Reality TV is my happy place. It’s where I go when I’m overwhelmed or burnt out. Is there anything as sweet as indulging in exaggerated drama that doesn’t belong to you? But as a Black woman seeking escapism from a white supremacist world, Reality TV isn’t free from the consequences of such. The white male gaze spills onto the screen, and there's something a little too real about the way Black women in particular are treated and represented in Reality TV.
The historical choice of typecasting Black women in one of few roles (eg, the Jezebel, the Mami, the Sapphire) has taken on a new form in Reality TV. The casting of Black women seems equally limited to such caricatures that maintain and reinforce harmful stereotypes. Black women are policed in a way reminiscent of a lackluster, whitewashed script written under the penetrating white gaze, and when Black women step out of the narrow confines of the problematic narratives expected of them, they’re often axed or silenced.
While visibility is evidently getting better, there is still a sense of tokenism and whitewashing for white audiences. Even Black-led shows such as The Real Housewives of Atlanta are often reappropriated for white audiences. We can see a ‘memeification’ or ‘ghettoisation’ of the RHOA by white people that furthers the disconnect between viewer and audience. This can also be felt when Black women don’t live up to white western ideals, for example when Cynthia Bailey on RHOA was deemed boring for not conforming to the angry Black woman trope, as she wasn’t in the centre of the drama. I mean, how dare a Black woman not pull a wig.
And then there was Love Island. It’s not Love Island if the Black girl isn’t picked last, right? Here, Black women are forced to re-live their own traumas of dating, and while the show includes a fair few people of colour, is mostly light-skinned Black people who just about fit into the politics of desirability real representation? This feels particularly evident in the representation of Yewande (dark-skinned) and Amber (light-skinned). Yewande had some screen time but was portrayed as cold and picky. Love Island casts men who have eurocentric (*cough* aggressively racist) beauty standards, leaving little room for Black women like Yewande to flourish. On the other hand, due to her proximity to whiteness, Amber was granted more opportunities and became the first woman of colour to win the series. The obvious colourism of the cast and crew allowed her possibilities not attainable for Yewande.
Colourism has to be a part of the conversation. If producers choose to cast a Black woman, it's ‘the right kind of Black’ by Hollywood standards. In a culture where lighter skin is seen as more feminine and dark skin has historically been equated to masculinity, dark-skinned women are hardly ever cast in ‘desirable’ roles. But wait, doesn’t Netflix have it's own ‘Celebrating Black Voices’ category? Well, it’s a little ironic when most titles are either slave films or series with skinny, European, light-skin, able-bodied actresses. There's a long way to go for real, multifaceted representation.
This article was inspired by a particularly harrowing viewing of season 9 of Below Deck, and the only Black woman on it - Rayna Lindsey, who refused to be censored by her white crewmates. On a night out, Chief Stew Heather said the N-word, and what follows is gaslighting of Rayna, a lack of action taken, and an uncomfortable viewing experience of seeing Rayna's mental health suffer drastically. She later spoke out:
“As an African American woman, there’s always a stereotype for us being aggressive or being the angry Black woman. That was running through my head every second on the show. But I wanted my voice to be heard.”
What got me was how Heather's white tears were received. The weaponisation of white woman victimhood is so palpable in this series, and it smells like a history of problematic white ‘feminism’.
It turns out there's a Black woman in my life who’s been on Reality TV. I sat down with Josie, who starred in Eden - a TV show about a community living off-grid for a year, and asked her about her experiences:
My experience came at a time when I was not yet confident in my identity. Going into it, I hadn’t fully considered what it meant to have no contact with my community and no say in how I was portrayed. When the aggressive racism started, it wasn't surprising that there was no action taken and no support offered. During a post-show interview, in a room with multiple Black crew, I was finally asked about the racism... I had hoped that they would actually show my true experience. When they didn’t, it stung. Instead, they showed a scene where I gave my perpetrator “a black eye” with no context (the context being pushing him away in self defence after he tried to give me a wedgie and was dropping n-bombs). It’s infuriating that I was portrayed as the angry Black woman and nothing more, and the blatant racism was ignored. Reality TV feels far from real, and until we’re better represented, we won't see a portrayal of our experiences that reflects reality.
Research shows that TV can shape our thinking and political preferences. People use TV as a way to learn about the world. We can’t ignore the ramifications of representation. It goes beyond the screen. But I hold onto hope. There is a rise of Black-led shows, and I hope there are more opportunities to reclaim and narrate our own stories. Take the latest Netflix show, Young, Rich and African, which while far from perfect, works to deconstruct the stereotype that Africa is poor. I want to see more shows challenging the framings of white supremacy, but beyond the political, I just want to see Black people living life, without being held to unrealistic and unachievable standards of ‘Black Excellence’. I want Black Reality TV stars to flourish without the burden of representing their whole community. I want unfiltered, unadulterated Blackness, in all its forms. Black women have always been the missionaries of entertainment, so instead of upgrading us for our non-white counterparts (like the Kardashians), make space for our stories. It’s not on Black people to make this change, but rather for the world to see us for who we truly are.