The Traitors is both racist & ageist?

[TrademarkBrooklynBeckham]

I’ve been saying this for some time, and now the Times has analyzed the data.

Are The Traitors players prejudiced? Here’s what the data says:

https://www.thetimes.com/article/20eccb12-a919-4d59-8ce5-1e9925f9e948?shareToken=3e4f0566057b480a152802f21f97c26c

Spoiler alert - all white winners and just one non white person in the finals of the UK general traitors show.

YABU - It’s an evidence based show. Nothing to see here.
YANBU - The players are displaying unconscious bias against race, sex & age

Completely agree. The first few episodes of this series I found quite boring/confusing as there were too many young men who seemed quite interchangeable.

Also agree that there is too much emphasis in the tasks on speed and strength, which is going to disadvantage most older contestants.

There'll be some degree of that inevitably I guess, as it's true everywhere.

There's also a degree of metagaming. They have shaken it up a bit this season but until now there has always been a minority woman and usually a middle aged one among the original Traitors, so while people can't say that's why they're doing it, they will often gun for such people simply because the producers have previously selected that demographic.

The main factor in being voted out seems to be about the dynamics of the loudest voice in the room during the round table. In this series the first person out was the person whose head turned when C said 'Traitors'. The second was the person who ran up to and mounted another contestant. The 3rd and 4th were white men and one was indeed a Traitor so their suspicions were correct.

IMHO the faithfuls should work out that it is possibly 'unconscious bias' that gets Traitors picked in the first place and focus on that.

The doctors are always banished early! Any type of doctor. And in the UK especially, doctors are often Asian.

I don't know why the faithful think care workers or shopstaff can't be traitors!

Erm, Jade, Roxy and Faraz are all still in 🤷🏻‍♀️

Inverted snobbery?

Interesting. Although I don’t disagree with the unconscious bias thing in general and in The Traitors, although I think it works more like trusting people who are ‘like’ you rather than being necessarily against people of colour.

I’m not sure I agree with your assessment of Amanda/ Jade dynamic. After all, posh female educated Chinese people are not overly represented in the criminal justice system, so it’s unlikely that A was using her police experience to profile her. With Jade I think that she holds so much sadness that Amanda picked up something felt ‘off’ and assumed her aloofness meant she was guilty.

It's a reflection of the negative bias people see in every day life.
Basically - the prejudice seen here will not be a shock to any of the people voted out early in the game for pretty much no reason other than "they don't look like me".

Those who are saying "Well we have an Asian person, a mixed race person..." there isn't just one sort of racism.

There is colourism, where darker skinned people are more likely to have bias against them; anti-blackness, which would mean Ross goes while Jade stays - and a load of other things like misogynoir, where black women have to tone down things that make them seem 'black',and intersects with other stereotypes like age, so Roxy stays while her older mum goes.

There are also other cultural things, I was interested to hear Jade's international connections and now in that light can see that the mixture of her forthrightness and holding back a bit is being read in a different cultural context. It's currently doing her some favours but such misreadings often don't, as in the examples given of brown men being seen as sneaky.

Another interesting thing is the intersection of privilege around neurodivergence and disability - It's ok to have adhd if you're a white man and to stutter if you're a young attractive physically slim white woman.(Though the comment that they all performative listened to Jessie then ignored her is SPOT ON).

I'd like to see a really diverse group with people who challenge our norms loads more.

I think that there is a consistent problem in traitors where the traitors will vote out anyone they think is clever. That often captures older or more professional people.

And I do think that black women have a hard time on the show and almost always go early for one excuse or another. which I, as a casual viewer and not someone who normally is keeping an eye out for this sort of thing, have observed as a bit racist.

All well expressed and I agree, mostly.

I agree its clear they have unconscious biases in the way they perceive certain people ( mainly poc). It exists everywhere. One way of counterbalancing that though is by having a mix of people in decision making roles, do you have different levels of bias counterbalancing each other( everyone has unconscious bias not just White people. Thats why I was so surprised that they chose 4 White traitors, and from similar ethnicities and backgrounds. The producers really should work on that next series as its become very noticeable.

The thing is choosing a WoC Traitor in every series has resulted in metagaming.

Yes, absolutely unconscious bias at work. I love the show but it's very uncomfortable to watch for this reason.

I think that there is a consistent problem in traitors where the traitors will vote out anyone they think is clever. That often captures older or more professional people.
The faithfuls do it too at the round table, so you end up with the ones who haven't played the game well at all, and the Traitors ( usually) at the end.

You dont have to have a WOC in every game but anyone 'of colour'. They had a lot of backgrounds and races to choose from but chose a very narrow background, even from amongst the White people.
Also yes you may be right but im not 100% sure what Metagaming means 😀

Unconscious bias is definitely a thing in society
. Traitors is a microcosm of the self same society
I honestly don’t know why people deny this when studies upon studies have shown that this exists

Metagaming= The Faithful picking on WoC because they have observed previous patterns. Hence Amanda's obsession with Jade.

It's a tough balance, no doubt.
I am a middle aged highly educated WoC myself, so I might be a target of metagaming if I went in.

I wish they had more older and POC in the cast from the beginning because of this very reason. It seems like being a youngish, white, interchangeable man gives you a major advantage (like in every sector of society I guess!) and honestly, they are all a bit dull. I would liked to have seen more of Maz, Netty, Judy etc. but they all just get bumped off immediately! Even anyone with any brains who might make the show more interesting gets murdered immediately. I wonder if the formula could change to no murder/banishment in the first two episodes? They could still have a round table to discuss theories but all players could be shielded from both murder and banishment for the first few episodes to make it more interesting. (Although with the way they all seem to be afflicted by some memory wiping virus overnight it might not make a difference).

Not sure about Ross’s banishment being ‘unconscious’ bias though. He was having a complete meltdown from the minute he stepped out of the car and that woman threw herself at him and he never really recovered from that. In a game where people are LOOKING for anything out of the ordinary to cling to, that was always going to look a bit suss! He was lovely though and I wish he had stayed in a bit longer.

Less of the interchangables please!

I think this is true.

It's the way of the world that people are generally drawn to those they most identify with whether that's race, sex, height, age, background, religion, political views, schooling etc etc

Add into that the draw of physical attraction which is very personal and nigh on impossible to counteract.

I think the above so ingrained into society it would be impossible to remove.

Yes, I actually felt uncomfortable .
In fact when the show started , the first thing my 21 year old dd said is that POC will be out first . She was right

I'm not sure this is really a problem, it is just an implication of the game design.

In CZ series 2, one traitor was a criminal detective undercover as nice, friendly and emotional yoga teacher.
We have an additional long podcast not managed by the TV station when the players talk about themselves and their game with the moderator and director, and talk about how they saw the game and their strategy.

She assessed all faithful players for their gullibility and personality, and than went through this list, leaving her in the final with several nice people - intelligent but idealistic. They wanted to believe the good will win, they were not willing to be the one responsible for potentially banishing an innocent, and they lost.

It caused an interesting effect - over the time of the series (we have weekly broadcasting), it was shifting the attention - from the most visible ones at the beginning, through the middle game where the more strategic minds got out, to a time of the more quiet ones.

The entire programme is about people’s unconscious bias…

At the end of the day we have evolved to trust people like us, and to distrust people not like us. This position has largely kept us safe since the dawn of man. We recognise our tribe members and families, the people most likely to defend us (I’m talking a generalised position here).

In “safe” times we can override this deeply ingrained mechanism, but when we’re under pressure, feel threatened our subconscious minds kick in and take us back to the deeply ingrained systems developed over tens of thousands of years. It happens to groups all the time, people seek out their own. It only appears to be an issue when white people do it though.

As resources get more scarce round the world, as people feel increasingly threatened we will see this playing out more and more I’m afraid.

I think this is probably a feature of gameshows generally and it's not fair to single out this one.

I also suspect people from diverse cities can tend to overestimate the racial diversity of the UK as a whole and end up seeing more bias than there actually is.