Being Prepared

This week on Survivor, Zeke Smith was outed by another contestant as being transgender. Zeke handled it as well as he could. In interviews, he talked about how he was asked if he wanted this knowledge to even air on the show. He worked with GLAAD and producers in making decisions about how it would be handled. It wasn't sensationalized. There was no 'next week on Survivor, a BIG SECRET IS REVEALED' or anything like that. The situation was salvaged the best way it could be.

I read an interview with Zeke and he discussed a lot of things, including the way that watching Survivor helped him through the depression he was in while trying to transition.  I know that a lot of people get upset about the idea that music or shows can be a saving grace, but when the people around you walk away, you have to turn to something. It's one of the reasons why I will always believe that the things we call 'entertainment' can be so much more than that. Hell, when I was recovering from the Hellblood, I watched a show about snotty New York prep school kids. That show helped me immensely.

Zeke talked about how when he decided to really take the idea of going on Survivor as a serious option in his life, he began to prepare for it. He started training his body. He would swim. He would acclimate himself to the heat. He stopped drinking alcohol and coffee. He worked on puzzles and tied and untied knots. He watched the show over and over again. He also listened to the Hamilton soundtrack as a way to build emotional fortitude. And see the thing is, while he is a person who did transition, that is only a small part of the article. A lot of it is about things like this, as his life is about more than just gender identity. Of all the stuff he talked about, it was this paragraph about preparing himself for the show that struck a chord with me. He was someone who really WANTED to win the show.

So later in the week, I watch RuPaul's Drag Race. One of the two people in the bottom was awful in the lipsynch. She didn't know the words. She didn't try to dance. She just stood there. Her excuse was that her kind of queen doesn't lipsynch. Okay. That's fine for her kind of show where she usually does them. This is season nine of Drag Race. Everyone knows you lipsynch if you're on the bottom. If it's a skill you don't have, it's a very good idea to learn it before you apply, just as it is a good idea to learn to sew, do choreography, and take some acting lessons. All of these things are going to happen and we all know it. If you want to win, learn them.

It sucks that Zeke was outed like that. I'm not saying that because he should be ashamed. He most certainly shouldn't. The problem will be that if he wins, people will always assume it was for 'pc' reasons and ignore anything valid he may have done in the game. That isn't fair and I'm sure it's for that very reason that he didn't want this made public. It's out there though, so he has to make the best of it. At least he knows he was as prepared as he could be for the game.....if, perhaps, not the certain move on someone else's part.