Back in early September, I wrote this post about the new season of Survivor on CBS. Survivor producers decided that for its thirteenth season they would try something new, and start off the show with four “tribes” of castaways, divided by race. They had an Asian tribe, an African-American tribe, a Hispanic tribe and a Caucasian tribe.

After a lot of rambling in my earlier post, I concluded that I would have to “wait and see how it played out” before I made a judgment call.

Last night the season ended, and Yul Kwon, a 35-year old from California, was the first ever Asian-American to win the one million dollar Survivor prize.

And not only did an Asian man win, but the other contestants rounding out the final five in the game with Kwon were an Asian woman, an African American woman, a Hispanic man and a Caucasian man. I thought it was great that the final group ended up being so diverse.

On the “reunion show” after the finale last night, Kwon was asked how he felt about the show beginning the way it did, with the contestants divided by race (after a week, the tribes were mixed up and combined into two tribes).

Kwon admitted that when he heard how it was going to start, he felt that he had made a mistake getting involved and worried about stereotyping and other negative results, but at the end of the show, he was very pleased with how it ended up.

This Yahoo! article says, “For a game that began in racial controversy, it turned into a showcase for the nation's diversity, according to Kwon.”

Kwon also said on the show that he thought being the “Survivor” was a great way to combat the stereotypes that exist for Asians, and that he hoped it inspired young people to realize that they could achieve all sorts of things. Not only did Kwon show that Asian men could be leaders and highly athletic as well as intelligent, he also recently was announced to be one of the honorees on People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive”.

Beyond having an Asian man win the big prize, the show had some other great results. Many of the “castaways” really bonded and worked well together, and the people that they aligned with had little to do with race. They showed that it was WHO someone is that mattered the most, and not what color they were. When the host, Jeff Probst, said something along those lines last night at the finale, he was met with a huge round of applause from the audience.

So, did Survivor’s ratings gimmick turn out to be a good thing? I think my final answer is yes. The contestants formed friendships and alliances based on each other’s personalities and actions, not their skin color. The castaways that were lazy or loud-mouthed were unpopular no matter what race they were, there were athletic members of all races and the final five had representatives from each of the original “race-based” tribes. And then of course, an Asian man, who might have been the last choice stereotypically to win an extremely competitive and physical game, took home the million bucks (with a Hispanic man being the runner up and winning a killer car!)

My kids enjoyed it, and on several occasions some of them pointed out that the tribes were made up a lot like our family. :)

I think that the points were made that there is no “dominant” race, that members of all races can work together and live together very successfully and that there is strength in diversity.

Did you watch? If you did, let me know what you think.