What does the documented social experiment tell us about our lives?
Since its first episode in 2022, the BBC One show ‘The Traitors’ has captivated the British public with its conniving, backstabbing and extremely treacherous gameplay. The show has had 7 spin-offs from the original Dutch series ‘De Verraders’, including in the US, UK and Australia.
The show takes the usual setup of a gameshow, where contestants complete tasks to add to the prize pot, and at the end of every episode someone is eliminated – a common convention of reality or gameshow TV.
Where The Traitors differs from the conventional game show is in four significant ways. First, the ‘murder’ of other players is undertaken by those chosen to be traitors. Secondly, the ‘round table’ puts all players up for ‘banishment’, where those accused of being the traitors are attacked and scrutinised, often with little proof. Third, that it blends an aspect of reality show with traditional challenge shows. Finally, that trust in other players that is the most essential trait for the show – more than Love Island or Big Brother. Traitors is a show where the audience at home have no say in the action – we cannot vote players off. So, the players of the game must gain each others trust to remain in.
As such, the show sets itself up to create a level of distrust between the players – merely because it is these inter-player relationships that matter the most. The show loses the sense of playing for the audience that shows like Love Island have and refuses to use the panopticon-esq style of Big Brother. The players of The Traitors don’t need to be liked – at least not by the audience.
This distrust means players are often unfairly attacked, such as the recent comment that by a fellow player that faithful Kasim Ahmed would be the ultimate traitor, a Harold Shipman-esque doctor by day and killer by night.The comment was a difficult thing to watch – knowing that Kasim’s attack was unfounded. The personal and emotional attacks are however essential to the show. The traitors would not work if faithfuls only voted for the people who were actually betraying them. The high emotional stakes and accusatory rants are exactly what makes the show so entertaining to watch as players attempt to grasp onto straws to find the traitors.
When players do trust each other, the result is uncomfortable. The winner of UK S2, Harry Clarky, pulled off the ultimate betrayal of trust when he revealed to his fellow player that he was in fact a traitor, despite promising he was not, and winning the £95,150.
In a similar win, traitors US S1 winner Cirie Fields won $250,000 by making her two fellow finalists trust her to the point where they ignored all obvious implication that something was off in the shows finale. Both cases involved betrayal, but Cirie’s gameplay has been unmatched in a season since. Despite this, Cirie has expressed the uncomfortable truth of winning the game in an interview with Vulture stating how after her win ‘I felt bad too! My mind wasn’t, “Enjoy this moment.” My mind was like, “Damn, these people are hurt.”
When watching this unfold, it was clear that the reaction to Cirie’s win by her fellow players was upset, hurt and betrayal – they felt cheated.
Yet, they signed up for a show called ‘The Traitors’. What we – and the contestants – seem to forget is that the players have only known each other for 2 or 3 weeks. Why should they care about the stakes of people they barely know – and why do so many ‘faithfuls’ trust so easily and get so hurt when they are betrayed?
For the show to work, a traitor almost always makes it to the final – when a traitor wins, and because the audience knows, there is a desire to reach into our TV’s and scream ‘no!!! she’s a traitor’. We as the audience act as the ‘faithful’, and we are upset that someone has won the very game everyone knew they were playing by lying and deceiving those around them.
The show then can reflect us in two ways – first that we can be too trustworthy, that we are prone to follow the herd and that often when under pressure unable to see the truth that is right in front of us. But, it also reflects the ability of so many regular people to lie and deceive when something significant (like a lot of money) is at stake.
What makes the traitors such a wonderful show – and what made Cirie such a wonderful traitor – is that it is as ruthless and backstabbing as it is heartwarming and caring. The traitors flips expectations, relationships and all that we know on its head and provides a thrilling and entertaining watch along the way.