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The Traitors is all anyone can talk about – and not always for the right reasons. The latest series is facing accusations of unconscious bias, as Judy, a 60-year-old Child Liaison Officer from Doncaster, was the first to be banished from the castle.
She was targeted by Sam, who launched a pretty hardcore attack, leading 17 people to vote her out. Their reasoning? Kind of unclear. “Can we just have one season without unconscious racial bias? Because there’s absolutely nothing about Judy in one episode that justifies the traitors gunning for her,” one fan noted on X.
Here, we revisit Glamour Contributor Chloe Laws' op-ed on unconscious bias in The Traitors…
Let me start by saying that I am one of the biggest The Traitors fans going. The show, which began in November 2022, has been a highlight of my winter for the last three years. I’ve thrown viewing parties, spent hours discussing it with friends, and generally consider myself number one in the Claudia Winkleman fan club.
For the uninitiated, The Traitors is a reality TV version of games like Mafia or Werewolf. The majority of the players are “the faithful,” who are trying to work together to win a big cash prize, while between one and four of them – “the traitors” – are secretly sabotaging the group, aiming to steal the cash for themselves.
Each of the UK version’s four seasons (plus last year's Celebrity rendition) has gripped the nation. The first episode of season four was watched by a mind-boggling 6.9 million viewers.
But despite my love for The Traitors, it is by no means a perfect show. Every season, the contestants make judgments, assumptions and banishments that are laden with social bias and prejudice. This isn’t necessarily their fault; it’s a symptom of the society we live in. Most of the contestants, I’m sure, are good and kind people. But in group scenarios – namely the roundtables – internalised misogyny, ageism, and racial prejudice can often come to the forefront.
Expect the unexpected this season, including a war between Traitors.
It was the same story in season three, when viewers watched with dismay as Dr Kasim Ahmed was wrongly accused and targeted by the group. On TikTok, creator Caz Simone commented, “I think there’s an element of micro-aggressive behaviour and subconscious/unconscious bias,” adding, “I’m not saying outright racism, but it’s about how we’ve been brought up in society to perceive what is trustworthy and what is not… To me, it was so obvious [Kas] was a faithful. A lot of other people were acting much shadier than Freddie and Kas.”
This wasn't the first time we saw people of colour being targeted and banished with no clear basis for such accusations. In season two, Jaz Singh – nicknamed Jazatha Christie by fans – was the only player to suspect traitor Harry Clark (who went on to win). Yet Jaz was banished in the final three and repeatedly accused of being a traitor throughout the game.
Writing about season two, Ranuli Jayawardhana observed: “At the round tables, I noted that the contestants deemed ‘most suspicious’ or having ‘behaved like traitors’ were usually people of colour, such as Jaz and Antony.”
Similarly, during season two, host Claudia Winkleman herself called out the pattern of targeting women as “problematic.” In that season, traitors Paul, Harry, and Miles conspired early on to banish Ash, the only female traitor, in one of the roundtable discussions. Fans labelled this behaviour a “boys’ club.” Last season, producers, contestants and Winkleman have made conscious efforts to shift this dynamic, selecting all women, Linda (70), Armani (27), and Minah (29) as the original traitors. This was a welcome change from the previous year.
Still, gendered bias persisted. Last season, Jake Brown declared, “It can’t all be women,” as the faithful tried to identify the remaining traitors. Of course, it can be all women – and, in this case, it was.
What's next for our Traitors?
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In one particularly shocking moment from season one, Nicky (45) was voted off and accused of being a traitor. The reason? She didn’t raise her drink to cheers – despite having lost her hand in a car accident at the age of 22. On The Traitors US season two, the first player eliminated was Peppermint, a trans woman known for her appearance on RuPaul’s Drag Race. She later said she was targeted for being “the most different.”
Ultimately, I’m not pointing fingers at individual contestants on The Traitors. What’s important is that viewers recognise how unconscious bias shapes our opinions and decisions about people. What makes someone seem “untrustworthy”? Is it their differences – their gender, race, or age? Ultimately, recognising and confronting the prejudices we’ve internalised is the first step towards making society a fairer place – both on reality TV and in the real world.
Social media detectives to the rescue.
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