In Wednesday's second-last installment before next week's Malaysian finale Angie Bennett got zapped out of the show after her backstabbing and lie freaked the Final Four into voting for her instead of Amanda.
I caught up with her yesterday to have a goss about what went down in both the show and the Go Extra shebang afterwards:
Tashi: Please don’t feel you’ll be judged if you don’t say the so-called morally correct thing. Every Survivor fan knows you need to be as skullduggerous as possible so thank you for all the backstabbing and lies. Thanks for creating storylines that are what’s made the show a classic. Did you do it consciously?
Angie: Ja it was very conscious - obviously it’s not one dimensional so you don’t sit there and decide that something’s going to happen, there are lots of factors that come into play, but I knew I was on reality TV and I thought, “Ag I may as well to play up to that fact and have a bit of fun with it.”
Also I’ve learnt about myself, I’m not very good at the whole waiting game - I’m quite instant grativication and I learnt that just sitting it out - which is a large part of the game - I’m not very good at. I was frustrated - you know I had this idea of Survivor and what it was going to be like and it was very different to that.
I respect different views of the game, a lot of other people obviously had a different perception of it and had ideas that they’d rather play honestly, with morality and integrity but that was never my perception. When it played out so differently to how I imagined it I found it a little frustrating and I just pushed the boundaries as much as I possibly could to make it how I hoped it would have been to have fun.
Tashi: So you thought everyone was going to do the same thing?
Angie: Ja when I started stirring the pot I realized that no-one else was really going to push the boundaries that much because of the way it played out - we were just basically sitting there voting them off.
I suppose it would have been interesting to see what happened if I'd stayed when it came down to the final four but I don’t know, I couldn’t be bothered to wait somehow. Also I knew that if I did make it to the final two there was no
ways that anyone - not anyone, but most of the people on the jury - would vote for me because they’d played a game along the lines of honesty and integrity which I hadn’t so there’s no ways they could have justified voting for me - they would have had to basically vote for whoever else was there.
Tashi: Who do you think would have voted for you?
Angie: Grant and no-one else.
Tashi: Of course the big problem for you was that you weren’t very good at all the backstabbing and lies ‘cos everyone knew what you were up to.
Angie: It wasn’t strategy, no I mean told them - I went straight up to them and told them.
Tashi: Exactly - it wasn’t the best thing to do.
Angie: That’s what I’m saying it wasn’t strategy - I wouldn’t have really been mixing things up or created chaos if I’d done it all in the background.
Tashi: What do you mean? What wasn’t strategy?
Angie: The whole thing because I actually didn’t even really lie to them, I told them what I was doing. I was honestly just trying to create as much chaos as I could - I was like, “If I’m going to go out I wanna go out with a bang.”
Tashi: That's the thing, if people know what you’re doing - whether it be during the show or afterwards - then it’s not real backstabbing and lies is it?
Angie: Exactly - I went to Amanda and Angela and said, “Okay I’m going to vote with you,” then I went straight to Grant and told him “I’m not voting with you anymore, I’m going with them.” Then I went to Mandla and I told him and then Amanda got to Lorette before I told her but I had full intentions of telling her and then I wanted to see how it panned out.
I think I always planned to vote with my alliance - it really just was to, I don’t know, just get some stuff going. I know it maybe seems silly in retrospect but it was never about the money for me it was about the experience and I just found it frustrating and wasn’t really getting the experience I was wanting so I just thought “I’ll create some stuff going on so it’s not this boring game of people picking each other off.”
Tashi: I watched Go Extra after the episode and that person who phoned in who said: “Angie just said that the game can’t make you what you’re not and I want to tell you that that doesn’t say much for you because you were totally amoral, immoral and you played a game but you obviously have it in your nature.” (
if you didn’t hear the comment – trust me when I tell you - even though it hardly makes sense - the tone of how it was said was soo pathetic and nasty I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.)
The cheek of it - I thought you handled it very well - I was so livid I stopped watching so I didn’t smash my TV. How can people not get it to that degree?
Angie: Well that’s it, I wasn’t going to debate it with her - I mean obviously in real life I don’t - well, not obviously, I’m telling you, maybe some people don’t think it’s obvious - but I’m not going to steal your food and I’m not going to lie and all that stuff - I was playing a game and I said that from the start and that was my perception of it.
If she can’t see that was part of the game, I respect that - people have different views and she obviously can’t separate reality TV from real life. It’s very easy to blame me for all the backstabbing and lies because I put it out there and admitted to it and that was me but there were a lot of things going on.
The only thing I did lie about was the food obviously - I straight-out lied about the food but any of the alliances - I think people felt I Iet them down but I was pretty straightforward about everything I did.
Tashi: The thing that annoyed me especially much about the comment was “you were totally amoral, immoral,” - the tone of moralizing - like you’re either a good person or you’re bad - it’s such a huge judgement as opposed to taking things with a pinch of salt.
Angie: Luckily I’m quite thick skinned and also if people have that level of intensity of feeling towards me then at least they’re not indifferent to me. If some people hate me that much then there must be people who love me that much. My family and friends know me and they think the whole thing’s absolutely hilarious because they get me and know I was whatever and hopefully people who meet me will get that it’s a show and not me - and if they can’t then ag, we were obviously never meant to be friends anyway.
Tashi: How I see it is that when you’re on Survivor you take on a role as opposed to being you - you take on a role and use different aspects of your personality - it’s like one big role play actually.
Angie: It totally is. I was so surprised by how personally people took it because in my idea - and I totally respect like other people’s view and I understand they had a different view of the game than I did - but I was just really surprised by how personally people took it. I never took anything of it personally, I haven’t taken any of the negative or whatever what people have said in the video diaries - I see it for what it is, I understand that it’s a show, that it’s edited and I was genuinely surprised by how upset people were within the show, like contestants and other people, like the lovely lady who phoned in.
Tashi: It’s okay to respect someone’s opinion so long as they don’t hurt you - I’ve seen and heard loads of comments about reality shows but that particular comment I was quite hurt for you by the way it was said because I was like: “Jeepers, you know…”
Angie: You know what it is also is - you know when someone says something to you and there’s an element of truth and it upsets you but there really isn’t truth to it - I’m not this horrible evil person who was brought up badly.
Tashi: What does it mean to be ammoral anyway? According to who’s criteria?
Angie: According to what? Survivor’s such a good example because I don’t see my behaviour as amoral but other people do - it’s such a surreal reality that’s created in the show - who’s judging these things and who sets the standard?
Tashi: What’s interesting is how centuries ago actors were seen as the lowest of low in society in terms of morality.
Angie: Yes it shifts and changes and people love hating reality contestants.
Tashi: Oh yes it’s part of it all.
Angie: I mean some of the stuff they say.
Tashi: I know it’s the stuff we say in our lounges that makes it fun. I read
an interesting article that said one of the main reasons we enjoy reality TV is so that we can judge and don’t have to take it out on our neighbours and family.
Angie: It’s a nice easy scapegoat so we can feel better about ourselves.
Tashi: Definitely, so we can have the moral highground - you always feel better about yourself when you watch someone doing something -
Angie: “Oh I wouldn’t have done that, mumble, mumble, mumble.”
Tashi: Exactly.
That challenge between Grant and you - did he throw it?
Angie: No that was me winning it.
Tashi: Once you went to losers lodge - what did you do?
Angie: There was food for me so I sat down and started eating - potatoes and rice and kibbabs and steak and -
Tashi: Not KFC. (laughing at the millions of epic shots of it natch)
Angie: You know in that KFC challenge I was really disappointed that my parents weren’t there.
Tashi: Why weren’t they?
Angie: My dad was in America and my mom was ill - she had deep vein thrombosis so she couldn’t fly. So anyway I started eating and I thought “Right, I must go shower now, so I walked to it in my stinky bikini and thought “No I must eat some more, “ so I ate some more and then had a shower and ate some more and had another shower, to and fro. It was bizarre - then I went to bed and I couldn’t sleep, the bed was too comfortable and I considered sleeping on the floor. It’s like a culture shock.
Tashi: We always have a laugh at contestants going on and on and weeping when their family and friends arrive when it’s only been three week’s - I’m always like “Puhlease.” What’s it like seeing people you know?
Angie: I think people don’t understand quite what a strange, surreal situation it is - you’re so surprised by everything. Just getting a little taste of people you know and unconditional love, just a taste that is going to end, you’re not going to be here forever. It’s hard to put into words just how powerful it is, seeing family and friends, it just grounds you to get through that last little bit.
Tashi: So we can’t talk about what’s going to happen next? I hope you make wise judgements on the jury. Have you plotted your questions?
Angie: Ja you obviously think about the questions and then you see the people and they give their speech to you and you’ve got to - your vote’s going to help towards someone winning a million rand so you can’t just cast it lightly really.
Ends