Revisionist History in the Survivor Calendar

A few weeks ago, I wrote up a review of the Survivor 2002 calendar. In that article I noted:

Interestingly, I didn’t see a single picture of Stacey – even a group photo of the Survivor 1 folks appears to have been cropped so it only includes about half of them, and she isn’t in there. Mind you, I might have missed one, but I was definitely looking.

I first noticed it when looking at the January 7 entry. This contains the cropped group photo I mentioned before, but the text is a list of luxury items brought by the first group of Survivor contestants. When I looked at the list, I noticed it wasn’t even – although there are an even number of contestants (16), the two columns were not the same length. Why not? Because Stacey isn’t listed.

In paging through the calendar, I found that all 16 of the Survivor 2 contestants are properly shown in their group photo – no cropping there. All 16 luxury items are listed on that appropriate page; nobody left out.

Furthermore, the Pagong, Ogakor, and Kucha tribes are all specifically listed on their own individual pages. No such page for Tagi. Also, each reward and immunity challenge is listed as a recap, and almost all of the immunity challenges note who ended up getting voted off. You guessed it, when it came to the one causing the vote for Stacey, all it says is, “Tagi made the hike to Tribal Council that evening.”

It is certainly understandable that the folks at Survivor don’t want to do anything to further publicize Stacey, who, after all, has sued them for “fixing” the show. But does that make it okay to provide a revisionist history?

Like it or not, she was one of the first 16 contestants. Why not list her luxury item? Why not show her as part of the group picture? Why leave out the entire Tagi Tribe just because of her?

I suppose it is possible that they needed to get permission to use her photograph, but considering the strict contracts they signed, I rather doubt Mark Burnett forgot to put in something for promotional items like this. Also, even if, for some reason, they couldn’t use her photo, there is nothing that could have stopped them from simply mentioning her name in the list. And, as I said, the likelihood that they were restricted from using her photo is somewhere between slim and none.

From what I can see, we are left with two possibilities. Either their lawyers told them to avoid all mention of her – though I cannot fathom why or how this might affect the lawsuit – or they simply did it out of spite. But no matter what the reason, the fact of the matter remains that the history books – or in the case calendars – are being altered to erase a person they perhaps wish never had participated in the show. And although the calendar is otherwise a good one, I can see no excuse for such historical revisionism.

The Survivor 2002 Daily Calendar Click Here to Buy It Now through Amazon if you’d like to see it for yourself.

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