Summer House is going to the cottage

Just as Summer House is entering the filming phase for the follow-up to what can only be described as the most chaotic season the show has ever seen, announcements are dropping left, right and centre about what is to come of the cast – and where the show is headed next.

With regards to the cast, it doesn’t come as a shock that the two biggest sh-t disturbers of the last season, Amanda Batula and West Wilson, what with their secret romance and all, which I originally wrote about here, are not returning. Instead, Kyle Cooke, Carl Radke, Lindsay Hubbard, Jesse Solomon, Mia Calabrese, KJ Dillard and Bailey Taylor will be the main focus of the show, with Ciara Miller appearing intermittently throughout the season.

But with regards to where the show is headed next, apparently, it’s up north, to Canada. Muskoka, Ontario, to be exact. For those who are unfamiliar with what is arguably one of the most famous cottage destinations in Canada – (which, how could you still be unfamiliar after its feature in Heated Rivalry?) Muskoka is just as gorgeous as it is elite.

When I say elite, I mean, it’s a hot spot for celebrities. Cindy Crawford, Goldie Hawn and family, Shania Twain and fellow Bravolebrity Lisa Rinna and her husband Harry Hamlin all have properties in Muskoka. As an aside, it’s also the site of Kevin O’Leary’s notorious 2019 fatal boating accident – which, might I add, is a rabbit hole totally worth going down if you want to see how insanely rich people engage in litigation.

So we’ve got a picturesque location north of the border, a variety of stunning properties that could be selected as the new home base for the cast. But that begs the question – what does a Canadian cast even look like? Especially considering that for the most part, we hadn’t even really heard of a lot of the stars on Summer House until they were on Summer House. And it’s anyone’s guess the kind of cast they’re looking for as they bring the show up north. 

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned. Muskoka is already an overwhelmingly white region. According to the stats, over 80% of year-round residents identify as being European with primarily English, Scottish, and Irish backgrounds. This is almost the exact same case for Southampton, New York, where the U.S. cast films. But this leaves castmates of colour, if there will be any, that is, vulnerable to some of the unpleasant experiences we’ve seen on the show.

Cottage rental hopefuls have expressed some serious plights in trying to book cottages if they are non-white. There have been so many cases of people being denied bookings by homeowners because they were part of a minority ethnic group. Some of this experience was documented on TikTok by a Black woman named Augustina who was told by a homeowner that they “love renting to normal, traditional Canadian families.” The landlord followed up with: “I’m bit of a racist...I’m a bit of a racist, I don’t care.” Needless to say, Muskoka is doing a ton of work – or at least appears to be doing a ton of work – to try to combat the region’s reputation for being unwelcoming to minorities.

I imagine the need for that work has been further exacerbated by the surge in interest thanks to the region’s feature in Heated Rivalry. It was inevitable. Any shows that spotlight picturesque locations tend to deal with a surge in travellers, visitors and real estate investors alike. I mean, ten seconds into Virgin River and I was Googling my life away looking at home prices in British Columbia. No longer are these picturesque pockets of land some best kept secret. They are now on a much larger stage to a much larger and more diverse group of people.

Part of me wonders if this is a strategic move by the producers in search of a similar storyline to what we saw this season on Summer House in the U.S. Some of the most talked about episodes from this past season were about the moments of vulnerability shared by cast members like Ciara, KJ and Mia, who all vocalized the experiences they had as Black people on the show, or in Southampton, or dating, or in general. I, personally, would be very interested to hear what those experiences sound like for Black Canadians in cottage country.

But then we run into the issue of exploiting Black pain. Because when white people are cast on shows like these, there isn’t even remotely an expectation that they might have to discuss their experiences with racism because it’s just not part of their lived experiences the way it is for Black people.

Besides all of this – the main question is whether the show will fail or succeed. And given how many attempts there have been to bring American culture, shows, products and chains to Canada, it’s truly anyone’s guess. But there does seem to be an assumption that Canada is another version of America. But that assumption can be costly.

Look what happened when Target tried to sink its teeth into the Canadian market. It failed miserably. The expansion was too rushed. There were issues with the supply chain. And most importantly, there was no adaptation to the Canadian market. French Canadians didn’t have access to bilingual packaging, and some products hadn’t been certified by the Canadian Standards Association. As this article succinctly puts it – Target failed because it wasn’t the U.S. Target.

Despite one being a business and the other being a show, a source of entertainment if you will, the potential for failure stems from the exact same thing, a failure to adapt. So I’m hoping that the network isn’t just sending a team of American producers up here to try to get the lay of the land. I hope that people are all doing their due diligence to understand the culture, the history and the communities throughout Muskoka.

If this is done well, and I mean really done right, it could be a huge deal for Canadian reality TV. Look how many spinoffs we’ve seen come from other shows on the network. Can you imagine a Canadian version of In The City? To see Canadian landmarks and perhaps run into a filming crew on Yonge Street? Historically, Canadians have always got the short end of the stick – but perhaps this is indicating that the neighbours to the north can be just as interesting and bring just as much drama as our friends down south.