The Amazing Race remains a great show after nearly as many seasons on the air as Survivor. It’s won the Best Reality Show Emmy for six years running now. How’s it do it? With great editing and suspense, great diverse backdrops, and generally, though not always, fascinating challenges and “characters.”Speaking of characters, I want to focus in this post on how each team was initially depicted at the opening, when Phil introduces each as they run into the Los Angeles Coliseum (man, another edition starting in L.A.?). This initial video clip shows what the editors of TAR want viewers to think about each pair – and you know what they say about first impressions. Some introductions were more notable than others:
• Tony and Dallas, “mother and son”: We see cute scenes of them together, and hear them talk about Toni raising him alone (“I will give every last piece of energy I have to make sure I don’t disappoint her,” says Dallas). Of particular note: We see them playing basketball – a stereotypically masculine activity – but it’s Toni who scores a bucket. Then they are in the kitchen, a stereotypically feminine location, making sandwiches, but we see Dallas toss some meat or cheese onto a slice of bread. What’s it all mean? Show Toni taking on some “dad” duties? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s interesting that they chose those images.
• Nick and Starr, “brother and sister”: What a cute couple! Oh, wait. As they run to the starting line in their fatigue-pattern tank tops, he puts his arm around her, and then in other footage he pulls his sister up onto a large rock outcropping. Starr says that the two of them usually get what they want – “we always get it,” Nick corrects her. Is this footage meant to suggest that he’s the dominant one in this relationship? And will them always getting what they want include a victory in this race?
• Ken and Tina, “separated husband and wife”: Well, Ken’s a former NFL player and we see him tossing a pigskin on a beach. He admits he cheated on Tina. Then an intriguing clip: Ken and Tina sit on separate chairs on a beach – and stare off in opposite directions. The camera cuts away as Tina turns her head forward and Ken begins to. Tina then explains that the race could determine whether they stay together or not. So that beach footage? Almost certainly not included by coincidence.
• Aja and Ty, “dating long distance”: The split screen showing each of them on the phone obviously reinforces their “tagline.” They kiss by a car, as if one is about to drive away. What’s ironic is both wear Michigan shirts in the opening scene (they met in college in Ann Arbor, but Aja now lives in California). So their chosen outerwear makes them look more “together” geographically than they are, especially since the shirts just say “Michigan” and are not in the familiar maize and gold (as if signifying the state, not the university).
• Marisa and Brooke, “Southern belles”: Well, here’s some stereotyping, albeit not necessarily of the negative kind. On the other hand, the two are depicted as young ladies carrying shopping bags who “always wear our pearls,” are “into fashion” and like to bake cupcakes. Really, Southern belles? Couldn’t the show have called them “friends” and left it at that? The term evokes nostalgia but simultaneously an air of upper class, and the footage makes them look like the stereotypical giggling sorority girls. At least no corsets are involved.
• Andrew and Dan, “fraternity brothers”: Here’s more stereotypes, speaking of Greek life. These two just like beer, parties and women, apparently. The first thing we see in their footage isn’t even them – it’s two bikini-clad women that Andrew and Dan are ogling at a pool. Stand-ins for Marisa and Brooke (see above), perhaps?
• Anthony and Stephanie, “dating four years”: She wants to get married, he’s noncommittal, but they sure look like a good couple running on the beach with their dog! He says she’s a take-charge kind of person, saying it’s usually her way “or the highway.” Can’t she just propose to him?
• Anita and Arthur, “married beekeepers”: Isn’t it sad when a really interesting-seeming team is the first to be eliminated? It’s a bit jarring watching the camera cut from this pair dressed as aging hippies to wearing beekeeping hats and veils, gloves and jeans. Note that Arthur says they are “focusing” on bees “right now” on their farm. But the producers decided to focus on the bees, not farming in general. Guess that’d be more interesting to some. Come watch the hippy beekeepers with the big hair! For one episode, anyway.
• Kelly and Christy, “recently divorced friends”: Another pair with matching outfits! But that’s not necessarily something the producers choose for them. In contrast to the other two-woman team, the belles, these two are shown in business attire, walking down a city street, Christy holding a Blackberry or something similar. One weird thing: Not only does Christy do all the talking during their segment, but Kelly barely looks at the camera and even seems unhappy. Although Christy is talking at the time about both having just gotten divorced.
• Terrence and Sarah, “newly dating”: She’s a working woman, he’s “the quintessential free spirit” who only does what he likes (and has a weird haircut to boot, does he go to the same salon as Adam from a previous season?). Not unlike the sequence with Toni and Dallas, we see gender roles reversed here, with Sarah in a suit sitting with her laptop while Terrence, in the background, cooks. Later Sarah and Terrence – her in a pantsuit, he in a workout outfit – say goodbye at her apparent workplace, and he hands her a lunch in a paper sack. Say, she’s wearing pearls – is she a Southern belle, too?
• Mark and Bill, “geeks”: They play video games! They play chess! They read comic books! They wear shirts with silly expressions on them (hey, so do the frat boys!) And they give a shout-out to the stereotype of “living in their parents’ basement.” I wonder if they know Ken from this season of Survivor?
So there you have this season’s teams, with one take on what Jerry Bruckheimer and company want us to think of them. Will the depictions shift as the season progresses? Already Sarah seems emotionally sensitive, getting mad at Starr and Nick for ignoring what she said to them on the street (maybe they just didn’t hear?) and we see her getting upset about something similar in next week’s preview. So, like all first impressions, these are certainly subject to change.
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