Sunday, October 31, 2021

DC ExtraTime: Someone You Should Know - Big Brother's The Cookout

*** CAUTION: The following article contains spoilers for some readers. As the featured subjects are subjective to some, this post's comment section is disabled. ***

 FOLLOW-UP  to The Challenge
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BY DC CUEVA                        
■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK
   ESTIMATED READING TIME: 20 Mins.

While it is an internal policy of DCBLOG's to not make mention of anything on here at all in regards to what's known to those in the business of covering television & the media world as the game of numbers, it's safe to say that there's fewer people watching the current season of MTV's The Challenge than past seasons, and there's various reasons for it too complicated for us to elaborate on here. But one of those is that the timeslot that it is in -- 8 o'clock on a Wednesday night, 7PM in the central states and 9PM in the Rocky Mountains -- is jam-packed: some of the biggest buzz hits in a genre MTV has pioneered airs at the same time as Spies, Lies & Allies. So has a rival wrestling promotion that now has two former Challengers under their wing.... and the former includes a show that is the focus of this next story.

When the reality TV genre truly came of age in America back in the summer of 2000, it marked the game-changer for entertainment in this country for which non-scripted series are now firmly part of the schedules of every network & streaming service. It also helped chart a path for the next two decades of a network that was mired in last place in the ratings. but which had just reenergized by a recent change of ownership and the optimism that comes with new people taking over the steering wheel. That year, CBS placed its bets on U.S. versions of a pair of European reality phenomena that would become as big a juggernaut as the other reality franchises it and its ViacomCBS stablemates would nurture in their two times being under the same corporate umbrella, and for it has become a company cornerstone.

(L-R) Hannah, Azah, Xavier, Derek F., Tiffany
and Kyland, with host Julie Chen-Moonves
(center) on Big Brother 23 finale night
(IG/@juliechenmoonves)
Big Brother premiered on the Eye network more than a month after Survivor came onto our shores twenty-one years ago, but it experienced some humble beginnings as Season 1 did not match the immense, out of the box success as the ladder. But CBS' strong belief in the show and widespread changes to the format in all facets of it would ultimately turn the American version of Dutch TV executive John de Mol Jr.'s magnum opus into, far and away, the most successful of the over sixty local versions of the global franchise. And coupled with embracing the series' interactive, real-time nature and the digital age that came along afterwards, Big Brother has become part of American summertime and which dominate not only three nights of network television, but also streaming & social too.

Despite its immense success over its two decades, our iteration of Big Brother has also gone through its fair share of controversy and criticism during the past twenty-two regular seasons and the occasional spinoff. Of most troubling of these unwelcome pleasantries in recent years has been of discrimination and racism that has put the show and its houseguests under the kind of large microscope that only comes when there are over 100 cameras and just as many microphones to capture every move and word, and fans intently watching those on both television and the live feeds. And what happened the past two seasons with Season 21 getting put into the ringer for such behavior, and last year's All-Stars debuting while the Black Lives Matter protests pressed on just outside their door served as a reality check.

In the end, the events that put Big Brother U.S. in the headlines for the wrong reasons proved to be a blessing in disguise that the series most desperately needed. And it helped to set the table for the biggest story to come out of the first summer of reality normalcy in two years, and this latest edition of Someone You Should Know: the Big Brother alliance known simply as "The Cookout."

The most recent Big Brother season with an entirely new cast in 2019 found itself in the hot seat right from the get-go. The choice eventual winner Jackson Michie made to send Season 21's two lone Black houseguests, David Alexander and Kemi Fakunle, to its own version of the Redemption House and the former eventually becoming its first evictee began a season of discontent. Another castmate, Jack Matthews, also was put in the line of fire for his racist actions towards Kemi, Ovi Kabir and Jessica Milagros... and it was only part of an uneasy summer for both fans and critics alike.
   Those racism allegations -- which also included casting that was not as diverse as that of other reality shows, along with poor editing of footage that was much different from the unedited live feeds and even leniency with certain rules, made for some mounting criticism for BB21 by the time it finally all ended. CBS hierarchy were put on blast for all of those reasons as they tried to defend show editors for the difficulty of paring down 168 hours' worth of weekly content into three 43-minute episodes, but assured that they would "closely reexamine Big Brother and see if we can do better."
   As a result of what happened two years ago, Big Brother finally decided to press the reset button by the time of last year's All-Stars season in a pandemic. After many years helping lead the process of choosing the houseguests for an all-expense paid summer vacation, lead casting director Robyn Kass stepped away from her duties for Big Brother's 23rd season, being replaced by former associate Jesse Tannenbaum, who set not just this year's lineup but also those of the just-debuted 41st season of Survivor and this summer's third series of Love Island as the network's head of reality casting. That was a first step in an immense, network-wide pledge by CBS to change its ways in the makeup of its casts of unscripted content, and to follow the route MTV, VH1, BET & others have mastered to have its shows' roll call better reflect the diverse American society and increasingly inclusive nature.
   After several former Survivor castaways also brought up the lack of diversity on their show, last fall CBS made a commitment to further diversify casting with a goal to cast at least 50 percent of its reality shows to feature Black, Indigenous and other Persons of Color -- a similar promise was also made by the franchise's Canadian version. The man who replaced BB host Julie Chen-Moonves' husband Les as CBS entertainment chief post-#MeToo, George Cheeks stated, "The reality TV genre is an area that's especially underrepresented, and needs to be more inclusive across development, casting, production and all phases of storytelling." That is only part of the steps the Tiffany Network has made to reverse course after being accused of a lack of diversity on its scripted shows as well, plus similar controversies that have arisen at the network's local stations in many major cities.

The first Big Brother season to take place amidst this new reality took shape after Independence Day when Season 23 debuted on July 7th. In keeping with the themes of summer that epitomize the time of year that this series airs every year, BB23 took on a "Beach House" setting... something Julie agreed with all of us that we really "deserve a vacation" after all we've been through the past year & a half. The top prize followed in the lead of The Challenge in awarding an increased winner's check compared to the past -- $750,000 to the champ rather than $500k, plus increases to the runner-up's prize money ($75k) and America's Favorite Houseguest ($50k).
   The season's setup saw the houseguests split into four teams of four when they moved in, among other twists that also followed a Vegas theme with a high roller's room during the middle of the summer and BB Bucks. But not all of the sixteen houseguests who were revealed to join in on the first night made it into the timeshare: 27-year-old professional dancer Christie Valdiserri from nearby North Hollywood returned a positive COVID test while in sequester beforehand, and her house keys were given to the first alternate, 25-year-old AI tech specialist Claire Rehfuss from Manhattan. But it didn't dampen the mood that comes with week 1 in this country's most scrutinized living fishbowl, which began just like any season with the joy they have of moving in just as it has been for over two decades.
   But later, the attention turned to a story unlike any the global Big Brother franchise has ever witnessed: going into this year, that was a something that had been stacked against a key minority group: only on a few occasions has a BIPOC houseguest come away with the top prize at season's end. The events of what happened last year brought into focus one of the most important aspects of our society: no African-American has ever been one of the winners of a regular U.S. Big Brother season, yet the series has had so many Black houseguests who have called the famed house their home every summer. Its effect can be felt to that show that we cover on here the most, and where they have given reality fans some memorable moments - enter a group who had a mission to change all that...

Courtesy: CBS Media Ventures
When the houseguests moved in, the makeup of the Big Brother 23 house saw people from Hawaii to Rhode Island join Julie on opening night. The most important development to come out of the totally reimagined casting process befit CBS' new reality casting pledge: the amount of Black houseguests for this year had increased three-fold from 2019 when David and Kemi were the two lone African-Americans cast twenty-four months earlier. There were six of them this time around, and when they all moved in they all made a secret pact with the hope that one of them would become the franchise's first Black winner at the end of the summer.
   Azah Awasum is a 30-year-old sales operations manager from Baltimore who loves cooking, being crafty and traveling... and who grew up in a family where her grandpa had six wives, nearly 50 kids and 300 cousins -- no wonder why her name means being to make friends that easily. 30-year-old Derek Frazier is a Philadelphia-based safety officer who loves going out dancing at the bars, who's done plenty of binge-watching when the clubs were closed... and boasts the status of being a son of former heavyweight champ Smokin' Joe Frazier. Kyland Young is a 29-year-old Southern Californian account exec who loves movies and being competitive, but had a tough 2021 after his grandfather passed away.
   21-year-old Chicagoan Hannah Chaddha had just graduated college who is also a competitive hip-hop dancer, loves coffee and Real Housewives, and is the product of a marriage of South African and Indian parents. Xavier Prather is a 27-year-old attorney who resides in Milwaukee and is one of eleven siblings, who spent time doing foreign exchange in the British Isles, and who was born with a severe clubfoot but who overcame that disadvantage to have a love of hoops. And the one who takes on the status of the mom of this bunch is Tiffany Mitchell, a 40-year-old Detroit phlebotomist who loves to entertain those around her including voice impersonations, and has a love for cats and horoscopes. 

IG/@juliechenmoonves
When they all moved into the house, Tiffany brought up the idea of an all-Black alliance with Azah and Derek F., and later Xavier, Hannah and Tiffany would join in... all under the condition that they keep this all a secret to the rest of the houseguests. Their strategy was for all of them to pair up with someone not in their pact to keep their bond from going out into the open, while preventing two of their members from going up on the block and for safety from being up for eviction if one their own got nominated. All the while, they adopted this secret plan to world domination with the name "The Cookout."
   When the season passed the second half marker in mid-August, so started the process of filling up the beds of the jury house who would ultimately decide who wins at the end of the summer. The Cookout's alliance decided to team with different partners: Azah and Derek F. with Niagara Falls teacher Britini D'Angelo, Kyland with Floridian forensic scientist Sarah Beth Steagall, Hannah with New Yorker Derek Xiao, Tiffany with Claire, and Xavier with swimwear designer Alyssa Lopez from just outside Siesta Key in Sarasota, FL.
   Those who have been watching reality competition shows have witnessed dominant seasons by competitors and alliances throughout the course of their seasons (though, in the case of The Challenge - not always with the ultimate end result of winning it all -- ask the Gauntlet III vets or the War of the Worlds 2 U.S. team). But in the case of The Cookout, this might as well rank as the one of the greatest in reality TV history: nine times did they win challenges that determined Head of Household, had a hand in influencing almost every nomination and every eviction, and every one who was not part of their alliance were sent packing, including all five of those aforementioned partners.
Kyland, Tiffany, Hannah
and Derek X., with Todrick
Hall and Tamar Braxton (c)
   There was occasional tension among them as would be expected for living in such a widely-watched fishbowl that it is for a series long used to it being held in a bubble before it became part of American sports lexicon during this pandemic. But once Day 52 came about, Azah, Derek F., Kyland, Hannah, Tiffany and Xavier got together all alone in the same room for the first time, solidifying their alliance... and when Alyssa was given her eviction notice the following week, The Cookout confirmed not only their dominance of the summer of 2021 in Big Brother land, but also television history as well: one of them would be just the global franchise's second African-American winner after Tamar Braxton won Celeb Big Brother 2 two years ago.
   Whenever an alliance takes out all of their opponents on these shows, the tough task begins: having to make side deals within their group for the rest of the way in an ultimate game of who is truly loyal. First when Kyland became man in charge, his alliance with Frazier & the X-Man was kept in tact as he made Tiffany the first in the Cookout to leave the house evicted before the season's second Double Eviction. Azah took HOH, Ky won Power of Veto which saved X and Hannah joined the jury which ruffled his feathers a bit. Xavier won both HOH and POV in nominating both Ky and Azah and the former was evicted, before he defended HOH in taking out Azah and ultimately getting a much-belated $750,000 27th birthday present by way of a unanimous 9-0 jury vote.




In every way you can measure by their performance across the entire season, The Cookout achieved legendary status in the show's history... but just it has been the case throughout the long run of this show it hasn't always been smooth sailing. For many fans, they found their dominance just about the same way those in Challenge Nation have been feeling at times in recent times: predictable, uneventful, and even to the extent that the color of the other players' skin may have something to do with it... and talk of reverse racism filled the air the same way as the other way around in recent seasons.
   But given how those in the social universe reacted on night 65 with great joy, then having our first African-American winner of this show was the shot in the arm that this franchise most needed and deserved... and on the day after the finale, they sat down with Entertainment Tonight's Kevin Frazier.



As everyone knows, The Challenge began to invite Big Brother alumni to join the show starting with Vendettas in 2018, followed by the first U.S. season of MTV global hit Ex On The Beach. Natalie Negrotti and Victor Arroyo from Season 18 going onto the former, and fellow houseguest Paulie Califiore to the ladder (and the ensuing Final Reckoning) occurred well over a year before executives from Viacom and CBS sat town with the Redstone family to begin charting a course towards their eventual corporate reconciliation. They and their fellow alumni have also made their mark on MTV before and after the VCBS merger was made official... and that includes two other past Challengers.
   Last year during the midst of the pandemic, All-Stars deviated from a traditional season and brought together past houseguests back to the famed house, where Paulie's brother Cody returned to the show after he finished runner-up in 2014 and upgraded to the big prize in the end. But just before the BB22 house opened up, the Black Lives Matter protests took over the entire country during a most contentious summer, including the area in Hollywood where CBS Television City and studios for The Price is Right, James Corden's Late Late Show and others are recorded -- and farther away from where Big Brother is actually based at another CBS facility up in the San Fernando Valley.

Bayleigh and Da'Vonne, with BB21's David
Alexander (center) in All-Stars house
During All-Stars, the one who won our hearts was the one whose return to the house was so highly anticipated, we pretty much jumped for joy upon seeing her face on the premiere. Da'Vonne Rogers won everyone's hearts starting when she was a poker dealer and a mom to a baby daughter who moved into the Season 17 house in 2015, and then getting a second chance a year later on Season 18 with Paulie, Natalie, Victor and Champs vs. Stars' Jozea Flores. Her being able to tell what's going on with everything in the house and her bold personality made her an easy choice to get another chance in her own element just after bringing her talents to both Final Reckoning and War of the Worlds I, for which she was joined by the Nolan Twins, BB19 champ Josh Martinez, and Celeb BB icon Stephen Bear.
   In her third trip to the big house, Mama Day once again showed why she is so beloved by both fans of Big Brother and The Challenge as she settled beefs with Victor's wife, BB18 winner Nicole Franzel and Tyler Chrispen, and who went from being on the edge of being evicted to surviving that contentious vote. She would then do something she never got to do before of utilizing her skills from five previous times on a reality competition show (including CBS game show Candy Crush) to win a competition and gain HoH status and save Season 11's Kevin Campbell. But Day would ultimately get the boot shortly after as she finished 10th... but she won the votes of the public who named her America's Favorite Houseguest when it all ended deep into the autumn.
   Given that she's been an avid viewer of each and every season of the show since her first appearance six years ago, it was no surprise that Da'Vonne got to follow the progress of what would become one of the biggest moments Big Brother has ever seen, both on her couch and on Twitter.




So, it wasn't a surprise at all that Day paid a visit to a place that only those who do these show go to after the season wraps up -- and it's not even called Disneyland. Last year, we introduced everyone to Big Brother superfan Todrick Hall, who besides being one of the biggest icons of the LGBTQ+ community, also avidly watches the show and who got to meet the aforementioned Paulie before Cody, and who is also an MTV alum himself. And it's almost become just as big a tradition for houseguests to get to spend quality time with Toddy Rockstar.
   Earlier this month -- and just days after the historic finale on September 29, Todrick got to host America's newest darlings at his house... and Mama Day got to meet up with Tiffany, Hannah, Kyland and Derek X., and it was as if she and the alliance members had known each other all along.










Perhaps, Da'Vonne's biggest moment of her third Big Brother stint came when she opened up during the midst of the summer that changed everyone's feelings about the minority group that has been the most important of the past decade. One night last year, she got emotional about the times that she and the other notable houseguest to MTV viewers encountered with racism: Bayleigh Dayton followed in Day's lead in going from the summer house to The Challenge house when she competed on Total Madness alongside husband Chris "Swaggy C." Williams months prior to All-Stars, and made it to the final. Bay, too, also got to meet up with Hannah and Tiffany at Toddy's house.



Given how hugely invested everyone in the Big Brother community -- former houseguests and fans alike -- were captivated by the journey Azah, Derek F., Kyland, Hannah, Tiffany and Xavier all went on, it's no surprise that they have been feeling the love in the thirty-two days since that historic finale. The proof comes in them getting to meet those who've been through this ringer before in the week after they moved out of the house, and also Toddy himself as well as Tamar.













Big Brother has long been part of our American lexicon during the hottest of our four seasons, but for the past few years it has also represented both the best and the worst of this aspect of American life. It's often gotten those of us who follow reality TV 24/7 to serve as both viewers and armchair analysts on every aspect of the houseguests for around 100 days, and the actions of what has taken place in recent seasons no doubt put it in a bad light, especially when it comes to race among other things. Undoubtedly, those who produce this show and those at CBS did listen to all of our criticisms... and while it perhaps isn't 100% perfect they have improved quite considerably.
   But for every bad headline that plagues this show, the best things that come out of Big Brother comes when we all can have something good to talk about. Six strangers from different parts of the country -- the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and the West Coast -- came together in the same house in the heat of the summer, being instantly bonded by how similar they are and how mindful they were of both the show's history and of how they had a mission to rewrite history themselves. A show like this is always an individual game and where only one person goes home six figures richer, but here a well-executed team effort -- and a dominant one at best -- won out this time.
   Azah, Derek F., Kyland, Hannah, Tiffany and Xavier are now bonded for the rest of their lives by achieving their mission in giving Big Brother U.S. its first African-American winner... and when 2021 wraps up in three months from today, them making history will be on the shortlist of the biggest stories in the non-scripted television sphere. A dictionary definition on the word of the codename they used for this successful mission states, "a party or entertainment featuring the cooking and eating of a meal out of doors." Now, you can add another definition to the word "Cookout" -- making reality TV history in American television's most famous annual summer tradition.



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