LogFAQs > #876821544

@AdmiralZephyr

14. Tina Wesson (Survivor: Australia)

As Survivor’s first female winner, you would think I would respect Tina a lot more than I do…but it’s just difficult for me. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trashing Tina’s skills or anything like that. I just think that her win, more than any other in Survivor history, has a weird aura about it. People might talk shit about Richard’s game, but the way things shook out in Borneo are pretty standard by modern standards. Even by the time Africa rolled around, Richard’s strategy had been implemented multiple times. But with Tina, I feel like Australia is more of a bizarre outlier than Borneo. The way Australia shook out was in direct response to Borneo, which is something I don’t think ANY other season has had to deal with. That definitely colors Tina’s win.

There are two main things that come into play with regards to Tina’s win. First, the idea that Borneo had been too “mean.” Back in the day, the Tagi 4 were loathed by America because the use of alliances was seen as “cheating” that screwed over the beloved Pagong tribe. Alliances weren’t going away, because in a battle for a million dollars, you want to use every tool you can to win…but the cast of Australia seemed to go into the season trying to be good guys. And Tina capitalized on this. More than any season since, Tina played on this idea that the “good people” needed to win Australia to compensate for Richard’s win the first time around.

This strategy was key for Tina, since she positioned herself as a “good person.” She got Colby to work with her rather than “evil” Jerri and Amber, and convinced Rodger and Elisabeth to stick with her majority alliance rather than even considering picking up Amber to try and make a move against the Keith/Tina/Colby trio. And I think that this lingering notion of being the “good guy” directly influenced Colby’s decision to take Tina to the finals over an easy win in Keith. I don’t believe that this sort of thinking would’ve taken place in another season; the atmosphere surrounding Australia was just too unique.

The other outside aspect that contributed to Tina’s win was the fact that she was female. Again, back in the day, it was discussed that a woman could never win Survivor; a jury wouldn’t reward her. Now…you can kind of apply this to modern Survivor, where a female player has to be ten times as good as a male player (or go to the end with other women) to really stand out. But back in the day, this was a lingering attitude, and I have to wonder whether it had a direct impact on a 4-3 vote in Tina’s favor. Just one vote going the other direction flips this season to a Colby win…and it’s hard to say why exactly a strong, independent woman like Alicia voted Tina. It’s entirely possible Tina won just to stick it to the notion of purely alpha male winners like Richard Hatch.

At the end of the day, I think Tina made a TON of great moves to get herself to the finals. Finding out from Kimmi about Varner’s past votes worked to her benefit. Stepping down to give immunity to Keith worked to her benefit. Playing up a “good guy” angle worked to her benefit. Had this worked in a different season, I’d rank her higher. But there’s too many variables at play in Australia for me to say one hundred percent that she’s any higher in my winner ranking. Plus there’s always gonna be that lingering “what-if” of Mike’s medevac tying the game as the tribes went into the merge. There are just a lot of questions, and this is still a high placement…it’s just not one of the absolute STRONGEST winning performances, in my opinion.
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