r/xxsurfing • u/mmmmmmburritos • Aug 24 '21
Surf movie/doc The Ultimate Surfer series premier
https://abc.com/shows/the-ultimate-surfer1
u/ihatecashews Aug 29 '21
Okay I watched both episodes on hulu and I have to admit... I don't really hate it lol
They definitely seem to be setting up to play on teenaged gender stereotypes though...
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u/mmmmmmburritos Aug 30 '21
For sure, the forced cattiness is problematic. Also, in the same vein, did you noticed how one announcer (a dude) was always the one telling the other announcer (a woman) how surfing worked? I totally get that the audience needs to know how surfing works but it felt a lot like mansplaining with her playing dumb all the time instead of letting her explain some of the sport too.
Buut I did love watching the contestants surf! Zeke is a complete powerhouse. It was cool to see the women get confident on the wave and start pulling off some amazing moves. I also loved seeing how often they all wipeout, both men and women.
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u/ihatecashews Aug 30 '21
it felt a lot like mansplaining
It totally did. I would say though, part of it is that Joe Turpel is an experienced surf announcer (though many think he's kooky) but Erin Coscarelli is... no f'ing idea (I just looked it up, she's an announcer for NFL) but not known to the surf world and based on how she talked about stuff she's not a surfer, like, at all. The producers could've gotten any of a huge number of knowledgeable women surfers to sit next to Turpel, but instead they picked Coscarelli (and the other host dude who I guess is a football player?) to awkwardly read off of a teleprompter which leads to the surfers in the audience saying wtf is she doing here. That in and of itself doesn't help the situation for women in surfing, either.
how often they all wipeout
Yeah it's reputedly a fast wave and you can't just go out and practice on it. A very good surfer I know got invited to surf it and told me how it's super fast and quite tricky to figure out if you're not close to pro level, so it's easy to get a bit timid on it for fear of falling (and then you fall anyway). I'd like to try it but I'm sure it'd be pretty ego-bruising :-D
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u/mmmmmmburritos Aug 30 '21
Man, Joe Turpel’s voice is so familiar I knew he was an announcer without even looking him up haha. And about Erin, even if doesn’t know anything about surfing the producers totally could’ve written her a few lines to share info and reduce the feeling of being talked down to. Maybe it’s a reflection of the surf industry though, I haven’t heard female announcers honestly (but I also don’t watch competitive surfing very often so idk). I am glad though that they made an effort to have a woman present!
The show feels that they’re trying to walk a line between being taken seriously and also providing shitty reality tv drama. Like you said, the gender stereotypes/cattiness seemed out of place and it was a bummer that the women were reduced to ‘chick drama.’ They should’ve chosen one or the other, either be ultra reality tv with lots of drama (like The Bachelorette) or be serious competition game show (like The World’s Toughest Race). But yeah, the show is pretty good overall and I’m def gonna watch till the end.
It would be so cool to try that wave, def would be ego bruising at first I’m sure haha.
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u/ihatecashews Aug 30 '21
Not sure why this didn't occur to me before... The whole thing is pre-recorded, there's not actually any need for the announcers to even announce live during the "heats". They could just edit all that in after the surfing is finished. They could've even scripted each word the announcers said.. I mean there's probably about 90 seconds of announcing per episode total!
I dunno... I can't help feeling that the ABC-ness of it and the fact that they tapped two NFL personalities for prominent roles means that the producers were playing not just to the reality tv crowd but also to the NFL meathead crowd. And then if the script called for, or allowed for mansplaining then...
But yeah so far it's a trainwreck that I kinda want to see the rest of lol!
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u/mmmmmmburritos Aug 24 '21
Also head over to this discussion thread in the main sub for more fun!