Does British Reality TV Have A Race Problem?

In June, singer Misha B posted a video filmed in lockdown, but years in the making. Speaking out against her treatment as a young Black woman on series eight of The X Factor, the clip prompted an outpouring of support for her brave honesty about her battle with PTSD and years of therapy. She was not the first reality TV contestant to have success impacted by misleading edits and racist tropes, nor is she the last. But as the Black Lives Matter movement grows, and the world begins to open its eyes to society’s inherent racism, how will the TV industry get their act together?

In 2011, Misha was a few weeks into the live rounds of The X Factor, back in the days when success on the programme was a golden ticket to fame. At the time, she was a front-runner, undoubtedly the most talented solo artist in the competition, and seemed certain of a place in the final. But it was arguably all derailed when judges Tulisa Contostavlos and Louis Walsh attacked her ‘overconfidence’ on screen, and allegations of bullying backstage emerged. It was nail- biting, cringe-inducing television. In the weeks that followed, Misha was in the bottom two three times, and was eventually voted off in fourth place.

Shortly after Misha spoke out on Instagram, former X Factor champion Alexandra Burke joined the conversation. Her post-win career was negatively affected by racial stereotypes and, when she competed in Strictly Come Dancing in 2011, she says she was disproportionately criticised as overconfident or exhibiting diva-like behaviour. She was, she says, presented as ‘a complete bitch’. The media portrayal led to public backlash. ‘I was getting so many trolls, how I got through it I have no idea,’ she says. ‘I don’t even like thinking about that experience.’

It is not only a problem on talent programmes that, one could at least argue, might involve individuals with higher-than- average self-confidence. Remember Makosi Musambasi, who appeared on season six of Big Brother? A cardiac nurse, she was depicted as standoffish, even arrogant. Her eloquence and spirit were secondary. In its 20-year history, only one Black housemate has walked away as winner.

‘I do feel I was treated differently because of the colour of my skin,’ Makosi reflects to Grazia today. ‘Black women have always had to tone themselves down because, if you don’t, you’re seen as aggressive or a bully.’

Nor is it solely a gender issue. For Ovie Soko, who participated in 2019’s summer series of Love Island, discovering that his good manners and kindness flew in the face of many viewers’ perceptions of a modern Black man was hard to stomach. ‘People were telling me I was a gentleman and changing the narrative,’ he wrote recently in a powerful online essay. ‘It was bullshit. The way I behaved is not unique to Black men. The public are typically used to seeing Black men cast and forced into roles such as the womaniser, the aggressor, or the fool.’

What can be done? The industry is, at least, open to change. The BBC has announced a £100m commitment to nurturing diversity in its programming. But what for the reality genre specifically? Teams on some shows are nervous.A former producer on Made In Chelsea says the beloved fly-on-the-wall programme is failing on diversity counts.

‘The show didn’t recruit a Black series regular until Akin Solanke-Caulker in series 13 – and he left the following year,’ the insider explains. ‘We used to justify the representation issue to ourselves as out of our hands: the cast are scouted or introduced via current castmates, and we didn’t think it was our fault when Black candidates declined to get involved. But I came to realise that they didn’t want to join in because they didn’t feel that they had a place in the cast. They couldn’t see where they’d fit in among the white blondes. We didn’t try hard enough. But I think these conversations will be happening again very soon, and this time there’ll be tangible, positive results.’

A source who worked for The X Factor during its first few series says that the nature of the reality format means the edit is key. ‘You are crunching an individual’s day or week into a concise, watchable, entertaining segment,’ says the source. ‘You have a few minutes to sum up an entire journey and, for some contestants, this means that 30 seconds of bad behaviour becomes representative of their whole character.

I think [TV editors] need to be told to pause, rewatch and consider what running a certain clip – often out of context – really says about the person, or what a throwaway remark to a judge really means. A shouting match or a mean comment might make good TV (as did telling Tulisa and Louis that Misha had been a bully – with no proof or grounding), but it has consequences. There needs to be an honest, transparent conversation, led by Black advocates, about the nature of bias. The editors and producers don’t think they’re racist. But that doesn’t mean they’re not.’

Makosi, however, does not consider producers and their ‘villain edits’ as any more responsible than the audiences at home. ‘I was angry about how I was depicted and I’ve had to face up to that. But I don’t think it’s a production issue,’ she says. ‘It’s collective perception, beyond reality TV. Michelle Obama was abused. Meghan Markle faced the same. It’s the viewers who need an education on people who don’t look like them,’ she says. ‘My hope is that the conversation the world is having right now will change perceptions. Education is a continuous thing, and those with the will to learn will learn.’

Indeed, the Big Brother race row of 2007 – when Jo O’Meara, Danielle Lloyd and Jade Goody subjected fellow housemate Shilpa Shetty to prolonged racist aggressions – may have made for uncomfortable viewing, but the language can be found in our local areas, shouted from cars, at schools or over back garden fences. Reality TV, by its very name, reflects everyday life. Maybe, if we’re asking the genre to change its behaviour, we need to look at our own first.

READ MORE: The X Factor Icon Sinitta On Racism In Reality TV