Surviving the vacuum after Spice guy’s exit
HE WAS half of the Poisonous Pair, the player we all loved to hate and whose downfall we (not so secretly) yearned for. But now that Shane Hattingh has gone out in a blaze of “elite club of stupidity” glory, the old adage of be careful what you wish for springs to mind.
Sure, his appetite for deceit and the way in which he relished pulling at the puppet strings of his fellow challengers in clever and cunning ways would make the likes of Dr Hannibal Lecter pale in comparison.
Be that as it may, he was one of only a handful of Survivor competitors who truly understood the brutal and bloody leave-your-morals-at-thedoor anatomy of the game. In his own words: “Marian and I just seeded little ideas (in terms of creating discord)… and we’d just sit on the beach sniggering, because it’s nice to manipulate people like that in a game like this.” As I said, Hannibal, meet Shane. But while, at times, his antics did leave you feeling sick to your stomach, his departure denotes the end of the intrigue and titillation. As he puts it: “I went in to change the way this game is played and I did. Straight up. Every time I’d watch the previous seasons, I’d think ‘Oh. My. God. Is this really a cross-section of the South African public?’ I’m proud of the way I played and I’m so proud that, for the first time on South African Survivor, we had two really nasty players.”
That he and Maid Marian shared a strong connection was palpable. So much so, eyebrows have been raised as to whether there may have been something more between this fatherof-four and she of the perpetual slap-itoff-her-face smirk.
“Marian and I will be friends until the day I die,” he declares. “In my pre-show interviews I identified that I wanted to be in an alliance with a strong woman, probably a bit of a snake (ya think Shane?)… She is without a doubt, the best player I’ve ever seen in the South African game and she would hack it anywhere in the world playing Survivor.”
So no roses and trite declarations of mutual passion then? Ah well. Guess that’s best left to shows of an altogether different genre. Moving swiftly along…
Of all the contenders, Shane’s personal background is possibly the most ambiguous.
At present a field marketer by profession, he also worked in counter-intelligence for the SANDF and was posted in Afghanistan for three years prior to his stint on Survivor, and somewhere in the midst of all that, he reportedly also tried his hand (successfully, as he tells it) at fashion. Designing men’s footwear, to be precise.
It all sounds rather… how to phrase this diplomatically… farfetched.
He jumps in: “I dare anyone to challenge me on what I’ve done. That is who I am. I live life to the absolute maximum… And they expected me to win, precisely because I have been able to re-create myself many, many times.”
Yup, that chameleon-like quality would unquestionably stand anyone in good stead in the ever-changing context of Survivor. But not even that tactic could see him through to the million.
Still, while he may have a few less zeroes to his bank balance than he’d hoped, he regards the experience as one that will stay with him: “I didn’t come looking for any life lesson. For the younger people, this is the most dramatic thing that’s ever happened to them. But what Survivor did for me… it was the full stop at the end of a very long sentence. I’d come back from Afghanistan and I had what I call the curse of the unquiet mind. And for the first time, Survivor punctuated that sentence for me. It just… settled me.”
He adds: “It also made me very aware of the fact that I’m not a bad person.” Contrary to his onscreen persona, clearly.
Well, Shane, you’ve certainly left a legacy. One that will be exceedingly difficult for future hopefuls to emulate.