When I was working on my book The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewives (in paperback this May!), I talked to Kristen Warner, an academic who studies reality television, about attempts to diversify the Real Housewives. This was right after Garcelle Beauvais was hired to be the first Black cast member on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She told me (and I’m paraphrasing, so don’t @ Kristen) at the time that casting one Black person on the show didn’t really matter. What needs to happen is that there need to be at least two Black cast members so that they can talk about their experiences being people of color in what is otherwise a predominantly white space. This powerful, moving, and emotional episode of Summer House shows exactly why she was right. I mean, she has a Ph.D. in this stuff. Of course she was right!
The emotional heart of the episode happens at the very end when an emotionally exhausted Mya and Ciara get the whole gang together on their beige sofas to talk about Mya’s struggles fitting in with the group this season. This comes at the end of a long string of indignities and microaggressions throughout the weekend: Lindsay not inviting her out, Andrea not realizing that she was in the room with Paige and Ciara, Paige mixed up Ciara and Mya, the only two Black women in the house, Andrea called Mya “Lexi,” which he says is a girl that he once dated but, um, dude. Like she says at the meeting. She’s been in the house for a month at this point. Andrea should at least know her damn name.
This is coupled with the general feeling that she doesn’t fit in with anyone in the group. She and Carl had bonded about being outsiders (since Carl is now the house’s sole sober member), but she didn’t have him to lean on since he is out of town this weekend. Instead, she and Ciara go for a tearful chat while the cast is on a trip to the beach. That’s when we see the real power of two Black women getting to talk about their experiences navigating this difficult terrain together. Ciara says she had a hard time fitting in last year as the only new hire and the only Black person in the house when the BLM protests were sweeping the nation.
Then Ciara asks about the situation with Mya growing up, and Mya opens up about being one of only two Black kids in her grade and how they were always mistaken for each other even though they looked nothing alike. Ciara immediately knew that was the case. She knew because she shared the same experience, the same traumas, the same searching for a place in an all-white world. It is honest and emotional and one of the best things we’ve seen on Summer House that didn’t have to do with a watermelon being exploded on the floor or Lindsay getting activated.
It’s also the support that they have for each other that lets Ciara start the difficult conversation with the group. Though it is Mya who feels like she does not fit in, it is Ciara who is getting teary-eyed, like she is relieved she can finally talk about it. They both showed radical candor, and you could see the immediate effect on the housemates. Even better, Mya doesn’t turn this into grist for the reality TV mill, laying blame and accusing her housemates. “No one is at fault here,” she tells the group. “There is a different experience as a Black person in America that doesn’t get talked about while I’m here.”
Andrea immediately apologizes and promises to work harder to get to know Mya. Luke opens up about how hard it was for him to fit in his first year on the cast and recognizes it was significantly easier for him being a white man. Alex — who we will forgive this week for being the ruiner of all joy and misunderstander of swimsuit belts — also adds his experience where someone at the Fourth of July party thought he was the staff because he’s a person of color in the Hamptons. He talks about how he’s always trying to fight expectations of who he is or how he should be, but he really just wants the privilege afforded to every white member of the cast: just to be himself. As a white person who has always been allowed to be his trashy, reality-TV-loving self, that never even occurred to me. See, people! Reality TV isn’t nearly as trashy as Kyle and Amanda eating Cheez-Its in their bed watching Netflix.
It was also interesting to hear from Danielle, the sole Latina on the cast, who has been around since season two, talk about how she felt all the things that Ciara and Mya are talking about but never had the courage to bring it up. She commends Mya on doing it now, but we don’t see her offer any contributions to the conversation, as if she is still a little too afraid to broach this subject and burst the balloon of privilege that her friends are living in. (But maybe she did speak up and it was edited out. We don’t know.) Regardless, it’s nice to see the people of color reaching a critical mass in the house so that we can have these uncomfortable but necessary conversations.
Speaking of which, my lover Kyle J. Cooke said that if Mya and Ciara are uncomfortable, the rest of the house should be uncomfortable too. Paige says it’s their responsibility to make sure that they are checking in and being cognizant that Mya and Ciara might be having struggles they’re unaware of. What is so great is that everyone on the cast is open to doing their part to make the house a safe and inclusive place. No one felt like they had to defend themselves like Sutton on the most recent season of RHOBH, and there isn’t any of the racist mess that we saw on the most recent season of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. This is smart, uplifting, and just what the country needs right now.
I will ding Bravo a little bit for the teaser from last week, which made it look like Mya would have some kind of breakdown and she was keeping some awful secret from the house. What transpired wasn’t nearly as dramatic as all that but was much more necessary and vital. Still, the mode of reality is always a little bit crass, so even when we’re having productive conversations about race and privilege, it needs to make us tune in somehow.
I’m just going to leave this recap with all of these good feelings in my bosom as we focus on the healing and change that I hope one stupid episode of one dumb TV show can bring. Sure, Amanda and Kyle fought over a dog, Paige continued to lead Andrea on, and Danielle quit her job to start a really dumb app. We can get to all of that in due time, because I’m sure that our regularly scheduled buffoonery will be back next week but hopefully a bit more socially conscious.
