Ten years ago, the dark satire Unreal premiered, telling the salacious behind-the-scenes story of a fictional Bachelor-style show. By that point, the reality TV dating world’s racist biases and stereotypes — particularly as they pertained to Black cast members — had been well-chronicled, so much so that Season 2 of the series dove head-first into the issue by focusing on the “radical” casting of a Black suitor searching for the woman of his dreams. It would be a little less than a year until its long-running IRL inspiration finally produced its first Black Bachelorette, and another several years before the first Black Bachelor.
The reality dating genre has only proliferated and grown more convoluted since then, but the experiences of Black participants in many of those offerings remain nearly as stagnant as they were a decade ago. The erratic seventh season of Love Island USA, which concludes Sunday, offers a counter (somewhat) to the form. The long-running British import has never explicitly targeted non-white audiences, but the show has taken a surprising turn in recent seasons by deemphasizing whiteness.
First, let’s talk sheer numbers: In the first episode of this season, five out of the 10 contestants were Black. And even as new conventionally sexy singles (“bombshells,” in Love Island parlance) have come into the villa, and many participants have been “dumped” from the island, Black people have remained a consistent presence.
It’s been especially notable to observe contestants Chelley and Olandria moving throughout this process, and how they’ve been received and perceived by their castmates and “America.” They were the first two to enter the villa — in hindsight, it seems producers may have been priming them to be the breakout stars of the show — and they immediately hit it off, encouraging and advising one another on their romantic pursuits. It certainly helps that their “connections” among male castmates haven’t overlapped; no jealousy or competitive spirit to be had there. But there’s also the undeniable fact they’re both dark-skinned women existing in a TV genre (and world) where Black singles — and especially women who look like Chelley and Olandria — have historically been treated as undesirable one-offs. Past participants have even revealed not-at-all-subtle “preferences” for mixed-race paramours (read: ethnically ambiguous and/or white-presenting).
Their reality show savvy suggests they understand how easy it can be for the Black woman to become the villain in the editing room. Recall, for instance, when Chelley became upset when Huda seemed a little too into kissing Chelley’s partner Ace during one of the show’s ridiculous challenges; when a sullen Huda tried to talk to her about it, Chelley deflected by saying, “Tonight, I don’t wanna have a chat … I don’t wanna say anything out of anger or anything like that.” Sure, Chelley was being hypocritical — during that very same challenge she vigorously made out with Chris twice, whom she was still “exploring” as a possible “connection.” But on a show where jealousies are magnified and physical challenges seem crafted to brew conflict, she went out of her way to avoid it — and Olandria had her back, as always.
