By: Marie Quaranta
Big Brother has been airing on CBS since the summer of 2000. Their long runtime is not reflective of a completely positive experience without controversy. An in-depth analysis demonstrates a long history of strategic production that has enabled various forms of racism on the show. The show aired under George Orwell’s dystopic vision in the novel 1984 that “Big Brother” is always watching. 80 cameras constantly film the guests that live in the house as they compete for a half million dollars. Each week contestants battle in competitions, form alliances, and vote out a fellow castmate. Viewers have the opportunity to pay CBS for access to the livestreams in order to eavesdrop on the houseguests, as host Julie Chen says each episode. The show’s advertising positions the cameras as omniscient and able to capture everything, but what is shown to a television audience is a far more limited, circumscribed view of what happens in the house.
The show airs multiple times a week. In order to produce an episode, the recorded material is filtered down from 24-72 hours of content to a one hour episode. That means for episodes three days apart, the 80 cameras pick up roughly 5760 hours of content and only use .01% of it. While this includes the times contestants are sleeping or performing other banal activities, the deleted material also includes moments where some white contestants have espoused racist viewpoints or used slanderous language to insult other, non-white people competing on the show. In a program that centers around how a group of people interact in a battle for a half million dollars there has historically not been much diversity. Houseguests are routinely broken down into stereotypes or archetypes of their identites: the moronic jock, farmer’s daughter, effeminate gay man, outspoken Latina, angry black woman. The casting does not seem to forget to include a ton of racist white people. Either casting does not do thorough background checks to screen for racism or they intentionally allow these houseguests to get a platform to build drama in the house. It may seem more like coincidence to some, but if casting decisions are made based around archetypes or stereotypes, then the contestants will inevitably reproduce racist ideas on the show itself.
Moments when racism occurs or race relations are overtly discussed rarely appear in the produced episodes, although some record of them is available in the ‘live feeds.’ As I will discuss in a below section, the live feed cameras are also not always recording; they sometimes switch vantage points between rooms unexpectedly. Producers have been accused of secretly provoking houseguest to play up their racial stereotypes. Microaggressions are ignored. Perpetrators go unpunished and even win their season. This brings the integrity of the programming and producers of the show into question. All of this demonstrates how the show’s desire to present a particular viewpoint of its cast each season is based on producing decisions that obscure or erase how racist ideologies manifest inside the house.
My analysis of Big Brother focuses on three specific seasons, even though racial microaggressions are common in most seasons. The three include season 15 (aired: 2013), seasons 21 (aired: 2019), and season 23 (aired: 2021/current season). These seasons represent two of the most controversial casts as well as the present (and, potentially, future) of the Big Brother franchise. In these examples we can see CBS producers take one step forward and two large steps back in terms of how American racism is represented (or not) within the space of the show.
Let’s begin with season 15, or as many Big Brother fans regard it, the worst cast of all time. Besides houseguests being generally unlikeable, from the first week it was clear that members of the cast were blatantly racist. CBS had to ask the houseguests early into their stay to kindly refrain from making derogatory comments about their fellow cast members. This warning did not seem to last long, as remarks aggressively continued.
The two main perpetrators of the season were Aaryn and Ginamarie, two blonde white women who try to disguise their racist tendencies behind a pretty face. Their targets: female Asian American contestant Helen, and female African American contestant Candice. I’ve listed below some of the more egregious remarks made about their targets.
In regards to Helen and Asian Americans:
❖ “She should be kissing our ass and serving us some fucking rice.”
❖ “Shut up and go make some rice.”
❖ “I probably look like a squinty asian right now.”
In regards to Candice and African Americans:
❖ “Be careful what you say in the dark, you might not see the bitch.”
❖ “Candice’s blackness is showing now that she is on the block”
❖ “Candice is on the dark side because she already is so dark.”
❖ “Black Candice made the sheets dirty.”
❖ Describing welfare as “n****r insurance”
These comments were not shown on the produced episodes at the time they were said. Live streamers were aware of the horrific comments made by Aaryn and Ginamarie but casual viewers were left in the dark. When it was clear Aaryn was the next target for eviction, CBS produced an edited compilation of the racist remarks to discuss why houseguests were turning against her. Upon her eviction, host Julie Chen had a frank discussion about racism with Aaryn. She claimed she didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings or come across as racist but excused her language as related to how Texans talk. By displacing the blame of her bigotry to her environment and community she is suggesting, however implicitly or accidentally, that racism is culturally ingrained in American society.
This could have been the end of racism on Big Brother. The problematic cast members lost, were reprimanded, and were not allowed to return to future CBS programming. However, poor casting continued and racist remarks and actions continued to appear on the show. CBS seemed to have switched their methods of handling racist comments, but not necessarily for the better. Six years later, season 21 began and with it came new forms of racism. This season the archetypal “southern gentleman” Jackson Michie became the forefront of the issue. When given power within the house, Michie seemed to target any person of color in an especially malicious manner. In the first episode Michie earned the ability to banish four of his fellow cast members. Viewers immediately called into question his intentions when three of the houseguests nominated for removal were people of color. Michie then spearheaded an alliance that made the first four guests evicted all people of color. This only left two Latina women in the house with the remaining 1o white castmates. Both women were sent packing in the next few weeks.
The racism was not as subtle as just evicting all the people of color from the house. Michie was caught spewing multiple microaggressions about David, an African American competitor, on the live feeds.
❖ “I want to mule kick him in the teeth.”
❖ “I’m gonna find out what makes him tick and torture him.”
❖ “I’m gonna own his soul.”
❖ “You’re not on Bravo or BET.”
❖ Michie made accusations that David had previously been incarcerated without any proof or reasoning.
These comments startled many live stream viewers as they went far beyond the bounds of the competition, as the attacks seemed far more personal. However, unlike season 15 these remarks were completely cut from the produced episodes and never addressed. Due to Michie’s dominance in the game, CBS seemed to be at a crossroads. Michie seemed almost destined to make it to the final two yet he was despised by the most dedicated Big Brother fans. Producers decided to give him the “nice guy” edit to try and smooth over this tension. Despite his actions, he was produced to look like a natural leader and strategic player who had to make some ‘tough’ choices. His comments were not acknowledged until the finale, when Chen asked him about what fans deemed to be racially motivated choices. He responded that he was the least racist person he knows and he is only 24 so he still has a lot of growing to do. Producers gave him a typical narrative that all he needs is time to mature because deep down he is a good person. These decisions largely excuse or elide Michie’s comments as immaturity, something to grow out of, rather than something to be seriously confronted, represented, and discussed.
In addition to Michie’s highly produced edit, season 21 had much more interference with producers. When Kemi, an African American woman who did not fit the angry black woman stereotype they casted her for and did not give them the drama and aggression they expected, producers quickly urged her to wag her finger and say things like “Uh uh, girlfriend.” Kemi simply stated to her allies that they were trying to portray her as something she is not and that she does not talk like that. The live cameras that are supposed to capture all of these interactions also seem to suddenly move whenever discussing racist behavior in their fellow houseguests. When a few contestants discussed racist remarks made by Michie and his closest ally Jack, the 24/7 cameras suddenly seemed to cut off the feed and switch to another room. These examples demonstrate that producers are having a clear impact on how discussions of racism are shown on Big Brother.
CBS is one of the last major broadcast networks; as such, they have a large target audience and attempt to make content that will appeal to a mass audience. In doing so, they remove most negative examples of racism and replace them with positive messages and brief conversations. Big Brother is an interesting case study because their live feeds tell a completely different story. CBS tries to take an activist stance when finally addressing major racial issues. What they show is highly produced to have control over the conversation rather than showing the reality of racism in reality TV. However, the majority of racism in contestants still goes widely unseen, which indicates a desire to actively avoid sociopolitical issues and instead present the show as an apolitical game where contestants are strategic leaders rather than ideologically complicated or problematic individuals. Upon analysis it is very clear that producers are in control of every issue of race that is seen and swept under the rug.
It is also clear to see the producers have struggled to change their whitewashed ways in response to social critique. They are at a crossroads over appealing to masses or taking a societal stance. Season 15 came in wake of George Zimmerman not being held responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin. In turn, CBS actually addressed the racism taking place in the house. The current season, BB23, seems to tell a different story in response to the increase of the Black Lives Matter movement and the death of many like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and Ahmaud Aubrey. In this season, a very diverse cast and an all African-American alliance formed called the Cookout. Flying relatively under the radar, all six of the cookout members have made it to the final six. Even though all the members did not get along they worked together for a common goal of seeing someone like them finally win the show. Now Big Brother is destined for its first African American winner. This past season has shown the network is capable of creating a diverse cast that doesn’t center around whiteness. It will be interesting to see how next season will be cast. Is Big Brother once again addressing race solely in wake of societal change and pressure? Was the diversity of Big Brother 23 a one time thing? Will producers continue to cast people based on racial stereotypes? How will future racist remarks be addressed? Will racist contestants finally be punished and removed from the CBS house? Most importantly, in what ways will producers sensor and cut racism from live streams to produced episodes? The future of racism on Big Brother is truly up to the producers.
