me how some people think that being well into adulthood is still an excuse for intolerance. I liked her RHAP interview and I liked when she called out this season for being the least strategic. But I don't care for her revisionist history about how her attempting to quit (or not quit, since she contradicts herself about that within the same interviews) was some sort of moral stand against everyone else being awful when it was clearly because she couldn't handle not getting her way.

This has gotten lost in the shuffle, but ITA. I loved that she didn't realize the irony of her saying "play nice". On any other season without Dan or Will or a Hantz she would have been the meanest one there (I didn't like Nina, but Jenn's treatment of her was terrible. And she complained that Nina needed to be coddled, but really, Jenn was the one that needed coddling. And I think it's pretty telling that Nina sent Joe and Hali positive messages on twitter when they got voted off, but not Jenn.) And as for her calling out people as fake? I've never seen anyone on this show care so much about looking like they cared so little. Someone posted a few weeks back that she's like a sullen teenager who complains about going to Disneyland because her parents are going with her and now I can't unsee that. It's such an accurate description. She complained a lot about being around such horrible people, but I think she benefited from it. I wasn't rooting for her to go home last week and definitely would have preferred someone from the opposing alliance. A lot of viewers liked her specifically because they also hated the same people she hated. But I think even on a season of decent people she would do the same thing and then viewers at home would probably dislike her, because she'd be insulting their favorites. And her final words pretty much illustrated what I've been saying about her all season - I don't find her funny because there's no substance to what she says. A comedian wouldn't get up and have their whole routine just be like "I hate this person. I hate this other person. Oh and don't forget this third person. They suck too." She was never able to articulate in a witty or clever way why she hated these people. I think this also applies to Jenn. She doesn't seem to like anyone who's at all different from her. I liked her in her RHAP exit interview and some others ones, but I think the revisionist history she's trying to sell in them is such crap. In all of the ones I read she has said that she wasn't really quitting and that it was a strategy, but contradicts herself by also saying that she wanted to leave and didn't want to be there. She claims that it was so hard for her to see people being that mean to each other in order to win the money. And I'm sorry, but that comes off as such bullcrap. Because, again, she was mean herself, but mainly because it's just revisionist history that turns her trying to quit into some moral/ethical stand and to fit into the "NC" free-spirited facade. Which it wasn't. She was fine with their meanness after the merge when she was in a position of power. It was only after things didn't work out for her that she wanted to take her toy and go home. I think the fact that she's trying to spin it this way is pretty funny and ridiculous. And she does this while pretending to be amused by the negative fan reaction to her quitting and saying it's so hilarious, but then in the next sentence telling people to stop being mad about that because "it's mean". And she's also trying to downplay how much of a fan she was. She claimed on RHAP that she mainly watched the challenges and wanted to see if the "hot guys got voted out". But I remember in her pre-season interview with Gordon Holmes she talked about how pairing up with a guy is dumb because it's always the woman who gets voted out first. So she did watch for some strategy and had a pretty good grasp of it. It's sad how she feel she need to downplay this because she has this 8th grade idea of "cool" is disengaged and not caring.

Meh. I didn't care for this episode. Raj's story was unoriginal and boring. Penny does something smart and nice for Leonard, but instead of focusing on that the focus is how she is basically his trophy. I am sick of the way they write her. I guess I was lucky that the high school I went to was really big and diverse. There wasn't any of this "nerds are losers" crap. The "nerds" that I knew had lots of friends (sometimes because there were so many other kids like them or because they had friends across different groups) and pretty active social lives. And I agree with Leonard that there's nothing wrong with being a "nerd" and it's awesome to do activities that make you more interesting, but I think sometimes that leads to labelling people as boring or dumb when they don't seem nerdy enough or seem like they were the popular type. Which isn't always fair.

I noticed Rodney's interjection in that scene and I think he was talking to Shirin, not Will. It makes sense because at that point she had already joined the big alliance. I wish he had been talking to Will, but I don't think he was.

I think I agreed with Cecily more than I found her funny. I thought she was right about everything she said and that she was courageous for going into those topics, but the jokes didn't really make me laugh. I was reading through some of the responses on twitter and the responses there also seemed to be more about liking the "truth bombs" she dropped than if the speech was funny or not. I think that aspect really resonated with people. Or maybe people just talk about the truth bombs every year after the WHCD because that's kind of the point of the dinner. I haven't really paid attention before.

The point nowandlater was making was that those are still people who got jobs because of connections. Regardless of who the connections were with or for what job... And I don't think it's weird that people are asking why she got to host. She was a surprising choice. She had just been taken off of WU (and she herself said that she preferred to play characters rather than anchor) and she doesn't have a stand-up background. I have read comments underneath articles about the WHCD where people have said outright they did not think she was talented enough to host and it should have been someone from SNL who's more talented. That is not what I was saying. But if you want to criticize people for being dismissive, please had over to those articles and reply to them. Although, frankly, I don't think those opinions are nice, but if that is how people truly feel, then they are allowed to say that. We cannot police people's posts just because they disagree with us. Also, I think Christi Parson's description of why Cecily was chosen for the job (in the quotes nowandlater posted) is weird and doesn't emphasize Cecily's talent. She mentioned one thing that's relevant (that Cecily's cutting), but then two things that are irrelevant (she's a woman and she's from Chicago). She could have at least mentioned SNL. Maybe she just figured that the rest of the article would cover that.

Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with getting these jobs through connections. Everyone does it in that business. More power to them. I thought it was cool that she was open her dad knowing the WHCA president and them having worked together before. I wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't something she had said herself. As for the writers, I was curious to know who from SNL was helping her and how she picked them. Apparently the dog looking for its owner joke was something Chris Kelly posted on twitter a few days ago about someone else and they adapted it for the dinner. So between that and the instagram pictures it seems like he was part of the team. I'd also be interested in finding out who helped Seth when he hosted. I wonder if Tina and Amy wrote for him. That would explain the awesome Trump jokes.

I apologize if I misinterpreted what she said. I've read other interviews that seemed to state that part of the reason she got the gig was because her dad knew the head of the committee, but of course they never would have picked her if she hadn't already been a successful comedian on SNL. As for the team of writers, she has mentioned several times that she selected a team of writers. All the hosts for these dinners do. Hers was a mix of people from SNL, Late Night and The Tonight Show. I'm sure she also had a lot of input on the jokes as well, but I feel badly for the writers not getting any credit. Although maybe they are just happy to have contributed and don't care. I'm not trying dismiss anyone. I was relaying what I thought I had read in other articles. Please don't try to police my posts. Anyway, I'm reading online that a lot of people thought she bombed. Maybe I'm really bad at distinguishing between applause and booing, but I didn't really hear that much booing? Like I said before I thought the writing was good. Maybe if I looked at the jokes on paper I would think there were too obvious, but it's a tough room. You don't want to go too far with this.

Does a list of the writers from these things ever get released? I feel like they don't get enough credit. She was harder-hitting than I expected, based on what she said from her interviews leading up to this. I was also surprised at the wig joke and the joke about the unattractiveness of the Washington crowd because she said in interviews that she didn't want to make fun of anyone's physical appearance. Those jokes weren't that mean though.

It was good overall. Some hits, some misses. I think she picked a good team of writers from all the Lorne produced shows. I loved the part about Hillary's appearance. I liked the Fox News joke about their viewers dying off, but thought her delivery was a bit rushed. Her delivery would have been better if she hadn't she read off her cue cards so much. It gave it kind of an 8th grade graduation speech feel. Especially since the jokes were each on individual cards so that she could flip them over afterwards. Cecily said that she got it because her dad knows the woman in charge of the Correspondents' Association who organizes the dinner. So it wasn't really a commentary of who people thought was the better WU anchor or anything. It was more about connections.

I saw someone on reddit ask this and I'm wondering too because I haven't watched any previous WHCD - is it common for the comedian to read off their paper like that? I totally get why this would be impossible to memorize and she was probably nervous, but it seemed like she was staring at her papers a lot.

I think it would be great if there was a massive ratings drop after this episode and then Probst finally learns that this is not The. Best. Cast. Ever. and the show learns to cast half-decent human beings.

I know. I want to stop rewarding Probst and co. for their glorification of abuse and misogyny. I feel so guilty that I've been saying it for seasons and keep watching. But, as some other wise posters have said before, at least some of these assholes get negative feedback for their horrible behaviour and there is the slightest chance that they will take it to heart. And maybe it'll prevent them from doing the same assholish behaviour in real life where people won't be able to give them the kind of negative feedback they deserve. This is so, so true. And if their families and circle of friends are similar to them, they probably have the same blue collar line of work. So in real life these people don't have smart people that they can whip and take out their frustrations on. The resentment of intelligent people makes my blood boil. Maybe they should just appreciate the things that intelligent people bring to society like technology, medicine, etc. But of course these people are too idiotic to think like this. And of course this is only exacerbated by the fact that Jeff is strangely (for someone who is wealthy and has a very cushy job) resentful of anyone who can put a coherent sentence together. That's what amazed me about Dan's treatment of Shirin. Of course it was wrong for Dan to talk to anyone like that, regardless of gender, success, intelligence or education. But he was talking down to someone who is a million times smarter and more successful than she is! Instead of being bitter and resentment, maybe he should use his time on the island with her to learn from her. It also really, really disturbs me that the victim of every season that gets picked on for no reason is almost always a woman (or once in a while a "weak" guy like Cochran, but if I remember correctly, Cochran was ostracized because he was bad at challenges and then bedause he flipped so at least those were in-game reasons). I remember being really upset by the way Sierra got treated in Tocantins and Tyson saying that he just likes to crush dumb people's dreams. What an f****** asshole. And he was brought back 3 times!!! I still have no idea why she was "dumb" or "annoying". I guess by having breasts and a vagina? And then after she left all the hatred was directed towards Erin because of course they couldn't go the last 10 days or whatever without eviscerating a woman.

I like the he said he is observing a strict policy on tweeting "now".

I've always seen Tyler as a bystander who just lets vile shit go on and pretends to be uninvolved and innocent of all wrongdoings. I thought it was very telling that in Max's exit interviews he talks how Tyler and Carolyn were totally fine with all of the sexist bullshit that Joaquin said to Shirin at the WC camp. I think that both Tyler and Carolyn are a) bystanders who don't care if someone else is getting cut down, as long as no one's insulting either of them and b) especially didn't mind in this situation because they don't like Shirin, haven't from the beginning and are unable to understand that even if they don't like Shirin on a personal level, she is a human being who should be spoken to with respect and without being every asshole's whipping person when they feel badly about themselves or about their own game. And I completely agree with everyone who's saying that I don't care what was edited out. That kind of attack is never deserved. Even if Shirin was saying vile things to Will first (which I highly doubt) he could have responded like a mature adult and told her why what she was saying was offensive and wrong. You know, kind of like how Shirin responded to Will's attack.

I watched the episode hours ago and I am still upset by what I saw. I have made several posts about Will and I am running out of words to describe his behaviour. Disgusting, vile, reprehensible, appalling, horrifying, terrible etc. Or to quote Rodney - "that is putrid, man". Absolutely. I am glad that Mike stepped in. I have to say, I am not looking forward to Probst slobbering over how "chivalrous" this move was and how it makes Mike an amazing human being who is the best thing to come out of Texas since Colby.

But he's totally fine with spending most of tribal laughing and basically air high-fiving misogynists and reducing the women playing the game to the girlfriends of the alpha males he loves so much. Barf It's also kind of hilarious that he can't handle any meaningful topics at tribal, and is like "okay, see ya later!" instead of discussing them since he seems to think he's a psychiatrist and tribal is really a group counselling session. He also erroneously believes that he's incredibly insightful and introspective. That's a good point about these things remaining with her for the rest of her life. Even thought I'm sure she knows that they're utter bullshit, I'm sure she'll think about them from time to time and that they'll always bother her. It is so hard to forget something like this. It is loathsome that Will tried to use his religious to abuse Shirin and that he's so self-righteous that he basically whatever he's saying is true because he's a "man of God" and that he can abuse people and still be a good person because he is religious. Wooooow. The attacks he made were so disgusting and awful and I believe that even going as far as saying "no one in the game likes you" would have been taking it too far. People who do that are just gross and weak. They can't stand on their own either because they're sadistic and love having other people feel hated, alone and isolated or maybe because some small part of them knows what they're doing is bullshit, so they feel better if they're not the only one. Like they can justify their unfair hatred of someone by saying "well, everyone else feels the same way". I have had people vent to me about someone else they don't like and, even if I've said I disagreed with them, they have said "I want to go to him/her how much I hate him/her. I'm going to tell them that you agree with me. You'll back me up right?" and I always say "F no. If you feel that way tell them how you, and you alone, feel. There is no need to gang up on them just so that they feel crappy". God I hate bullies. His diatribe at tribal that Shirin always plays the victim was so awful. Rightfully stating that you were a victim of domestic violence and are now a victim of being verbally assaulted by a crazy person is not "playing the victim". It is stating a fact. And I hate how perpetrators use this "playing the victim card" to try and justify what they've done and distract people from their horrendous behaviour. And everyone who stood by and watched this happen should be ashamed of themselves. I know it's not good gameplay to speak out when other people are fighting, but all they had to say was a simple "Will, lay off of Shirin". I applaud Mike for doing something, but he could have said a bit more than "you don't have to stand here and get attacked" to Shirin. He could have told Will that he was wrong and inappropriate. And sometimes you need to take a stand, even if it's not the best move for your social game. As a woman I would have been a little afraid to call him out because the way he was getting so heated and getting in Shirin's face would seriously make me worried about someone getting smacked. But I'm not sure if that had anything to do with why Sierra and Carolyn chose not to intervene.

It's possible that one day Will could have marital or familial problems. I wonder what he'd think of the logic that these problems are because he is a horrible, soulless person. Well...except that it's Will, so those probably would be the actual reasons.

Wow. That is appalling. I have no words for that. Between that and his "keep her in the game so she'll suffer" I'm sort of wondering if Will is kind of a sociopath. This thread is already at 9 pages. Crap, Probst will use the number of responses to episodes like these to justify his opinions that they're so "amazing" "best ever". Too bad never ventures into to see that the content is all about how horrified and uncomfortable we all were.

Jenn's ponderosa video is fun, but I don't buy her take on the quitting/not quitting part. She's trying to make it fit into her NC/free-spirit "image" by saying that she's just a non-conformist who didn't want to play Survivor the way everyone else does and says that not strategizing is the not same as wanting to quit the game. But the thing is she did actively strategize last episode. She actively strategized to get voted out (saying that the more she says she wants to go home the less likely they are to vote her out, trying to win immunity so that she could give the necklace to Joe and get voted out). I think she just doesn't want to admit that the reason she wanted to quit is because she couldn't handle not being in a power position anymore and because she wanted to hang out with Hali. She's image conscious and knows that those reasons would be seen as dumb.

Ummm...I'm pretty sure that Will was the unstable one in this equation.

I'm wondering if the editing of this season has been going in the direction it has been is not because there is going to be any comeuppance for the horrible players, but that they are going to be shown as awful even while they triumph. Like tonight we heard so many horrible things about Dan (The clip of him trying not to eat that hair in his rice as Jenn was talking about him being an idiotic was the best part of this episode, maybe even this season. Kudos to the editors for that.), Rodney, Will, etc. If the season ends badly with a horrible winner then maybe the best the editors have to work with is just making those people look like crap in the process. Although I still think Mike will pull this one out in the end. I didn't think I could feel shittier when watching Survivor than Colton's horrible comments about Bill and convincing the men's tribe to give up immunity and vote Bill off, but the awfulness of every episode of this season has accumulated and now I feel worse. I've said many times after a bad episode that I might stop watching the season, but I've never followed through with this. This time, I really don't think I can handle any more of this. That's how bad it is. Maybe I'll check back in for the finale and if Mike and Shirin are still there then I'll watch the last episode. And possibly the reunion in hopes that Rodney, Dan and Will all get booed off the stage.

After the fan reactions for this season is Jeff finally going to understand that his opinions are s*** and his idea of a "good" season means it's probably one of the worst of aaaaaall tiiiiiiiime???

I have not gone through the whole thread yet, so I apologize if someone already said this: (paraphrasing) Will: God doesn't like ugly. And I'm exposing a whole lot of ugly to him right now. Me: Yep, Will, you sure are. I think all of the CBS casting and production people need to be fired. The fact that they put this cast together and have been touting it as the best cast ever on the show? It shows me they are either dumb. cruel, delusional or all three. And I posted this in Shirin and Will's threads, but for people saying that Shirin got what she deserved because she provoked Will - that is freaking bullshit. As other have said in this thread, it was Jenn and Mike (especially Jenn) who started saying that Will was lying and told other players that was her opinion. And yes, it is annoying to get accused of being a liar when you are being truthful and trying to be nice. But to go off the handle like Will did? Was not a proportional response, even if Shirin has instigated the whole incident (which, again, from the edit it appears she didn't). And everyone accuses everyone of lying about everything in this game. The paranoia is rampant. Sierra thought the same thing about Dan and Mike and the bad of beans back in episode 1. So get over it, Will. What he did was absolutely despicable and frightening. And he purposely went after Shirin and not Mike and Jenn specifically because she is so disliked by everyone else and is the easiest target. That is bullying 101 and disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. But I think what frightened me even more was the way he defended himself as tribal. Shirin correctly pointed out why his actions were totally abusive and inappropriate and he basically disagreed with her while describing his behaviour by using synonyms for what she was saying. He'd say "oh, I didn't do that, I did x" and x would be exactly what she was saying. She said "he verbally assaulted me" and he goes "no, I just told you how it is". Yeah, aka verbal assault. His behaviour at tribal convinced me that he has an IQ of 5 and severe cognitive problems or delusion. And what's even more frightening is how many people in the game are just like him.

Will's rant to Shirin was the worst thing I've ever seen on this show. I was so disgusted by it that I couldn't concentrate after I saw it. You know it's bad when I'm thinking back to Dan's psycho-killer scene with her in the water and thinking "well, that was horrible, but at least he didn't attack on a personal level".