Reality TV is opening a window to the Caribbean

As a reality TV junkie who frequents carnivals throughout the Caribbean, it has always seemed like such a missed opportunity to not have some sort of reality series dedicated to showcasing the fascinating elements of the festivities. 

Carnival has all of the ingredients for good TV: divine costume artistry, world-class parties and DJs, men and women so attractive they give the Love Island cast a run for their money, and an ungodly amount of alcohol, which tends to result in the kind of messy moments that (problematically) fuel reality television. So it’s always been a wonder why no one has cooked something up.

Over the years, shows like WAGS and the most recent season of Real Housewives of Atlanta have made efforts to expose their audiences to carnival. A few years ago on WAGS, Trinidadian cast member Sasha Gates invited the women to her family’s homeland to experience what’s been dubbed “the greatest show on earth”. And on Real Housewives of Atlanta, the cast headed to Grenada, known as the Spice Isle, to experience Spicemas. The episodes documenting these trips showed North American audiences something we haven’t necessarily seen so close up on reality TV before: Caribbean culture personified. So you can imagine the sheer joy so many people belonging to the Caribbean diaspora felt when it was announced that a show called Carnival Catwalk would be premiering on Peacock. 

On the surface, the show is about a group of designers from a wide range of creative backgrounds being given different carnival-themed design challenges. At the heart of it, though, is thoughtful storytelling, putting a spotlight on the richness of Caribbean culture and heritage. And the story of how it snagged a coveted spot on Peacock illuminates a bit more why shows like this are so hard to come by in the North American market. 

I spoke to executive producer Rome Precilla, who explained the intent of Carnival Catwalk:

“A lot of people don’t know that carnival is more than just bikinis, beads, and a street party. There are so many more elements that make up carnival. Through the show, I wanted to teach people all the different elements of our carnival and inspire the fashion, immersing them in J’ouvert, steelpan, and Moko Jumbies.”

Prior to executive producing this new series, Rome was signed onto VH1’s Girls Cruise as the ‘Fun Director’ for four seasons until the show was cancelled during the pandemic. There, he took celebrities including Lil Kim, Mya and Chilli to their first Trinidad carnival, and realized there was a huge appetite to experience the uniqueness of carnival. He says incorporating Caribbean history and storytelling was paramount to Carnival Catwalk:

“The contestants are not from Trinidad, so they don’t understand the culture, they don’t understand carnival. So we wanted to make sure they experienced a taste of carnival to get them the inspiration they need to make high-fashion wear.”

This show, which made history as the first English-speaking reality TV series created and produced in Trinidad & Tobago acquired by a major U.S. streaming network, looks at the journey of designers when creating carnival-themed pieces. Imagine Project Runway, but island style. 

There are actually quite a few aspects of Carnival Catwalk that are reminiscent of Project Runway, like the fact that it’s a competition series, which always ups the ante. It also features former Project Runway winner, Trinidadian-born Anya Ayoung-Chee, who claimed the coveted title on season 9 thanks to her rich designs. 

Rome describes facing a lot of adversity in trying to land a network or streaming service to air the show on. Despite filming and producing the show in Trinidad, his goal was to get it on a U.S. network, but with only a quarter of the funding he and his team needed, the odds were not in his favour:

“This entire thing was bootstrapped. I mortgaged my property to get this show off the ground. I had to get people to believe in it, so I was telling them, ‘Listen, we’re gonna create this reality TV show and it’s gonna end up on a huge streaming platform in the U.S.’”

But Rome didn’t have the contacts to make that happen without a fight. After scouring the internet for network executives with some sort of tie to the Caribbean, a series of email connections eventually landed him in the office of a Netflix executive, and she explained that despite really loving the concept of the show, it wasn’t in her jurisdiction to give the green light to because Trinidad fell under the Latin American division of Netflix. And officials from the Latin American side informed her they weren’t looking for English content, they wanted Spanish content.

To be clear, this was more than a hurdle. It’s a clear example of how places like the Caribbean continue to be disenfranchised from other regions, leading to a devastating geographical marginalization in TV production. It’s no secret that the Caribbean is often considered at least a part of Latin America – but to not have a designated Caribbean segment means that without changes made to how producers can pitch their shows, show creators will continue to face the same adversity Rome did. 

Despite success in finally getting the show a home, the way forward is one that needs to be looked at with cautious optimism – particularly if history is any indicator of the show’s fate. Since 2020 and the emphasis that year placed on DEI efforts, we’ve seen a swath of shows be greenlit, only to be cancelled rather quickly thereafter. I wrote more about that here.

The process Rome went through was not for the weak. And he was determined to see it through because he’s intent on paving the way for other Caribbean producers to have an easier time than he did landing their shows on North American TV. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for throwing in the towel at any point in time during what, by all measures, is a very arduous journey. 

Rome’s ultimate goal for the show is to take it beyond Trinidad and to the rest of the Caribbean, to profile different carnivals, different designers, and of course, to explore the many sub-cultures and traditions across the many islands.

“The intention of the show is to take it from one carnival to the next. There are carnivals all over the world that were inspired by Trinidad. Jamaica, Notting Hill, Spicemas. There are different carnivals that all have their own unique thing about it,” Rome said. “We really want to show that to the world.”

There’s a lot riding on the success of this show – but as we know, the only thing that really matters to the people in charge in the end are the numbers. So I’m hoping that reality TV fans, carnival-goers, fashion aficionados, competition-show lovers and everyone in between will dive deep into this series and skyrocket it to the levels of success and viewership a concept like this deserves.