Most of the season so far has focused on the events at camp Foa Foa. It has been hard to compete with Russell’s evil plotting and Ben’s obvious racism when it comes to what the people want to see. Camp Galu has been on a winning streak, and therefore, despite a few personality clashes, it has been relatively peaceful at that camp to this point. Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end.
For the reward challenge, the survivors are given a note, instructing the leader to pick two people. When they arrive on the beach, Jeff is nowhere to be seen and instead they see two crates. One is marked “reward” and is filled with chickens, and the other is a treasure chest. After racing to open the crates, they realize they must play a game of bocce ball for the chickens. Continuing their winning streak, Galu beats Foa Foa in the last toss of the game and takes home the chickens.
As the leader of Galu, Russell is very concerned about who will care for the chickens. He asks Shambo if she knows anything about chickens, to which she replies “Of course. I’m a country girl.” Back at camp with the chickens, Shambo begins to cluck at them and generally attempts to take on the role of chicken whisperer as the rest of the tribe rolls their eyes in her general direction. The next morning, one chicken escapes.
In a private moment with the camera, Russell, the team leader of Galu, says,
“I’m not calling Shambo stupid but you being country girl and all, I am assuming that you would think that something with wings could fly.”
As Erik and Shambo chase the chicken around camp, they marvel at its ability to fly. Even though the rest of the tribe is clearly angry with what happened, no one then steps up to help re-trap the chicken. The chicken flies right up a tree and seems to look down at its captors with contempt. Unfortunately for Shambo, this incident will weigh on the minds of her fellow tribe-mates. Often, the smallest mistakes are enough to get one voted off the island. Losing a major source of food will definitely affect her positioning in the game.
This week’s elimination challenge spelled the end of a string of victories for Galu when Foa Foa crossed the finish line first. Not surprisingly, women were once again the first considerations for elimination. Monica, Shambo and Yasmine quickly became the leading candidates. Shambo was suggested for losing the chicken, Monica for being slow during the competition, and Yasmine for not working hard enough around camp. In the end, Yasmine got eliminated.
What is interesting about this show is that none of the female contestants stop to ponder why it is that women are instantly targeted. In most cases, the excuse used is an inability to compete with the men, or wanting to keep the tribe strong until the merge. This means that at the end of the game, the few remaining women are paired with the strongest men. It is no accident that male “Survivor” winners outnumber female winners. Instead of working together, the women pull each other down, thus allowing the men to climb over their shoulders to victory.
In previous episodes, Russell of Foa Foa made it clear that he did not want a female alliance to occur. This is due to the fact that he saw a possibility that the women of his tribe did not see. Until women on this show begin to work together, they will continue to fall short of victory. Above all else here, it is interesting to note that just as in real life, patriarchy needs the collusion of women in order to continue to exist.