Reality TV's New Era of Scandal

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1:51Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. Today on the show, we'll be joined by Anna Peel, a Vanity Fair contributing editor and reality TV expert to break down all the reality TV scandals that have been popping up recently. We've been feeling for a couple of years like reality TV is at a crossroads and the shows that used to be on top are maybe no longer on top. And there are new shows that are capturing our attention instead. It's really a very interesting moment in this space. And I'm very excited to have Anna on to help us understand it.

2:30But first, John, the canned lineup was announced last week. I think we have some stuff to talk about. How are you feeling about it? Well, the initial response, I think, was there aren't enough American films. There's not enough Hollywood films. And that is true. There certainly isn't a Mission Impossible. Which, you know, for the past couple of years, they've had a major sort of summer film screen and do a premiere out of competition. They don't have that this year. What is noticeably absent, I think, is, you know, the focus features film that normally is there or films. A24 doesn't have a big presence.

3:16Very surprising. They had Eddington last year, amongst other films. And so it's just a lot more international. I mean, the upside, I think, for cinema nerds is, like, there are so many international auteurs coming. I think it's the most jam-packed when we're talking about names like Pedro Maldivar, Pavel Pawlikowski. It's just a crazy lineup, and you know a lot of those films are going to be incredible. So I think I've been trying to balance my concern with the not-enough-American studio sort of big movies with the excitement over all these auteurs together at one festival. And a lot of them are returning to Cannes.

3:58Most of them have a very big history with the festival. Some of them are past winners. So I think we're going to be seeing a lot of great films, is my optimistic take on it. I 100 % agree. I think the Cannes lineup is always incredible. I mean, I personally think it's like the last—that and Sundance are the only two festivals that I feel are really fully programmed because they're outside of the awards season window. can discovers films. So, like, last year, it was just an accident premiered there. The Secret Agent premiered there. Surratt. And Sentimental Value. Sentimental Value, I would say, that's, like, coming from a more established director that maybe we all knew in the States.

4:50Obviously, with It Was Just an Accident, Jafar Banahi was an established director, but this is the film that made him more of a name in the States. And that's, I think, kind of the magic of Cannes, is it sort of anoints new auteurs as well as showcasing the older auteurs. Yeah. The hard thing about Cannes, which we'll both be at, is like, you don't want to miss that discovery. And it's hard to know when you're looking at this lineup. I've missed the Palm winner, I think, almost every year I've gone to the festival because it's just, there's so much to see. I'll mention a couple I'm super excited about.

5:32One of them is Ira Sachs' film, who, you know, is an American filmmaker who's going to be there. And it's called The Man I Love and it stars Rami Malek. And it's a musical or musically influenced film, which has already got me very excited. And I love Ira Sachs' film. So I think that one seems very promising to me. And then the other one that I'm really interested in is from Christian Manju, who won the Palm in 2007 with his film Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days. He's back with this film called Fjord, which stars Sebastian Stan and Renata Reinsva, who we just saw last year with sentimental value.

6:15So I think that one could be great. But again, I'm basing this all off filmmakers' log lines and, like, one picture. from each film. But I think there's a lot to be excited about. Is there anything that caught your eye, John? Yeah. Parallel Tales, the new film from Asghar Farhadi. I mean, he's an incredible filmmaker. I'm excited to see what he has next. Jordan Firstman, who's the guy from I Love LA. He has a film in the Uncertainte Regarde section. And I'm excited to see what that is. It's called Club Kid. but like you said what I'm excited for is like what is going to be the next anatomy of a fall you know we didn't I didn't know that filmmaker until you started to hear people I didn't go to that premiere I went to a press screening at the festival but that was after people walked out and they were like you got to see this film yeah I think that's the best part about canon there's no feeling like that.

7:15So I will say this is not the end of the story. I've heard, you know, they're still screening films to add to the lineup. They're still courting filmmakers to get on this lineup. So we'll have a few more announcements and I'm sure, you know, be talking about the films that get added. But so far, so good, I would say. Yeah, Terry Furmore always, he's the festival director. He always has some tricks up his sleeve. Because if you remember the year of the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, that he did that whole thing where he's like, you know, Tarantino says it's not ready and I have to honor him and it's not coming.

7:52And the rumors that you heard that it's coming, it's not coming. And then a week before he was like, surprise, it's coming. It's on Tuesday before Parasite. It's going to be a big night. And it was. It was. It was. And yeah, it's like they love the drama at Cannes. So I'm optimistic. Yeah, the French love drama. Yes, yes. All right, we're going to take a quick break. and when we get back, the state of reality television today. Don't go away.

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10:46Welcome back to Little Gold Men. So to help us to get into the reality television landscape, we want to introduce a contributing editor for Vanity Fair. She wrote an explosive piece a few years ago about a long overdue reckoning in the Bravoverse. And she's got a new book out next month called Enter the Villa, all about the world of Love Island. Anna Peele, thanks so much for joining us. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Before we jump in, Anna, I wanted to know what you like about covering the reality space, because I've read so many of your pieces in this world, and I think you really capture it in a way that's always so captivating.

11:23Well, I'm coming at it as a fan. I would be watching all this stuff even if I weren't reporting on it, but reporting on it lets me know the reality behind the reality TV. And it's really interesting to me how different shows, like what the process is of making them, how the people who are on them are impacted by them, what the producers are thinking and kind of what their moral framework is. And yeah. Does it affect you as a watcher of these shows to know how the sausage is made? It's so hard to be in this industry and social media to not start to learn to get a peek behind the curtain. But you really, you're unmasking The Wizard of Oz.

12:08So what is that like as a viewer? I think you can unmask The Wizard of Oz and still be like, I'm into The Wizard. I think that there are certain shows, obviously, that you kind of can't come back from once you know too much. But most shows, I think, even if bad things happen on them or while they're making them, I don't think usually the people who are making them have bad intent. I think they go in trying to do the best that they can. And then when things do go wrong, it tends to be a slow erosion of ethics is my experience. Okay, well, speaking of slow erosion of ethics, let's talk about the piece you wrote in 2023 for Vanity Fair that is commonly referred to as the reality TV reckoning.

12:59Can you give our listeners a brief rundown of what you covered in that piece? And then we can talk about the reaction. So that piece was mostly about The Real Housewives of New York, primarily season 12 and what happened behind the scenes, both with race on the show. This was the year after the protests around George Floyd's death. This was the first black cast member who had been in Rony, Ebony Williams. So there was just a lot that was going on behind the scenes. And Ramona Singer's alleged racism, her alleged use of the N-word to a black producer, and the impact that that had on the black crew who were making the show who were not in senior leadership positions but who were dealing with these women.

13:48And then also something that is really prevalent on Bravo is drinking. So obviously there's a lot of drinking on Bravo. It's kind of a drinking culture. There's a weekly shot ski on Watch What Happens Live. And for the record, I have no problem with drinking. Usually reality shows have a care of duty, which is a protocol in place for the safety and well-being of cast members. Every show has that. But often they'll have one that includes an alcohol cutoff. So, for example, on The Bachelor, it's two drinks an hour. On Love Island, it's two drinks a day. On Real Housewives, there's no cutoff, you know, because they say, oh, we're just following these women and this is what they're doing in their real lives.

14:30But they'll actually, you know, provide them with alcohol. Cast members have told me that producers encourage them to party, encourage them to do shots. And then people's substance abuse disorder was made into storylines. Cast members were encouraged to ask about people's drinking problems, but then it's not helping the person with the drinking problem. It's making it into a storyline. Right. And this piece was published, and I remember the reaction online was huge from all different sides, especially, though, the Bravo fanatics. I know a lot of them were not happy with any critiques being thrown at their precious shows.

15:15So what did you experience in that regard? Yeah, they did not love that. I remember there was one popular podcast that put up a post and they were like, breaking news, Ramona is racist and people get drunk on Real Housewives. And I remember Andy Cohen responding with a crying laughing emoji. and my feeling is like if you know something is wrong and that it's hurting people then you should change the way you make the show so it doesn't hurt people um i'm not saying we shouldn't have the shows or that people shouldn't be allowed to drink or you know that it shouldn't capture even bad behavior but when there is bad behavior it shouldn't be covered up and the people who are the victims of the bad behavior shouldn't be the, like, the producer who told me that Ramona said the N-word to her didn't work on any more Bravo shows.

16:11Ramona kept getting hired by Bravo. So it's not that you should pretend that it's not happening. You need to actually make changes to protect the people who it harms. And also, that wasn't included in the broadcast, right? Like, So they canceled the reunion that year. They scrapped the show and completely rebooted it. But we never got our reckoning about Ramona, you know. And while I was reporting the piece, Bravo was obviously aware of it. And so they announced during our fact-checking process that they were making changes to their drinking policy. They didn't specify exactly what those were, but it was more like, we're going to keep a closer eye on this and make sure that people aren't getting intoxicated.

17:02Too wasted, yeah. Sure. I think that after the piece was published, there was a lot of talk about, oh, this isn't going to change anything for the viewer. but I think it did I think Bravo did implement changes after your piece Anna and I have I'm a Bravo watcher from the beginning me too much still a super fan yeah and I think that there is a noticeable difference in certain things where cast members are really truly out of control they curbed it and I think they don't like to admit that it is because of this public piece that you wrote for us but I think it started something internally at the network do you agree or do you think that it was evolving to this anyway um they said that they were evolving it before but I didn't hear about any of that until you know quite late in the game.

18:08I do think that I have been able to remain a super fan of Bravo because as much as they did not like the piece and as much as they say that they didn't change things because of the story, I do think things have changed since. Yeah. So I want to, speaking of reckonings, I want to jump us to a more recent scandal. Of course, I'm talking about Taylor Frankie Paul and how The Bachelorette was canceled after a video came out of a domestic violence incident in 2023. Anna, maybe you could break down a little bit about what happened for listeners who may not be as familiar with every beat of what happened here.

18:47So The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was sort of founded on scandal. It's this group called MomTalk. They're these Mormon women. Most of them are married. And then there was this alleged swinging incident that turned out to be real. So the show really got started. though, because Taylor Franke Paul had gotten into this domestic violence incident. And that sort of kicked off the series. It's like the first scene of the first episode, right? It's very, very early. Yeah. But people hadn't seen the video. So then when the video came out, it was really shocking because she's throwing stools over her children's heads.

19:27One of the children was supposedly hit in the head by them. You know, it's not her and her boyfriend drunkenly fighting. I mean, it is, but there are children involved. And once you see, oh my gosh, there are children being endangered, I don't know. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is supposed to be about like, oh, these Mormon mom influencers, they're so perfect, but really everything's a mess. And that's a different kind of series than The Bachelorette, which is, you know, one of the crown jewels of Disney's unscripted programming. And it's supposed to be this fairy tale. And you're supposed to have this woman or man who you're rooting for to find love.

20:06And all the suitors are competing for their affection. And then, you know, finally at the fantasy suite, maybe they have sex. And it's just like all very, you know, like. Right. Yeah. And you can't root for Taylor Frankie Paul or even necessarily want to see her on television if you're like, oh my gosh, your boyfriend provoked you while you were drunk and you threw a stool. That's wild. That's not The Bachelorette. That shouldn't even be on TV. It shouldn't be on TV. And it's a level of messiness that is sort of the antithesis, like you said, of the prince and princess fairy tale that is The Bachelorette.

20:44They canceled this season, which is unprecedented to not air something that has been fully shot. They are walking away from advertiser money. Where do you think they go from here? Well, people are saying, you know, oh, maybe Maura Higgins from The Traitors, who was also on Love Island UK, should be the bachelorette. She would be good. She would be amazing. Yeah. Maybe Sierra Miller, who's involved in her own scandal on Summer House, this cheating debacle that's sort of like a mini scandal is erupting on Summer House. But people are saying she would be great. But, well, there are a couple of things.

21:28Both of those people, Maura and Sierra, are both contracted through NBCUniversal. Maura is affiliated with Love Island USA, where she hosts After Sun. and Sierra's on Summer House, which is a Bravo show, which their parent company is NBC Universal. And Love Island is a major competitor for The Bachelor. I would say Love Island is eating The Bachelor's lunch right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. But so I don't know whether logistically either of those two people would do it, even though I think that they would be great. But then you kind of think like, ugh, do I want them to go through that? You know, it's like if production would put people in a position to have a lead who is dangerous in some way, and that certainly happened with contestants too where they've put people in.

22:20You know, there was somebody on Rachel Lindsay's season. She was the first black bachelorette. And there was a guy in the house, and he was racist. And so, you know, that's happened a bunch of times. So it's sort of like, oh, do we want our faves to go in there and be subjected to that? But I don't know what's going to happen. To me, canceling the season, it suggests one of two things. One is that, okay, we need to protect this property because it's so valuable to us. So we'll take the financial hit and reputational hit because there's a much bigger reputational hit of actually airing it and we want to preserve this for the long term.

22:55The other is that they can't come back from this. So either The Bachelorette dies or the whole thing dies. I have no idea. It's hard to imagine that The Bachelor franchise completely dies. It's been around so long, and I haven't watched it in years, but I feel like it's such a major part of this whole ecosystem. But as someone who watched a lot more reality TV back in the day, and not as much now, but obviously I can't help but pay attention to these scandals, It does feel like the messiness and the scandal feels bigger than it used to. Like, I remember when I watched Real World and, you know, someone would slap someone and things like that would happen.

23:38But this feels— You know that, Rebecca, was like the most important thing that has happened in my childhood. You're talking about the Seattle slap? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, with Irene. That, like, is still like a bellwether moment in my childhood. But now it feels like, I don't know if it's because the scandals sort of bleed over between shows or what, but I don't know, Anna, do you feel like this is a different era when it comes to scandal in reality TV? A hundred percent. So it's like it feels like every single season on Salt Lake City, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, it ends with someone getting arrested or someone going to jail or someone being exposed as, you know, Real D.

24:19Vontis who's secretly reporting on all the women. It just has these crazy endings that blow up. And, you know, Scandoval kind of blew up the show. They did one more season after Scandoval and Vanderpump Rules. That was the cheating scandal between Tom Sandoval and Rachel Levis, where he cheated on Ariana Maddox. She left the show, and now she's hosting Love Island USA, and they had to reboot it. And not as many people are watching it by a huge margin. It's unwatchable. Yeah. And it's like and now Summer House is blowing up and it creates these moments where everyone's glued to their television because they're like, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen?

25:00And you get to experience both like the past and looking for all this foreshadowing and clues that you missed. But then you have the real time revelation and then you have the discourse where you get to dissect it with everybody and have all your opinions. And it's so exciting and increases viewership so much. But then what happens? Like, how are they going to film Summer House after this? They better get in that house. I mean, what's interesting, the Bachelorette scandal to me is really dark. And it's really hard. I understand that there's synergies between Hulu and wanting to put the most popular show on Hulu, which is The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, onto this franchise that is ailing, which is The Bachelorette.

25:46But knowing what I believe they had to know a little about her, I mean, not maybe seeing the video, but knowing how volatile she was, it's not a great look. And it's different than a bunch of, you know, people kind of like hooking up with each other. Like that's, you know, not, I don't like, I don't think that's one-to-one. Do you? I don't think it's one-to-one. And this is ugly in a way that it's sort of the difference between like when you're like, oh, Ramona's rude to cab drivers versus like Ramona saying the N word to a producer. It's disgusting. Like it just crosses a line. But this seemed to be a case of kind of willful ignorance because Rob Mills, who worked on The Bachelor and is now an executive at Disney working on unscripted and alternative programming, you know, they were asking him about it in this video that was reported on.

26:48And he was sort of like saying that he kind of didn't want to look at the video and he hadn't wanted to look too far into it. And he said, you know, not to stick my head in the sand, but and I think that that's kind of the line that reality TV walks where it's like, how far are we pushing it or how much are we kind of like looking, you know, putting our hands in front of our eyes so we don't see this so that we can keep going. Yeah, I think this is a great point to stop on because in the next segment, we're going to look at where reality TV goes from here. So we'll take a quick break and be right back.

27:41Welcome back to Little Gold Men. So, Anna, we've talked a little bit about, well, a lot about the scandals we've seen popping up in established TV universes and the issues these long-running shows are having. What do you see popping more these days? Like what shows are really working? I have a feeling you're going to say Love Island. I am going to say Love Island. We're going to talk a lot about that. But I do want to say The Traders first because I think that that's a good example of a show that creates this kind of collective communal experience, this like water cooler Super Bowl kind of moment that, you know, Scandaval gave us and Summerhouse is giving us.

28:21But it's kind of just good, clean fun. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that that's really interesting to have this kind of like 360 degree experience where you can, you know, talk to people about it and you can argue about it. But it's it's a game. You know, whatever Candice thinks about what Rob did to it, it's it is a game. This is a game. So I think that's something that I'm sure everybody's trying to figure out how to do their own version of. And it's not mean-spirited. It's not mean-spirited. Not least because the people who are playing it, like, half of them don't seem to know. Know the rules.

28:58Yeah. That's my favorite. Well, that's what I think the—it is so fun to see Housewives with Survivor contestants, with Big Brother, with Drag Race. The chemistry and what each of the contestants is good at is so interesting. Like, Phaedra Parks on her season, I'm not quite sure she knew the rules of the show completely. I think she understood how to play a scene. Oh, and did she ever. And did she ever. And she was a star. And it relaunched her career in reality television. She basically got back onto the Bravo Network and now on to Real Housewives of Atlanta, I think, because she was just so fabulous on The Traitors.