Finally!
Lesbians on Survivor! by
Sarah Warn, August 2004
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In
Survivor's ninth season, which debuts on September
16th, there will be not one but two lesbian/bisexual women competing
for the popular reality show's top spot.
Ami
Cusack and Dr. Scout Cloud Lee are just two of the 18 contestants
on CBS' Survivor Vanuatu,
which is set on Vanuatu, a South Pacific nation comprising 83
islands strung midway between Australia and Hawaii.
Survivor--whose
former contestants now number over 100--has had openly gay male
contestants in previous seasons, like Richard Hatch, who won
the first Survivor in 2000, but never any openly gay
female contestants. There was a lesbian contestant on the show's
first season in 2000, Sonja Christopher, but her sexual orientation
was not disclosed on TV or within Sonja's official bio, and
only became public well after the fact.
This
makes Ami and Scout the first openly gay women on the show--a
noteworthy and long-overdue first.
Scout
is a 59-year-old rancher, entrepreneur, singer/songwriter
and cancer survivor from Stillwater, Oklahoma whose bio on the
official
Survivor site features a lengthy list of accomplishments:
Dr.
Scout Cloud Lee's professional career spans more than 30 years,
featuring stints as the CEO of her performance consulting company,
a motivational speaker, entrepreneur, rancher, former university
professor (University of Illinois and Oklahoma State University)
and author of eleven books and more than 100 articles. She is
also the founder of The Magical Child Foundation and a faculty
member for the Institute for Management Studies.
She
has also produced a few CD's of her music and was chosen to carry
the Olympic torch in 2002. Scout is very up-front about her long-term
lesbian relationship in the bio:
"Lee
is in a committed relationship with Annie, her best friend and
playmate of twenty-six years. She owns eight horses, four dogs,
two cows, and several cats, llamas and squirrels. She and Annie
also have a second home in Hanalei, Kauai, Hawaii. She loves to
spend her time writing her own music, building indigenous lodges,
camping and riding her horses. She is most proud of living her
life on her terms and from shying "away from social prescriptions,
overcoming many obstacles, and becoming a successful, affluent,
land-bearing Bohemian in the international corporate arena."
Ami
is a 31-year-old model/barista from Lakewood, Colorado
whose official bio on the Survivor site is a little more
general:
After
graduating Golden High School, she attended Rocky Mountain College
of Art and Design in Denver. While attending RMCAD, she landed
a job with Experimental and Applied Sciences as charitable director
(one of six employees), working with children and women. In 1998,
the company was sold and Cusack decided to travel for the next
four years. Her travels led her to Australia, Thailand, Tahiti,
Iceland, Japan and Africa. Upon
returning to the US, she took a job at a coffee shop which she
now considers "the greatest job in the world." She looks
forward to being a mom and taking care of her family.
Ami
has done some modeling, as well, and was included in a July 1996
Playboy Magazine article titled "The Girls of Venus Swimwear."
Her sexual orientation is only referenced briefly in the bio,
with the statement that "Cusack is currently dating Crissy,
whom she's been with for three years."
On
the surface, these women couldn't be more different
from one another, and that's refreshing--with the notable exception
of MTV's Real World and Road Rules franchises,
reality shows rarely feature openly gay or bisexual women at
all, and almost never two at the same time.
Scout
is also one of the very few older lesbians we've seen on reality
or scripted television.
But
with 18 contestants, will either Scout or Ami survive long enough
to stand out from the pack? We'll have to tune in on Thursday,
September 16th at 8pm to find out.
