How Black and Brown Contestants Are Gamifying Reality TV

• Despite a lack of representation, contestants of color are using strategy to win competition-based reality TV shows.
• Chad Kultgen, a host of the Game Of Roses podcast, told Insider that when helping future contestants, it is all about knowing when to play up certain aspects of your story.
• Hannah Chaddha, a houseguest on “Big Brother,” said that despite production trying to tip the scales during her season, her alliance was still successful.

Over the past two decades, reality television has grown to become a behemoth of American culture and has served as a microcosm of society — putting a spotlight on both the good and the bad. From physical competition shows like “The Challenge,” to shows centered around a love interest like “The Bachelor,” all cast members regardless of show have to deploy some sort of social strategy if they plan to make it far.

But contestants of color, who are still underrepresented and discriminated against on these shows, often find that the cards are stacked against them. If they make it on the show, they risk being tokenized, edited or set up to represent harmful stereotypes, or eliminated quickly — showing they had no true chance at making it far on the show.

That is, up until recently. In the past few years, contestants of color have been changing the way they play the game and ultimately, moving ahead.

 

 

Craig Sjodin / Contributor

 

Limitations of diversity initiatives

After an outcry from fans in recent years and the nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd, many networks took steps to address systemic problems within the production and casting of their reality TV shows.

In 2021, ABC hired its first Black Executive Producer for “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” franchises. The network also broke precedent and looked outside their existing contestants in order to cast Matt James, the franchise’s first Black Bachelor. This year, Charity Lawson will become the fourth Black woman to lead “The Bachelorette,” following Tayshia Adams and Michelle Young who lead the show in back-to-back years in 2020 and 2021.

CBS, home to shows like “Big Brother” and “Love Island,” also implemented a 50% non-white requirement for its casts beginning in 2021. That same year, “Big Brother” had its first Black winner in 23 seasons — Xavier Prather. The next year, Taylor Hale became the first Black woman to win the show.

But even with more diverse character leads and casts, there are still limitations in how far production will allow this momentum to go — after all, these shows still attract mainly white and conservative audiences.

Last month, “The Bachelor” creator Mike Fleiss announced he was leaving the franchise following an investigation into claims of racial discrimination. According to sources who spoke to Variety, Fleiss would allegedly “lash out” at staff members who suggested more diverse leads, and would “retaliate against people” for having minorities on the show. “He would say, ‘Minorities don’t get ratings,” according to the Variety report.

ABC declined to comment.

So instead of waiting on production to make changes, cast members of color are taking matters into their own hands, strategizing and working together to make it to the end.

“You have a season where six Black people have made it to the end. That never happens,” said Hannah Chaddha about season 23 of “Big Brother.” Chaddha was a part of “The Cookout” — an all-Black alliance that banded together with the mission of producing the first Black winner in the show’s history. They were successful in their mission as Prather was crowned the champion.

“That will probably never happen again, history of the show, or any other show. You can’t have a winner that’s too radical,” Chaddha continued. “I realize that it’s a show. It’s a product that’s put on display for consumers.”

 

 

CBS Photo Archive / Contributor

 

Coaching and strategy

Regardless of the show, strategy is needed to move ahead. Contestants of color can use that to their advantage, Chad Kultgen, one-half of the “Game of Roses” podcast, told Insider.

Kultgen creates archetypes for prospective reality television contestants to help them get cast on shows, even coaching them through hypothetical “game” scenarios. He’s worked with contestants across a number of shows, but specializes in helping people get cast on “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” and garner favor from production.

 

 

Sonja Flemming/CBS

 

Last year, Taylor Hale, the most recent winner of “Big Brother,” revealed that “The Bachelor” had recruited her heavily for two seasons and that she had received coaching from Kultgen before turning down the franchise to pursue the opportunity with “Big Brother.” Taylor Hale did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.

“In some ways, the strategies that we come up with on ‘Game of Roses’ can be applied to other reality TV shows,” Kultgen told Insider. “We have something called the PTC, which stands for the personal tragedy card, which you see personal tragedy cards being played in almost all reality TV.” In this situation, a contestant will open up about a personal hardship during a critical moment on the show, either to gain sympathy from the show’s lead or from the audience. They can also be used to define their own character and image.

These moments can also be used by contestants to reclaim their time on the show and change the conversation and the culture surrounding it. They can often be powerful ways to spread a message.

Kultgen highlighted how following the murder of George Floyd, Ivan Hall, a Black contestant on Tayshia Adams’ season of “The Bachelorette,” shared his story about the difficulties his family suffered after his brother was incarcerated, sparking a larger conversation around criminal justice reform.

“It was an important conversation to see, and these two people having it, I guarantee you half the audience has never seen anything like this,” Kultgen said.

 

 

CBS

 

Forming an alliance

On “Big Brother,” 16 houseguests are locked in a home for roughly 90 days as a part of a social experiment. They are not allowed access to the outside world and at least one contestant is evicted each week.

The houseguests compete in competitions weekly with the winner taking the title of Head of Household. They are the sole authority to nominate two houseguests for eviction. The winner of the game is voted on by a jury of nine evicted houseguests.

Because of the way the show is set up, contestants of color rarely made it far on the show. However, season 23 of “Big Brother” was the first time in the show’s 20-year history that a majority of the cast was non-white.

The Cookout was a secret alliance made up of six Black players formed during that season with the intention of banding together to produce a Black winner. They faced a number of challenges, beginning with how they would disguise their alliance from the rest of the house.

To get around this, the six members were never seen together alone in any particular room throughout the entire course of the game.

Once people began to be eliminated, The Cookout implemented a secret buddy system. Tiffany Mitchell, one of the other six members of the alliance, was the mastermind behind this plan. At all times, each member of The Cookout had to be with a houseguest who was outside of their alliance.

Once that strategy was set in motion, Chaddha said she heard from her fellow houseguests who were not part of the alliance that production began to signal to them that a larger alliance was controlling the game.

“Production was pulling those people into the DR and kind of hinting that there was a larger power structure and telling them to do this and telling them to do that,” Chaddha said. “Thankfully The Cookout’s hold on these people was so strong.”

 

 

CBS Photo Archive / Contributor

 

A successful strategy

Their strategy was successful on three fronts. All six members of the alliance became the final six houseguests, which solidified the winner of “Big Brother 23” as the show’s first Black winner. They also brought attention to how isolating the experiences of Black contestants were on past seasons of the show. And the very next season, “Big Brother” used their strategy as a game scenario in the “Festie Bestie” twist.

However, Chaddha said once she was eliminated in the final six, production began to drop subliminal hints to sway her vote to eliminate Xavier Prather. Prather went on to win the season.

“I’m not going to say his win was not well deserved because he played a great social game out of all six members of The Cookout he was the most charismatic and adaptable,” Chaddha said. “However, I feel like production, when I was evicted, was telling me things that sort of primed me to choose Xavier.”

That season sparked a larger conversation around a lack of diversity in the show’s production. A member of the show’s production posted a since deleted photo on Instagram, which fans immediately called out for having no people of color in the production crew.

A “Big Brother” insider told Insider, “The Producers in no way influence voting.”

Chaddha says she is proud of how The Cookout was able to overcome interference from production.

“I know, I’ve spoken pessimistically about production, but I’m not mad about it,” Chaddha said. “I’m just proud that despite their influence, despite America’s influence on our season, despite 10 non-Cookout members that were in that house, we were able to beat the odds and get all six of us to the end.”