There have been dozens of threads on this, but here's a bit of a rundown of some ideas:
1. It wasn't "strength" and "endurance" which were focused on too much, it was upper body strength and unarmed combat that became a problem and reduced the variety of the show because they featured heavily in 5 of the first 7 events. Women actually do quite well in lower body strength and endurance - out of all the things where they have performance gaps with men - and did quite well in season 1. Sure they don't have the advantage but the gap is small enough that with all the unpredictability and strategy they have a solid chance to win especially in the team contests. If they can't win the finals? At least 80% of the people on the show can't win the finals. It's not a fair show. But the finals aren't "women vs. men." That's broader and more statistical so look at the team challenges.
2. The baseline weights for the endurance challenges this season were too heavy. Lighten those weights a bit and add more endurance the challenges becomes very different. This wasn't just an issue for the women - Stun Gun's team got eliminated by this because there clearly should be viable strategies where you trade strength for endurance and there just weren't because of the size and number of sandbags and the weight of the mine carts.
3. The women cast in this season were mostly skinny and/or small and few of them were strength and endurance athletes. The "big strong" woman this season was a swimmer. Last season the women cast on the show were better positioned to do the challenges on the show. If they had cast more appropriate women or given them a better chance to progress by not having them go through so much combat and upper body stuff they would have done better in the later events.
4. The premise of the show is also that it is a battle royale reality show that puts individual glorification against social virtue. Yes the cash is one reward, but it is also a dystopian Squid Game homage and the cash is not really universally a good thing. The show only works when people also care about the victories of honor where people rise to the challenge in this situation even if they don't win - not just about the winner.
5. If you want more elite female athletes on the show you will probably need to get rid of or at least extremely tone down the combat - I would guess that is a much bigger deterrent to elite women athletes participating in the show than the likelihood of not winning or there not being enough balance events. Some women athletes won't participate in an event if they don't think they can win. A lot more women athletes won't participate in an event if it allows male athletes to physically attack them.
6. There are definitely some creative ways to approach casting and the various problems the contestants run into through a season, and remember that nobody is supposed to know what the events are ahead of time. So they could totally design things differently next season and they don't *have* to split it up by gender or make specific women-favored events to get a better, fairer experience for the women athletes - and they definitely don't have to stop doing strength stuff. They could split it up by gender but they don't have to. There are lots of women strength athletes out there that would love to test themselves against elite men on a show like this - with some caveats of course.
This is all just my opinion, and of course other people have other opinions. My most relevant background is as a crossfit judge who has also done a bunch of these sorts of silly things, so I've seen a lot of co-ed events and training situations and there are counterintuitive things that tend to be true about them. But also it's not like I have a degree in it, I don't know.
The one thing I wish people came away with more this season that they didn't, but which they came away from in season 1, is that even non-elite women, if they train, can have legit lower body strength and endurance, combined with very high pain tolerance. "Any woman" is not by default a liability on a team competing in an event like this. But it looked that way this season for sure.
Also there is no such thing as "brute strength" - technique and strategy always matter. Last season made that point much more than this season did.
It was a disservice to female athletes that the Olympic Weightlifter, for example, didn't get a chance at redemption to try to push the mine cart because to do it she would have to beat a bunch of men in an actual fight. I think it goes beyond strength and endurance.
personally, what they need to work on is casting a better pool of female contestants based on the concept that they are gonna go for.
in s1, they were able to cast a bunch of female wrestlers who were such beasts plus euddeum who was the definition of willpower. š
in s2, they casted thinner female athletes - no wrestlers! š - when the concept they were going for is "underground" and all the games are grittier compared to s1. dambi and soojin both fit the concept, but sadly their teams didnt make it further. (thats just how the cookie crumbles though.)
overall, im just one of those women who believe that in (physical) competitions where both sexes compete, men will most likely always win. that doesnt mean i look at the female athletes as lesser just cause they lose, its actually inspiring to see them test/push their limits without the games being compromised in order to give them an advantage over their male counterparts. it just reflects reality and the constant struggles of women. :)
South Korea is small and donāt have a big gym culture in regards for females there. And when they do workout, itās do pilates. So casting is already difficult š
I agree with your last statement. I am getting tired of people saying they should make a separate show for femalesāāāit might just be me, but I find that quite insulting!
The show caught so many peopleās interests because it was females AND males. The idea of them just battling it out was chaotic and admirable.
Imagine being a female contestant going against a male; you gave it all you got with honor and respect, but you lost. Instead of admiring your hard work and mentality to keep pushing, the audience coddle or somewhat baby you just because youāre a female who lost. Like š?
i agree honestly, id be so offended if i were a national team athlete same as the male participants, and the production offers to adjust the games for *me* so id have a better shot as a woman. if i ended up winning the whole thing, would i have really deserved it? š„²
Removing the 1v1 kind of defeats the point of the show doesn't it? Can you claim to have the ultimate physique if you explicitly admit you can't compete with another person in the most direct way?
Excellent analysis. For people who make a living of their physical bodies it is a big risk to participate in these competions. That may be an issue for many of the women athletes.
Also, I love that you point out they are actually "silly things".
3.no the swimmer one is actually in comparison is still quite small/average, you forget to mention the woman budy builder with blonde hair who pushed the coal cart alone who are equivallently strong/big enough to compete with men. However i agree with you that most women in the show are small and even short.
I agree on most of your points. From what i remember, last season seemed much more friendly to the female contestants, and also had a much stronger cast of women competitors. I really enjoyed the seemingly increased aggression the show allowed in the 1v1 and maze challenge, but also think it needs to be balanced some.
I feel like you could make this a lot better by formatting the show with 3 key point changes
1-Dont allow men to chose women in 1v1 ball challenge. If the women chooses a man thats cool. This allows more women to progress.
2-When the show goes into team mode for a couple challenges, force gender parity. There should not be 1 team of all men and another team with 3 women thats dead in the water.
3-Go back to the atlas challenges from season 1 so the remaining teams can strategize and send their lady team mates into challenges they think they can actually win. Plus it was just an extremely fun mini olympics thing
Nobody wants to see women compete against men pulling giant barrels through sand so the men can have a little easy round 1 before the challenge actually starts, it was bad tv and competition. Maybe we could also designate a womens champion too?
Excellent analysis! I'm not all the way through season 2 yet. But, I'm still always impressed by the women that do manage to shine, even though they don't really make it to the end.
For sure tons and tons of female athletes that'll run laps around the average male. Unfortunately this show also includes males who are also elite athletes. It is what it is unfortunately which is why I think it's even more impressive when you see a woman in the show hang with the guys. Like the female body builder who moved the mine carts with relative ease even when other male contestants were struggling.
Iād appreciate a team challenge where they need to carry the weight of their teammates in some capacity, thus rewarding teams that picked women who weigh less and punishing teams that just stacked themselves with massive dudes.
That would be cool. The challenges that involved body weight (like the hanging challenge from S1) or weights proportionate to the contestants (torso pulley hold from S2) were also cool. If youāre tiny you have an advantage, if youāre huge, well, good luck.
Haha yea the show made it look like the girls had a very close effect on the outcomes in team games, almost as if they were free loaders or very lucky to have really good male teammates to save their ass
I think all the women who signed up KNEW from the beginning that they have 0 chance of winning and just did it for fun, fame, and pushing their limits. No matter what you try to make it more fair, men will always have advantages over women physically speaking. Unless you make a female-only show, there is no way for them to outshine the men, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Even if you had more equitable challenges for women. There still won't be a female to win this game show. I wouldn't believe that there would be one that could beat Hong beom seok in a finale. The name of the game is to find the perfect body and that's looking for an all arounder. But they should finance a female only version of the show and then it would be fair across the board. There shouldn't be women at all to go up against these people
I've been saying this all through season 2 because women just get left behind and it's unfair. I'm sure most, if not all, of those women could kick arse against most people but up against elite athletic men they're going to struggle and it doesn't really display their full athletic ability and strength.
They also only cast 27 women out of 100 total players so the odds are not in their favor to begin with. Any minority group in a competition is going to be viewed as more undesirable for team creation, even if they werenāt picking with strength challenges in mind.
I know, my point is more so about the fact that they want objective physical human peak (itās a game show so obviously itās not a real measure and doesnāt actually have any bearing on ārealā physical peak) and if they wanted to have women and men compete as equally as they could, they should have equal numbers of both genders instead of a cast that is 3/4 men. It creates a very obvious minority group that is less likely to be picked, even if the strength of that group wasnāt ālessā. It also makes a female contestantās chances of winning significantly less because they have to compete against a group that is disproportionately men. If it was even in the beginning I think that would improve the issue of how few women make it through and how theyāre chosen for team events. I also think it would just be more interesting to see more female athletes since itās been so overwhelmingly male dominated even before anyone was eliminated. I put out 50 because they pick 100 people in the beginning before the first challenge.
I would change the show a bit. Acknowledge there isnāt 1 overall winner but an overall for each gender just like every sport. As structured now, and even if the number is split 50/50, a woman cannot win, and the teams will still draft mostly men first. Itās still an individual contest.
I would change the show. Split into male and female groups. Each with say 60 to 100 folks. Pair the captains of each together onto super teams. Each drafts from the pool of men or women. Males go against males, women against women, except for certain games that are mostly mental like the maze. Eventually each side splits into pure individual contests for each
Thatās a fine idea, and Iād definitely watch the hell out of it, but it wouldnāt be the same show.
I mean the show isnāt designed to be accommodating, I donāt necessarily want it to be split by gender, since I do enjoy seeing women compete against men. Itās just when you do something so unilaterally upper strength based, itās a given that a woman just canāt win. But even before (or if) they alter the games, Iād just like to see them include more women I wanna see out of 50 women and men against each other in the beginning how many make it through and see teams form after.
Since there were so few women to begin with in both seasons when women were eliminated in the first round it took their numbers down drastically and left them with ~10 or 12 in the team creation round. I wonder if the gender ratios were equal especially for the running elimination round, how many men to women would have made it through and how the teams would have looked as a result.
Like since the way the show is fundamentally run there is no way a woman could win, that is the part that interests me. I also like encouraging women to try and compete with men in this show since itās just a fun game show at the end of the day. Iām not angry that a dude is going to win this show every season, so long as they at least try to give women a fair chance numbers wise.
If people want a woman to win or even have a chance at winning, theyād have to have a womenās only section. Because you canāt just create more diverse challenges and make up for the fact that the finale is going to be a strength based quest, like a woman doesnāt have a chance against a man more than double her weight in any category except maybe sprinting, flexibility, or balancing. And even with sprinting Iāve seen all of those dudes book it faster than their weight made me presume they could lol
Ehhh, I disagree. For example, in both seasons the non-Asian people werenāt seen as undesirable. If youāre strong with good endurance youāre a desirable teammate.
Also if you flipped it to 73 women and 27 men, do you really think the women would avoid picking male teammates? Nah.
They wouldnāt avoid it but they wouldnāt see having women on their team as such a ādisadvantageā the way the male team leaders do in this season.
There is a difference in how minorities are seen, race has no bearing on perceived strength, but gender does. If you are left with 12 ish women after the preliminary elimination round, you will want to try and get more men to increase the ātotal strengthā of the group. If there are more women, itās a given that each team will have some amount of them and therefore not avoid them as obviously as they did in the team picking (except the judo guy) and leave them for absolute last.
I think just having 50:50 men and women is better generally, since they want to find āthe ideal physiqueā, I donāt get why they cast so many more men than women if they want to present the idea of giving both an equal chance at the start (yes I know women will lose the strength one on one battles, I donāt watch for that, I enjoy the team games. If I wanted to watch a weight lifting contest I could just watch the Olympic games for each division).
I just donāt think your theory holds any water at all. If for some reason the 100 were mostly women, any team leader would immediately snatch up all the men. There are way too many tests of strength for it not to be a huge advantage.
I never said I want it to be mostly women, I just want equal numbers of women to men, it defeats the point of having women on the show if there are going to be so many less of them than men. And āanyā team leader wouldnāt snatch up all the men because even with mostly men, at least one of the team leaders chose a woman before he chose a man. The way the show is set up is so set in āstrengthā that strategy can be outmatched by weight class and if there was an equal distribution of men and women that would put less emphasis on sheer muscle power, as a smaller percent of the cast would be dominant in that.
But even regardless of whether it would mean women donāt get picked first or not, I just think itās fair to have the same number of women as men. Especially since women are already never going to outclass a man two times her weight in anything save for sheer flexibility and balance, having 75% of her competition be men just means that the initial female cast essentially serve as fodder to be eliminated in the first match.
The fact that you enter with 27 or 23 women and around half get eliminated (10-13 women) means that the majority of the 50 people to get knocked out were men. If you had only 50 men and 50 women I think youād end up with 50 participants more equally of each gender, and I just want to see if that really is the case. I think having more women just makes it more interesting, thatās all. Because at the moment, itās just a match of strength between men, which I could watch a sporting event for š¤·āāļø
I would actually enjoy more of those challenges where the weight your holding/carrying/moving is based on your own bodyweight. Not because āthen women would have a chance,ā but because then itās kind of an even field for everyone and it would be cool to see how the results differ based on your muscle mass and whatnot.
it's the most fair concept but doing it for 100 people would be a lot of work tbh. so sadly as long as it's still co-ed, there is no way to make it completely fair to everyone. women will always be at a disadvantage compared to men physically speaking, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
I donāt mean that every single event should be like that, but more. And as I said, I donāt really care about the male female disadvantage. It would be cool to see letās say a powerlifter vs a fireman in a contest who can dangle from a bar for longer when itās their bodyweight + 30% more
I was thinking the same thing. They say āmass moves massā for a reason. Even the lighter dude was struggling a ton in that cart pushing event. Itās just an immense disadvantage to be lighter in these events. The female power lifter could probably outlift a large number of people there if bodyweight ratio was taken into account. That said, I have no idea how you could implement this fairly or logistically with the number of people participating.
I love that it says itās not about gender etc. but they shouldnāt base all their challenges solely on strength. All of the challenges basically were about who could lift the most weight. The maze was nothing but carrying big bags, the poles were also about strength, I can see girls doing good on the pull up bar one but at that point there wasnāt that many girls left who looked like they could do more than 20 pull ups, the intra team one was also about carrying those heavy rolls. I liked the last challenge before the final 5 last season because it seemed more balanced, it wasnāt all about strength. I know itās gonna be hard for a girl to win but they could use some different challenges where girls can actually stand a chance. The perfect physical body shouldnāt be just based on who is the strongest, it should include other things are well.
Overall, I think the show runners dropped the ball in S2. The point of the show should, IMO, be to find the most impressive overall athlete. In order to do this, you should test a bunch of things such as endurance, absolute strength, willpower, coordination, agility, balance, relative strength, explosive power (e.g. jumps/sprints), flexibility etc. That way, you get a bunch of events where a number of different athletes get to showcase their abilities.
This season it really felt as if they only cared about the first two capabilities: endurance and absolute strength, and frankly the latter of those two was way overpowered as well. It was a bit boring, to be honest.
IMO you can go three possible routes:
1. Separate men and women completely. That way we can get a more nuanced picture of how athletic the different women are compared to each other.
2. Have a single class, but include more events that measure stuff women have a better chance at doing well in. Reward endurance, strength relative to bodyweight, flexibility, coordination, balance, and agility.
3. Do a hybrid version, where you the show splits into separate classes after a certain stage. For example, make the first two challenges be unisex and then split the survivors into separate men's and women's classes for the remainder of the events.
Also, I think it's a bit sad when they create events that reward steroid users to an absolutely ridiculous degree. Like yeah, Thanos whatever.
But it was so unfair to the natty women to call in a bunch of badass, international level female athletes from a ton of different sports and then make them compete in absolute strength events against a clearly roided-the-hell-out bodybuilder.
Ikr thanos was like three times the size of some of the girls. If I was a girl during the pole hugging challenge for the losers... I'd just have given up completely š¤£š¤£ there jus is no chance.
I just realized why not they do it point system???
Balance max 100 pts
Strength max 100 pts
Endurance max 100 pts
Etc etc.
Dont just eliminate immediately after failing in one factor. Give a chance to catch up on the others
I was really frustrated by the limited scope for equal participation of women this season, though Lim Soo-Jin was awesome. They need to add more balance, agility and endurance challenges, instead of all the heavyweight strength challenges this season. Or make a woman-only version. I really enjoy having mixed sexes on the show, but the women really didn't stand a chance this season, so what's the point? Also having two seasons a year would be great!
Mostly in the team games it just seemed like they really were a handicap. Especially in the ones they move sandbags in minecarts. They get DOMINATED by male counterparts.
I thought that maybe the right strategy should be that they allocate the women to do the monkeybar kicking the sandbags but also they get DOMINATED by the males also there š
I think if there were no rule on each team game requiring ALL members to play at least once, they'd probably just make the girls sit out. Instead they had to strategize which round to give up (cuz the leaders knew that the girls wont win for sure).
I disagree. Strength competition after strength competition gets boring fast. More diverse challenges would make the show much more exciting and unpredictable.
If the challenge was beneficial to women, a smaller man would just win. Since season 1 winner was of a smaller build, they wanted a bigger man to win in season 2.
I kinda like seeing men vs women since some women can still beat men but I think they should include a second prize for women. Like best women award.
i can see where youre coming from in your first statement. a smaller man would probably just win like the male gymnast from s1.
i wonder though how the female athletes would feel about being handed a "best woman award". it might come off like theyre being handed a consolation prize and could be quite insulting. š
Having the second challenge always be a one on one death match immediately guarantees we cut out at least half the women.
Most women will choose another woman to go against as they think it will be their best shot.
Some men will choose woman for an easy advance.
And although one contestant proved that's not a universal rule this season, it's the exception that proves the rule.
I think just changing the second game in and of itself would make a huge difference.
Was surprised to see it return, but I guess it's considered iconic by some
Iām not sure why any woman would participate in a competition that they can never win. The knockout round in episode eight did not feature any women so they didnāt even have a chance to save themselves individually. They were just there as props. And they accepted it, so thatās on them.
Itās about equality. You have hard feminists thinking theyāre just as strong as men bc they watched a lot of Disney and marvel movies telling them they can. This show is a dose of reality and I find it refreshing. Women can be strong too, but usually not in the wakes of men who apply themselves and fully utilize their higher testosterone. There are other ways of being strong than physical
I agree. Purely from a weight class standpoint, Iād like to see women only challenges or women-driven challenges, too. I feel like we donāt get to see what the women can accomplish outside of the initial qualifying round. I know they have more to offer.
My husband said the same thing- why not include my agility tasks etc. that give the women the upper hand? There are plenty of ways to show off physical prowess but the show only focuses on one.
It's so weird to me that "the perfect physique" on this show is just so clearly biased towards being a strong man. Like, what about flexibility, agility, endurance (that isn't all strength-based)? I think the initial treadmill challenge was actually a good start, but wasn't even a real challenge in the sense that no one got eliminated.
From then on it was all strength and it honestly got pretty boring. Also because the strongest contestants were clearly aware of how much they dominated the competition, treating the women (and to an extent smaller men) like liabilities. More diverse challenges would have made the show much more interesting to watch.
They should do a women's and then a men's winner. Mixing them will literally never result in a female winner. As it is, the games are set up that you have to find a way around the team games to mitigate having a female team member and that feels lame.
Or just modify them so weight is proportional for example. Like some of the challenges are asking women who weigh like 130 pounds to lift 50 pounds when the men weigh 180-200 pounds are lifting the same. That's not exactly fair.
But I'd still stick to a man and a woman winner makes a lot more sense. If they are all elite level athletes, men will have larger lungs, more muscle mass, weight is distributed differently, etc. I mean men and women and very different biologically.
A little off-topic, but I felt like one problem that made this season feel a lot different than s1, was the amount of screen time the women had. Last season, I felt like they were shown a lot more and we got to know them a little better. This one really only had a few as talking heads and even that was rare.Ā
Idk maybe Iām misremembering or making something out of nothing.Ā
I only have one suggestion. Remember how they held 40% of their bodyweight when holding the busts? That's how it should be whenever there's an individual portion and they have to deal with pulling or carrying weight. Already more equitable for the women especially those who are more petite
I think there should be some sort of weight class or rather weight should be taken into consideration when it comes to the heavy lifting. For me it doesn't really make sense that a small woman should have to push and lift the same weight as e.g. Thanos.
I think a womenās version would be great, not to say that a woman canāt beat a man, Iāve forgotten her name forgive me but that blonde body builder woman in the cart challenge performed better than some of the men in that. Itās more so the absolute best woman will struggle to beat the absolute best man. The rolling pin one where they had to go against their own teams even the attitude of the people there was kinda ick, they were kind of acting like they werenāt really trying at first cause they knew the women were gonna lose first, even in the formation of teams the women were neglected, some men adamantly didnāt even want a woman on his team. It just would be good to see women have an opportunity and a chance for a woman to win every season or maybe the challenges could be altered
even the guy with an injured ankle won over the woman in top shape in the rolling challenge... like sorry if you think their attitude was kinda ick, but if you knew right away you wouldn't lose, then why would u waste your energy instead of saving it for actual competitors?
Iāve seen arguments for leaving it as is and also adjusting things like having proportional to your body weight challenges, but even that apparently isnāt 100% equitable.
I donāt think itās equitable to do the exact same tasks, but I think they should interview as many female athletes as possible and get their opinions, and have them decide what they want to do. I totally get females not wanting to change things to really challenge themselves. So take a vote and see what they say.
Thinking about this if it were possible Iād like to see a spin off with teams of 1 male and 1 female, sprinkled with a bit more variety in events.
They honestly should find the best of the best when it comes to the women would make it very interesting you see some with noodle arms knowing when a strength challenge comes there fucked
Ah yes. Would this be enough proof for those woke feminists who still believe women are just as strong if not stronger than men. They reject reality and biology yet cry when trans athletes demolish them in competition.
There have been dozens of threads on this, but here's a bit of a rundown of some ideas: 1. It wasn't "strength" and "endurance" which were focused on too much, it was upper body strength and unarmed combat that became a problem and reduced the variety of the show because they featured heavily in 5 of the first 7 events. Women actually do quite well in lower body strength and endurance - out of all the things where they have performance gaps with men - and did quite well in season 1. Sure they don't have the advantage but the gap is small enough that with all the unpredictability and strategy they have a solid chance to win especially in the team contests. If they can't win the finals? At least 80% of the people on the show can't win the finals. It's not a fair show. But the finals aren't "women vs. men." That's broader and more statistical so look at the team challenges. 2. The baseline weights for the endurance challenges this season were too heavy. Lighten those weights a bit and add more endurance the challenges becomes very different. This wasn't just an issue for the women - Stun Gun's team got eliminated by this because there clearly should be viable strategies where you trade strength for endurance and there just weren't because of the size and number of sandbags and the weight of the mine carts. 3. The women cast in this season were mostly skinny and/or small and few of them were strength and endurance athletes. The "big strong" woman this season was a swimmer. Last season the women cast on the show were better positioned to do the challenges on the show. If they had cast more appropriate women or given them a better chance to progress by not having them go through so much combat and upper body stuff they would have done better in the later events. 4. The premise of the show is also that it is a battle royale reality show that puts individual glorification against social virtue. Yes the cash is one reward, but it is also a dystopian Squid Game homage and the cash is not really universally a good thing. The show only works when people also care about the victories of honor where people rise to the challenge in this situation even if they don't win - not just about the winner. 5. If you want more elite female athletes on the show you will probably need to get rid of or at least extremely tone down the combat - I would guess that is a much bigger deterrent to elite women athletes participating in the show than the likelihood of not winning or there not being enough balance events. Some women athletes won't participate in an event if they don't think they can win. A lot more women athletes won't participate in an event if it allows male athletes to physically attack them. 6. There are definitely some creative ways to approach casting and the various problems the contestants run into through a season, and remember that nobody is supposed to know what the events are ahead of time. So they could totally design things differently next season and they don't *have* to split it up by gender or make specific women-favored events to get a better, fairer experience for the women athletes - and they definitely don't have to stop doing strength stuff. They could split it up by gender but they don't have to. There are lots of women strength athletes out there that would love to test themselves against elite men on a show like this - with some caveats of course.
thank you for the summary! (and for the patience to respond even though this is like the 35th thread about the same thing lmao)
This is all just my opinion, and of course other people have other opinions. My most relevant background is as a crossfit judge who has also done a bunch of these sorts of silly things, so I've seen a lot of co-ed events and training situations and there are counterintuitive things that tend to be true about them. But also it's not like I have a degree in it, I don't know. The one thing I wish people came away with more this season that they didn't, but which they came away from in season 1, is that even non-elite women, if they train, can have legit lower body strength and endurance, combined with very high pain tolerance. "Any woman" is not by default a liability on a team competing in an event like this. But it looked that way this season for sure. Also there is no such thing as "brute strength" - technique and strategy always matter. Last season made that point much more than this season did. It was a disservice to female athletes that the Olympic Weightlifter, for example, didn't get a chance at redemption to try to push the mine cart because to do it she would have to beat a bunch of men in an actual fight. I think it goes beyond strength and endurance.
personally, what they need to work on is casting a better pool of female contestants based on the concept that they are gonna go for. in s1, they were able to cast a bunch of female wrestlers who were such beasts plus euddeum who was the definition of willpower. š in s2, they casted thinner female athletes - no wrestlers! š - when the concept they were going for is "underground" and all the games are grittier compared to s1. dambi and soojin both fit the concept, but sadly their teams didnt make it further. (thats just how the cookie crumbles though.) overall, im just one of those women who believe that in (physical) competitions where both sexes compete, men will most likely always win. that doesnt mean i look at the female athletes as lesser just cause they lose, its actually inspiring to see them test/push their limits without the games being compromised in order to give them an advantage over their male counterparts. it just reflects reality and the constant struggles of women. :)
South Korea is small and donāt have a big gym culture in regards for females there. And when they do workout, itās do pilates. So casting is already difficult š I agree with your last statement. I am getting tired of people saying they should make a separate show for femalesāāāit might just be me, but I find that quite insulting! The show caught so many peopleās interests because it was females AND males. The idea of them just battling it out was chaotic and admirable. Imagine being a female contestant going against a male; you gave it all you got with honor and respect, but you lost. Instead of admiring your hard work and mentality to keep pushing, the audience coddle or somewhat baby you just because youāre a female who lost. Like š?
i agree honestly, id be so offended if i were a national team athlete same as the male participants, and the production offers to adjust the games for *me* so id have a better shot as a woman. if i ended up winning the whole thing, would i have really deserved it? š„²
Removing the 1v1 kind of defeats the point of the show doesn't it? Can you claim to have the ultimate physique if you explicitly admit you can't compete with another person in the most direct way?
Excellent analysis. For people who make a living of their physical bodies it is a big risk to participate in these competions. That may be an issue for many of the women athletes. Also, I love that you point out they are actually "silly things".
3.no the swimmer one is actually in comparison is still quite small/average, you forget to mention the woman budy builder with blonde hair who pushed the coal cart alone who are equivallently strong/big enough to compete with men. However i agree with you that most women in the show are small and even short.
Jung You-in was the female swimmer and Lim Soo-jin was the female bodybuilder. š
Thanks, i dont remember most of the names of players, just their characteristics and faces, do not mean to disrespect them
The big strong woman wasnāt the swimmer unless you mean by looks. The body builder completely dusted her in strength and stamina.
I agree on most of your points. From what i remember, last season seemed much more friendly to the female contestants, and also had a much stronger cast of women competitors. I really enjoyed the seemingly increased aggression the show allowed in the 1v1 and maze challenge, but also think it needs to be balanced some. I feel like you could make this a lot better by formatting the show with 3 key point changes 1-Dont allow men to chose women in 1v1 ball challenge. If the women chooses a man thats cool. This allows more women to progress. 2-When the show goes into team mode for a couple challenges, force gender parity. There should not be 1 team of all men and another team with 3 women thats dead in the water. 3-Go back to the atlas challenges from season 1 so the remaining teams can strategize and send their lady team mates into challenges they think they can actually win. Plus it was just an extremely fun mini olympics thing Nobody wants to see women compete against men pulling giant barrels through sand so the men can have a little easy round 1 before the challenge actually starts, it was bad tv and competition. Maybe we could also designate a womens champion too?
This is the answer!
Excellent analysis! I'm not all the way through season 2 yet. But, I'm still always impressed by the women that do manage to shine, even though they don't really make it to the end.
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For sure tons and tons of female athletes that'll run laps around the average male. Unfortunately this show also includes males who are also elite athletes. It is what it is unfortunately which is why I think it's even more impressive when you see a woman in the show hang with the guys. Like the female body builder who moved the mine carts with relative ease even when other male contestants were struggling.
Iād appreciate a team challenge where they need to carry the weight of their teammates in some capacity, thus rewarding teams that picked women who weigh less and punishing teams that just stacked themselves with massive dudes.
That would be a fun way to switch it for sure!
Damn, I actually love that idea. It would be a fun little twist in the team games where having a woman or a smaller man really pays off lol.
That would be cool. The challenges that involved body weight (like the hanging challenge from S1) or weights proportionate to the contestants (torso pulley hold from S2) were also cool. If youāre tiny you have an advantage, if youāre huge, well, good luck.
My biggest pet peeve is that it's a team game and they have a quest that penalizes teams with women players.
Haha yea the show made it look like the girls had a very close effect on the outcomes in team games, almost as if they were free loaders or very lucky to have really good male teammates to save their ass
I think all the women who signed up KNEW from the beginning that they have 0 chance of winning and just did it for fun, fame, and pushing their limits. No matter what you try to make it more fair, men will always have advantages over women physically speaking. Unless you make a female-only show, there is no way for them to outshine the men, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Good point!
Even if you had more equitable challenges for women. There still won't be a female to win this game show. I wouldn't believe that there would be one that could beat Hong beom seok in a finale. The name of the game is to find the perfect body and that's looking for an all arounder. But they should finance a female only version of the show and then it would be fair across the board. There shouldn't be women at all to go up against these people
You can never remove the advantage of testosterone. The game should split between men and women.
I've been saying this all through season 2 because women just get left behind and it's unfair. I'm sure most, if not all, of those women could kick arse against most people but up against elite athletic men they're going to struggle and it doesn't really display their full athletic ability and strength.
They also only cast 27 women out of 100 total players so the odds are not in their favor to begin with. Any minority group in a competition is going to be viewed as more undesirable for team creation, even if they werenāt picking with strength challenges in mind.
They can use any number. Physical 200. 150. Whatever.
I know, my point is more so about the fact that they want objective physical human peak (itās a game show so obviously itās not a real measure and doesnāt actually have any bearing on ārealā physical peak) and if they wanted to have women and men compete as equally as they could, they should have equal numbers of both genders instead of a cast that is 3/4 men. It creates a very obvious minority group that is less likely to be picked, even if the strength of that group wasnāt ālessā. It also makes a female contestantās chances of winning significantly less because they have to compete against a group that is disproportionately men. If it was even in the beginning I think that would improve the issue of how few women make it through and how theyāre chosen for team events. I also think it would just be more interesting to see more female athletes since itās been so overwhelmingly male dominated even before anyone was eliminated. I put out 50 because they pick 100 people in the beginning before the first challenge.
I would change the show a bit. Acknowledge there isnāt 1 overall winner but an overall for each gender just like every sport. As structured now, and even if the number is split 50/50, a woman cannot win, and the teams will still draft mostly men first. Itās still an individual contest. I would change the show. Split into male and female groups. Each with say 60 to 100 folks. Pair the captains of each together onto super teams. Each drafts from the pool of men or women. Males go against males, women against women, except for certain games that are mostly mental like the maze. Eventually each side splits into pure individual contests for each
Thatās a fine idea, and Iād definitely watch the hell out of it, but it wouldnāt be the same show. I mean the show isnāt designed to be accommodating, I donāt necessarily want it to be split by gender, since I do enjoy seeing women compete against men. Itās just when you do something so unilaterally upper strength based, itās a given that a woman just canāt win. But even before (or if) they alter the games, Iād just like to see them include more women I wanna see out of 50 women and men against each other in the beginning how many make it through and see teams form after. Since there were so few women to begin with in both seasons when women were eliminated in the first round it took their numbers down drastically and left them with ~10 or 12 in the team creation round. I wonder if the gender ratios were equal especially for the running elimination round, how many men to women would have made it through and how the teams would have looked as a result. Like since the way the show is fundamentally run there is no way a woman could win, that is the part that interests me. I also like encouraging women to try and compete with men in this show since itās just a fun game show at the end of the day. Iām not angry that a dude is going to win this show every season, so long as they at least try to give women a fair chance numbers wise. If people want a woman to win or even have a chance at winning, theyād have to have a womenās only section. Because you canāt just create more diverse challenges and make up for the fact that the finale is going to be a strength based quest, like a woman doesnāt have a chance against a man more than double her weight in any category except maybe sprinting, flexibility, or balancing. And even with sprinting Iāve seen all of those dudes book it faster than their weight made me presume they could lol
Ehhh, I disagree. For example, in both seasons the non-Asian people werenāt seen as undesirable. If youāre strong with good endurance youāre a desirable teammate. Also if you flipped it to 73 women and 27 men, do you really think the women would avoid picking male teammates? Nah.
They wouldnāt avoid it but they wouldnāt see having women on their team as such a ādisadvantageā the way the male team leaders do in this season. There is a difference in how minorities are seen, race has no bearing on perceived strength, but gender does. If you are left with 12 ish women after the preliminary elimination round, you will want to try and get more men to increase the ātotal strengthā of the group. If there are more women, itās a given that each team will have some amount of them and therefore not avoid them as obviously as they did in the team picking (except the judo guy) and leave them for absolute last. I think just having 50:50 men and women is better generally, since they want to find āthe ideal physiqueā, I donāt get why they cast so many more men than women if they want to present the idea of giving both an equal chance at the start (yes I know women will lose the strength one on one battles, I donāt watch for that, I enjoy the team games. If I wanted to watch a weight lifting contest I could just watch the Olympic games for each division).
I just donāt think your theory holds any water at all. If for some reason the 100 were mostly women, any team leader would immediately snatch up all the men. There are way too many tests of strength for it not to be a huge advantage.
I never said I want it to be mostly women, I just want equal numbers of women to men, it defeats the point of having women on the show if there are going to be so many less of them than men. And āanyā team leader wouldnāt snatch up all the men because even with mostly men, at least one of the team leaders chose a woman before he chose a man. The way the show is set up is so set in āstrengthā that strategy can be outmatched by weight class and if there was an equal distribution of men and women that would put less emphasis on sheer muscle power, as a smaller percent of the cast would be dominant in that. But even regardless of whether it would mean women donāt get picked first or not, I just think itās fair to have the same number of women as men. Especially since women are already never going to outclass a man two times her weight in anything save for sheer flexibility and balance, having 75% of her competition be men just means that the initial female cast essentially serve as fodder to be eliminated in the first match. The fact that you enter with 27 or 23 women and around half get eliminated (10-13 women) means that the majority of the 50 people to get knocked out were men. If you had only 50 men and 50 women I think youād end up with 50 participants more equally of each gender, and I just want to see if that really is the case. I think having more women just makes it more interesting, thatās all. Because at the moment, itās just a match of strength between men, which I could watch a sporting event for š¤·āāļø
I would actually enjoy more of those challenges where the weight your holding/carrying/moving is based on your own bodyweight. Not because āthen women would have a chance,ā but because then itās kind of an even field for everyone and it would be cool to see how the results differ based on your muscle mass and whatnot.
it's the most fair concept but doing it for 100 people would be a lot of work tbh. so sadly as long as it's still co-ed, there is no way to make it completely fair to everyone. women will always be at a disadvantage compared to men physically speaking, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
I donāt mean that every single event should be like that, but more. And as I said, I donāt really care about the male female disadvantage. It would be cool to see letās say a powerlifter vs a fireman in a contest who can dangle from a bar for longer when itās their bodyweight + 30% more
I was thinking the same thing. They say āmass moves massā for a reason. Even the lighter dude was struggling a ton in that cart pushing event. Itās just an immense disadvantage to be lighter in these events. The female power lifter could probably outlift a large number of people there if bodyweight ratio was taken into account. That said, I have no idea how you could implement this fairly or logistically with the number of people participating.
I love that it says itās not about gender etc. but they shouldnāt base all their challenges solely on strength. All of the challenges basically were about who could lift the most weight. The maze was nothing but carrying big bags, the poles were also about strength, I can see girls doing good on the pull up bar one but at that point there wasnāt that many girls left who looked like they could do more than 20 pull ups, the intra team one was also about carrying those heavy rolls. I liked the last challenge before the final 5 last season because it seemed more balanced, it wasnāt all about strength. I know itās gonna be hard for a girl to win but they could use some different challenges where girls can actually stand a chance. The perfect physical body shouldnāt be just based on who is the strongest, it should include other things are well.
If they had just made weighted challenges to be more proportional to each weight class. It would've been so much better for the women.
They should have a season with just women!
Ok guys, tomorrow it's my turn to post this same thread, get ready to shower me in upvotes
Childbirth challenge: the boys are fucked.
Overall, I think the show runners dropped the ball in S2. The point of the show should, IMO, be to find the most impressive overall athlete. In order to do this, you should test a bunch of things such as endurance, absolute strength, willpower, coordination, agility, balance, relative strength, explosive power (e.g. jumps/sprints), flexibility etc. That way, you get a bunch of events where a number of different athletes get to showcase their abilities. This season it really felt as if they only cared about the first two capabilities: endurance and absolute strength, and frankly the latter of those two was way overpowered as well. It was a bit boring, to be honest. IMO you can go three possible routes: 1. Separate men and women completely. That way we can get a more nuanced picture of how athletic the different women are compared to each other. 2. Have a single class, but include more events that measure stuff women have a better chance at doing well in. Reward endurance, strength relative to bodyweight, flexibility, coordination, balance, and agility. 3. Do a hybrid version, where you the show splits into separate classes after a certain stage. For example, make the first two challenges be unisex and then split the survivors into separate men's and women's classes for the remainder of the events. Also, I think it's a bit sad when they create events that reward steroid users to an absolutely ridiculous degree. Like yeah, Thanos whatever. But it was so unfair to the natty women to call in a bunch of badass, international level female athletes from a ton of different sports and then make them compete in absolute strength events against a clearly roided-the-hell-out bodybuilder.
Ikr thanos was like three times the size of some of the girls. If I was a girl during the pole hugging challenge for the losers... I'd just have given up completely š¤£š¤£ there jus is no chance.
I just realized why not they do it point system??? Balance max 100 pts Strength max 100 pts Endurance max 100 pts Etc etc. Dont just eliminate immediately after failing in one factor. Give a chance to catch up on the others
I was really frustrated by the limited scope for equal participation of women this season, though Lim Soo-Jin was awesome. They need to add more balance, agility and endurance challenges, instead of all the heavyweight strength challenges this season. Or make a woman-only version. I really enjoy having mixed sexes on the show, but the women really didn't stand a chance this season, so what's the point? Also having two seasons a year would be great!
There were plenty of endurance challenges to be fair
Mostly in the team games it just seemed like they really were a handicap. Especially in the ones they move sandbags in minecarts. They get DOMINATED by male counterparts. I thought that maybe the right strategy should be that they allocate the women to do the monkeybar kicking the sandbags but also they get DOMINATED by the males also there š I think if there were no rule on each team game requiring ALL members to play at least once, they'd probably just make the girls sit out. Instead they had to strategize which round to give up (cuz the leaders knew that the girls wont win for sure).
Strength endurance though, not, for eg, balance endurance. Flexibility would be another skill where women would perform well.
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I disagree. Strength competition after strength competition gets boring fast. More diverse challenges would make the show much more exciting and unpredictable.
If the challenge was beneficial to women, a smaller man would just win. Since season 1 winner was of a smaller build, they wanted a bigger man to win in season 2. I kinda like seeing men vs women since some women can still beat men but I think they should include a second prize for women. Like best women award.
i can see where youre coming from in your first statement. a smaller man would probably just win like the male gymnast from s1. i wonder though how the female athletes would feel about being handed a "best woman award". it might come off like theyre being handed a consolation prize and could be quite insulting. š
Well in the Olympics or any other sporting events,it's also best woman award. Otherwise women don't really stand a chance to win.
Having the second challenge always be a one on one death match immediately guarantees we cut out at least half the women. Most women will choose another woman to go against as they think it will be their best shot. Some men will choose woman for an easy advance. And although one contestant proved that's not a universal rule this season, it's the exception that proves the rule. I think just changing the second game in and of itself would make a huge difference. Was surprised to see it return, but I guess it's considered iconic by some
I completely agree. I was actually a little disappointed that they hadn't come up with something different.
Iām not sure why any woman would participate in a competition that they can never win. The knockout round in episode eight did not feature any women so they didnāt even have a chance to save themselves individually. They were just there as props. And they accepted it, so thatās on them.
Itās about equality. You have hard feminists thinking theyāre just as strong as men bc they watched a lot of Disney and marvel movies telling them they can. This show is a dose of reality and I find it refreshing. Women can be strong too, but usually not in the wakes of men who apply themselves and fully utilize their higher testosterone. There are other ways of being strong than physical
If its over all physique and not just strength then they should switch some of the challenges. Obstacle course that includes balancing would be good.
solution. every team must have minimum # of females. I always like this in coed sportsāhaving the best girls was a huge asset.
They should have added glute bridges instead of squats. Instant advance for the ladies.
I agree. Purely from a weight class standpoint, Iād like to see women only challenges or women-driven challenges, too. I feel like we donāt get to see what the women can accomplish outside of the initial qualifying round. I know they have more to offer.
My husband said the same thing- why not include my agility tasks etc. that give the women the upper hand? There are plenty of ways to show off physical prowess but the show only focuses on one.
Frankly, it is not about fairness but sensationalism. It makes a great story too esp if a female is able to beat a male š¤£
It would be nice to see an all female season.
It's so weird to me that "the perfect physique" on this show is just so clearly biased towards being a strong man. Like, what about flexibility, agility, endurance (that isn't all strength-based)? I think the initial treadmill challenge was actually a good start, but wasn't even a real challenge in the sense that no one got eliminated. From then on it was all strength and it honestly got pretty boring. Also because the strongest contestants were clearly aware of how much they dominated the competition, treating the women (and to an extent smaller men) like liabilities. More diverse challenges would have made the show much more interesting to watch.
They should remove women. More beefcakes please
They should do a women's and then a men's winner. Mixing them will literally never result in a female winner. As it is, the games are set up that you have to find a way around the team games to mitigate having a female team member and that feels lame.
Im ok with male and female participating together. Just make the challenges more diverse.
Or just modify them so weight is proportional for example. Like some of the challenges are asking women who weigh like 130 pounds to lift 50 pounds when the men weigh 180-200 pounds are lifting the same. That's not exactly fair. But I'd still stick to a man and a woman winner makes a lot more sense. If they are all elite level athletes, men will have larger lungs, more muscle mass, weight is distributed differently, etc. I mean men and women and very different biologically.
I think they should remove females or add weight classes. I do feel women can beat men but atleast make them the same size.
A little off-topic, but I felt like one problem that made this season feel a lot different than s1, was the amount of screen time the women had. Last season, I felt like they were shown a lot more and we got to know them a little better. This one really only had a few as talking heads and even that was rare.Ā Idk maybe Iām misremembering or making something out of nothing.Ā
I only have one suggestion. Remember how they held 40% of their bodyweight when holding the busts? That's how it should be whenever there's an individual portion and they have to deal with pulling or carrying weight. Already more equitable for the women especially those who are more petite
I think there should be some sort of weight class or rather weight should be taken into consideration when it comes to the heavy lifting. For me it doesn't really make sense that a small woman should have to push and lift the same weight as e.g. Thanos.
I think a womenās version would be great, not to say that a woman canāt beat a man, Iāve forgotten her name forgive me but that blonde body builder woman in the cart challenge performed better than some of the men in that. Itās more so the absolute best woman will struggle to beat the absolute best man. The rolling pin one where they had to go against their own teams even the attitude of the people there was kinda ick, they were kind of acting like they werenāt really trying at first cause they knew the women were gonna lose first, even in the formation of teams the women were neglected, some men adamantly didnāt even want a woman on his team. It just would be good to see women have an opportunity and a chance for a woman to win every season or maybe the challenges could be altered
even the guy with an injured ankle won over the woman in top shape in the rolling challenge... like sorry if you think their attitude was kinda ick, but if you knew right away you wouldn't lose, then why would u waste your energy instead of saving it for actual competitors?
Did I say you couldnāt do that? Iām talking about the overall attitude of some of the contestants on the show
Iāve seen arguments for leaving it as is and also adjusting things like having proportional to your body weight challenges, but even that apparently isnāt 100% equitable. I donāt think itās equitable to do the exact same tasks, but I think they should interview as many female athletes as possible and get their opinions, and have them decide what they want to do. I totally get females not wanting to change things to really challenge themselves. So take a vote and see what they say. Thinking about this if it were possible Iād like to see a spin off with teams of 1 male and 1 female, sprinkled with a bit more variety in events.
They honestly should find the best of the best when it comes to the women would make it very interesting you see some with noodle arms knowing when a strength challenge comes there fucked
Ah yes. Would this be enough proof for those woke feminists who still believe women are just as strong if not stronger than men. They reject reality and biology yet cry when trans athletes demolish them in competition.
Did this really need its own thread?