Big Brother is a reality television show which began back in 2000. It runs on CBS and its longtime host has been Julie Chen, wife of the now-disgraced Les Moonves. Now in it’s 21st Season, the show places 16 houseguests who week after week evict each other from the house, which is blocked from all communication with the outside world, until one is left standing.
The houseguests typically follow the same pattern. The cast is majority white with approximately 3 or 4 minorities. Then there is an older character, usually a mom or dad of three or four kids. Once a large alliance of around 7 or 8 people is established, the alliance evicts the older people as well as the minorities until they begin inevitably evicting one another. The same playbook plays out each season.
But now fans have had enough. This season, especially on Twitter, fans have sounded off about the absence of diversity in the cast and have criticized CBS for allowing other houseguests make racially infused remarks against the minorities in the household. But the utter lack of diversity is not a qualifier for racism.
Newsweek falsely stated in the first paragraph of its article that “the show nominat[ed] both Black houseguests and a Latina houseguest for early elimination.” It was Jackson Michie, one of the show’s contestants which nominated the Black and Latina houseguests for early elimination which was not directly sanctioned by CBS.
This begs a larger question, why were there only two Black houseguests and one Latina houseguest? Does this mean Big Brother 21’s producers are racist? No. They for sure have a lack of awareness pertaining to diversity. But the driving force behind there being a scarcity of Black and Latina houseguests does not obviously appear to be a sense of white superiority over Blacks and Latinas.
An accusation of racism is a very serious charge to make against someone. In today’s discourse, whether on Twitter or in the mainstream news media, there is no nuance. There is no line drawn between racially insensitive or lack of diversity awareness as opposed to outright racism. Then we like to wonder why when prominent figures are called ‘racist’ it does not have much of an effect. We live in a society where it is almost commonplace to see someone is called out for ‘racist’ remarks.
CBS should not be shamed or degraded because of their lack of diversity. I think the recent awareness of the importance of diversity in every aspect of our lives has just arisen and it will take time for CBS to make the proper adjustments. Right now, the show has no issue achieving a 50/50 gender split of equal male and female houseguests but they still severely lack racial diversity in their hit reality TV show. Maybe instead of only thinking about new games to introduce into their game, they should refocus on making every viewer who watched the show feel included and not uncomfortable. I know I personally, having been a longtime fan, never really noticed the show’s lack of diversity until I saw people on Twitter pointing it out. Maybe CBS should start taking note.
