In the era of #MeToo, re-examining the Susan Hawk - Richard Hatch Suvivor "sexual harassment" incident

It was so awkward even at the time. Jeff has no idea what to do when Sue is yelling at him on the beach the next day. But it was really weird that Sue seemed to be OK at the time, and then became a complete mess by the next day. I wonder if it gave her PTSD or something.

A tactic, maybe?

I never watched that damned show, but isn’t everyone doing and saying everything in an attempt to maneuver to the top?

Can you ever trust anyone to say or do anything from a place of authenticity?

R2, it was a lot more “real” and “pure” back then. Now it is just all game, all strategy, back then there was a bit more to it than that. There’s no doubt to me that Sue was genuinely hurt and in a terrible place mentally, though there is no way to be sure that we saw everything that went into that.

She was fine with him being naked on the first season when they were on the same tribe. She even made jokes about it. I think it was a calculated move on her part -- that was sort of her personality any way.

I think it just shows, that on the show, it was all for show!

Reality TV is all exaggerated drama and tantrums for ratings / screen time.

The participants don't really care about their gripes.

I think it was all an act on Susan's part. The first time around, she had the luxury of being on an alliance that went through to the end (and going against a bunch of likeable but gullible dimwits) and delivering a memorable but overly-hyped speech after finishing in 4th. In All-Stars, she had none of that. She didn't make any alliances in her tribe and she wasn't well liked at all (understandable because she's so grouchy). She knew her game would be up soon and she wouldn't even make it to the jury this time. So she made sure she left on *her* terms. And was able to bilk a nice settlement out of CBS from it.

By the way, I always thought her infamous "Snakes & Rats speech" was so self-serving and hypocritical. It wasn't a "put the bad guy in their place" moment, it was the act of an extremely bitter, hypocritical, dishonest woman. She actually swayed votes to Kelly, which wasn't her intent at all. It backfired bigly. Colleen and Gervase were going to vote for Richard, but Sue's speech had put them off so much, they switched their votes. And yet to this day, it's remembered as this fantastic "gotcha" speech. I don't get it at all.

I mean, let's break it down. First of all, there's the fact that Sue is such a backwoods rube (check out of her pronunciation of "manipulative", which Jeff Probst would poke fun at in the voiceover on the S1 dvds.) Then she gets on Kelly's case for losing a rafting challenge (since it was basically her profession) by Gervase, who was a city boy who couldn't swim. Which is pretty hilarious because if you watch that challenge, Kelly beats herself up for it and Sue is right there to comfort and console here and tell her it wasn't her fault. And didn't Kelly like 5 immunity challenges in a row, plus some rewards? That was pretty damn impressive, especially for a woman. But the ultimate is when Sue says she wouldn't help Kelly if she was dying of thirst, but then a few minutes later, goes over to shake her hand, which Kelly of course refuses. Like she's really going to shake your hand after you just essentially wished death on here. FUCKING CUNT!! I'm glad sue lost. Twice.

I remember the snakes and rats speech but it came out of nowhere. I figured there was some contretemps behind the scenes that the camera crew missed. Kelly looked stunned and then she never did any of the follow up shows (as far as I watched) and basically dropped out of sight. This was the early days of the web though so there weren't a lot of forums. Sue Hawk was the only contestant who didn't lose weight out there.

There had been friction. Kelly had been an alliance faithful in the beginning, but eventually had doubts and thought it was unethical and her voting started getting unpredictable. There had been talk Sue, Rich and Rudy would have voted her out, but she kept winning immunity. Then she started kissing up to the remaining Pagong members and Sue thought she was trying to play both ends. And that she was playing the long game. Which is pretty funny seeing as Sue was so unlikeable that she would have lost had she gotten to final 2 no matter who her opponent was.

I also loved this exchange:

Probst: "Sue...is there an alliance." Sue (long pause) "Nooo."

Maybe it was one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it was such an obvious lie.

Yeah, everyone was shocked that there *was* an alliance because it was supposed to depend on survival skills.

Sue was the original Survivor Hag.

The edit made it look like Susan got PTSD or something, because at the incident she was just annoyed and then with each more scene she became more distraught until she freaked out at the start of the next challenge, and she had to be assisted to leave the show on boat (Hatch left before her between the incident and the next challenge). Back then that was considered pretty real and intense. Nowadays Reality TV shows live (and create) these real and intense moments for each episode preferably.

Sue was one of those "dish it out but can't take it" types. She was always real quick to vent her anger as she seemed to have a lot of built-in rage inside her. She seemed to want to kill Greg because he was goofy and a non-conformist. It's hilarious she accused Richard of being unable to take criticism since she was so thin-skinned and overly sensitive. She wanted to beat the men on tv so bad, but couldn't figure out how to make it work.

Does anyone remember her husband? I remember the whole time thinking "who in the fresh hell could be attracted to Susan Hawk" and then her husband popped up in that 'videotape from home' reward challenge. Let's just say I think Sue's got the looks in that relationship. Her whale of a husband must have been at least 400 pounds.

I also hated how she boasted that, while she never won any individual challenges, she was "always competitive." Close only counts in horseshoes Sue.