Eden Channel 4 - male contestants gang up on female contestants

[noblegiraffe]

I was listening to R4 this morning and they were interviewing a female contestant from reality TV show Eden.

The premise of the show in 2016 was to ditch 23 men and women in a remote area and for them to set up their own society. They were supposed to be filmed for the whole year but when they came out, they were told that the show had been cancelled and no one had been watching. Next week from Monday at 10pm, they are going to air a short series showing what happened.

What sounded like it might be interesting was that the discussion this morning was about how the men in the group turned on the women in the group, using their greater strength as power over things like food. They didn't give too many details about what happened, but apparently it could be quite difficult viewing.

The synopsis for episode 2 says 'Some of the men in the group suggest that they concentrate on the more traditionally 'male' roles, while declaring the more domestic roles should be done by the women.'

Maybe worth a watch.

I heard about this programme, I nearly started a thread about it because it was so 'wtf?' (Just the idea of it, not from a feminist angle.) Didn't they live there for a year and so when they came off they had no idea that Brexit and Trump had happened?

Have you got details of the name of the program and the channel? I'd like to watch it. I'd be interested to know if it came from one influential man and the majority went along, or several men.

Eden: Paradise Lost, Channel 4, 5 episodes over 5 nights from Monday August 7th at 10pm

I just saw an article in the Daily Mail referring to it as 'Lord of the Flies', and that the women were so starved their periods stopped. Good grief.

I was wondering when it was going to be back on! I will be watching.

It made for very uncomfortable viewing iirc.

I'm confused as to why they stopped airing the show at the time? How awful for all involved, as well as coming out and finding out about Trump etc!
I wonder if it had carried on airing at the time, would viewers have been so shocked there would be demands to stop the whole thing?

Apparently C4 commissioning editor said "People reverted to their base instincts", which is bollocks, surely? You can't undo a lifetime of socialisation just like that. I would have thought it more base instincts + underlying socialisation, minus erm, politeness? or a veneer of respectability, or giving a shit. Same thing that makes men rape if they think they won't get caught.

Will be watching with interested horror...
Also the Bear Grylls survival island one has some sterling examples of sexism, as well as how twatty men are dealt with. The last series had one guy - "my wife has dinner on the table by 7 or they'll be trouble!" but he was humbled and became part of the group and hugged and cried with the rest of them ("I thought crying was girl's stuff"). Another guy who seemed more innocent and bit of a daft hippy turned out to be a perfect example of stubborn male ego and they made him leave the island ("erm - if this was a real community, does that mean we'd be killing him now?" ). The US one had an interesting contrast between younger (on the whole) more emotionally literate men and older, shouty, weapon-waving (!) ones.

I do wonder about the evopsych theories wheeled out about male behaviour. Surely the most obvious theory, if we're going down that route, is that men would kill each other off, keeping their numbers low, because we don't actually need that many. Plus in times of famine, women's bodies are better designed for survival whilst men start to wane and need a disproportionate amount of the limited food supply (this was also evident in survival island show).

I'm not arguing that this is true, btw, but it's funny how the popular theories all involve big tough men providing for women, when men are actually more disposable, evolutionarily speaking.

MiaowTheCat brilliant summary! And yes there was a thread in Telly Addicts about it. You could start to see the split between the men and women start to happen, and the men throwing their weight around, so I'm not surprised it ended up like this, sadly.

Wasn't that the one where they stopped airing the show, but didn't tell the contestants!

I watched a couple of episodes - there was such a mis-matched bunch - one bloke was a bit older than the others, got frustrated and went to live on his own, the chef totally played favourites, and a large chunk of them seemed to be re-enacting Douglas Adams by prioritising building a sweat lodge over any permanent accommodations.. it was, generally, fairly rubbish.

Now, Alone, that I enjoy..

Interesting Guardian article!

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/aug/04/eden-paradise-lost-reality-show-nobody-watched

I think there should be independent ethics committees that have to approve such shows, to be honest.

the men in the group turned on the women in the group, using their greater strength as power over things like food.

Sounds like a microcosm of basically every human society ever.

I can't believe they cancelled the show but didn't tell the contestants! They should have got them off the Island as soon as the cancellation was announced. The T.V company has just wasted a year of these people's lives, they appear to have had a terrible time and lets face it, 2016 was a big year to miss.

If the show was cancelled were there still producers and experts around, monitoring them in case it all went tits up? or were they genuinely left alone? If it all went a bit Lord of the Flies then the contestants should be very angry with channel 4, though I imagine there was small print in their contracts that in the case of cancellation they'd be left to rot so they won't be able to sue.

But if division between male/female was apparent before the cancellation, and the men were already throwing their weight around, then I can't see how channel 4 haven't been grossly negligent leaving the female contestants in that position. I'm just that the women were so starved their periods stopped!

Here's the original thread from the first run:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/2687754-Eden?msgid=62959906

MiaowTheCat
Pretty much every reality survival type show is the same.

lol. There's a also the part where a bunch of clueless city dwellers suddenly realise with horror that their meat actually comes from killing animals dontchaknow and they stand about open-mouthed as they realise they're going to have to kill, skin and cook a chicken.

I watched the first instalments, it.was.awful

The first episode I was gobsmacked at the type of people they had put in. There seemed to be a genuine lack of basic knowledge about......well...errrr anything!

They could all have been big brother contestants.

The splits started to appear quite quickly and yes it was all about Willy waving! I completely despaired at them building a sweat lodge, and like pp, thought they all played their dougles Adams parts to a T.

The guy who went off on his own had a point I agree, but he was also a massive Annoying Me, Me, Me, sexist Wanka, so I had no sympathy at all for him.

It was sad and infuriating watching, and some of the women(not all) played the "oh and just a weak and feeble woman" all the time.

But then when a couple of them went to help with the 'macho' jobs and really tried they weren't given the chance to get use to it or learn, they were dismissed immediately, then bitched about by the men later.

If this follow up is as bad as has been reported? Then I think it may have been taken off air so there was no public out cry.

Now it's done and dusted, they can make it a spectacular watch for everyone, pump the rating, and not have anyone shouting they need to stop the 'experiment'.

I doubt it will do any favours for women, it will be perceived that it confirms we are lesser of the sexes. Being so weak n feeble n all

These shows are designed with a specific agenda. Make everyone look like twats, get the audience shouting at the telly. Have one person who seems more sensible than the rest who you can root for.

As the credits roll everyone congratulates themself on not being like those twats on the telly.

I don't get why people who can't do anything go on these shows? I can 100% sit back and take the piss because quite honestly, I'm very open about the fact I would be dead because I just wouldn't be able to do anything. I wear glasses so I could maybe make a fire and cook food, I could clean but I hate it lol. I couldn't kill an animal though, I'm not good around blood and such things. I am when I have to be but I won't choose to be in that situation. I couldn't make stuff and I'm way too lazy to walk for ages for water, I hate having to walk to my kitchen but I am a lazy fucker and own this.

Due to all of that, I would never go on a show like this and don't get why some people do. I like the comforts of my home, but maybe that's down to my mates anxiety and depression.

These shows are designed with a specific agenda

I think that was part of the problem, they sold it as something more than that. But then you start to watch and realise nope, it's full of BB wanna be's.

I read a few pages of the telly addicts link, which jolted my memory at just how useless they were. I mean, they used fishing nets as wardrobes, instead of.....y know catching fish to eat

Miaow's nailed it I think. I remember a few years ago BBC2 did a fly on the wall programme about a family aiming to start a self-sufficient off-grid small holding and the programme makers didn't pick a bunch of wankers with personality defects guaranteed to rub up against one another. They were nice, normal people who'd done quite a bit of research, though of course still had gaps in their knowledge so we had the odd minor crisis, but on the whole they muddled along okay in a good humoured way.

As TV viewing, the end result was, sadly, like watching paint dry!

I remember watching the first bit of this that was aired last year.

Yes, splits were opening up quickly, including splits between the men and the women, and there were some seriously skewed priorities - like the example above where they made a sweat lodge before something useful like a winter shelter.

They clearly weren't thinking long term at all. Or about trying to function as any sort of society.

I heard the interview, but don't want to watch because I'll just end up too pissed off/upset!

It sounds like such a shame for the contestants (like the one I heard interviewed) who wanted to go into it for the "building a society thing", because it was inevitably ruined by the "desperate to prove how macho a caveman they are survivalist" types. Like a pp said, so much depends on the personalities they include in an "experiment" like that.

What makes it worse is those poor women who stuck the bullshit out for a whole year must have thought that at last they were escaping the misogenistic island where male egos are prioritised over all women. Then they emerged into a reality where Trump was chosen to be POTUS when the choice was him or a woman.

Great summary, Miaow!

I've been catching up all week,it was horrendous! I'm not convinced Glen was even an actual hunter and not just some weirdo with a gun fettish ,he actually made my skin crawl. The language used against the women was dreadful - and the gay man too.

Urghhh!