CBS will Culturally Diversify its Future Reality TV Show Casts

CBS will Culturally Diversify its Future Reality Show Casts

Beloved CBS reality shows such as Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Love Island (USA), and Survivor will be undergoing an important change in the 2021-2022 season. At least half of the casts on each show will be made up of BIPOC, or blacks, indigenous, and people of color.

CEO and President of the CBS Entertainment Group George Cheeks and many people of color say that reality television as a whole is “underrepresented” as nearly all reality shows are comprised of predominantly or entirely white casts. Cheeks also says that this will hopefully motivate writers and producers of color to in turn include BIPOC in their shows. He is currently working with production partners to help promote the awareness and importance of diversity and inclusivity.

Survivor, in particular, has long been called out on accusations of racism. Vecepia Robinson, a Survivor 4: Marquesas competitor, has so far been the only African-American to win in the show’s forty seasons. She has never been invited back. Ramona Gray Amaro, the show’s first African-American contestant, appeared in Season 1 in 2000 in Borneo. She faced racial stereotypes while there, namely a common one for an accusation of being “lazy”—in reality, she was laying down by the campsite, resting due to dehydration.

Amaro has also witnessed other Survivor contestants of her race from other seasons being stereotyped, such as the notion of “being athletic but not particularly smart or strategic”. It now appears that CBS has heard and fulfilled her requests to enforce a zero-tolerance policy for any and all forms of racism and racist acts as well as increasing awareness of the fact that systemic racism still very much exists.

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