The British Tribe Next Door is a racist cringe-fest – but reality TV aims to offend these days

The new show, which sees reality star Scarlett Moffatt live with a Namibian tribe, is gimmicky and offensive, writes Ed Power – but so it goes on reality TV

New series 'The British Tribe Next Door' is Channel 4 at its gimmicky worst (David Bloomer)

Since time immemorial, the Himba tribe have tended cattle on the arid plains of northern Namibia, handing down their peripatetic lifestyle from generation to generation. It is a sometimes challenging existence. But their forefathers would no doubt be chuffed to know that all along, this existence had a grander purpose: to provide Gogglebox celebrity Scarlett Moffatt with invaluable life lessons concerning shoe-ownership and body image.

Moffatt’s new Channel 4 reality lark, The British Tribe Next Door, sees her moving lock, stock and vast high-heel collection to Namibia with her parents and sister. A replicate of their County Durham house has even been erected bang in the centre of a Himba settlement. And thus, we come to the emotional centrepiece of the first episode, as a Himba woman gazes at Moffatt’s mountain of designer clogs and wonders why her new bestie needs so many material possessions.

Moffatt immediately wells up. An uncomplicated daughter of the soil – such is how her new acquaintance is framed by Channel 4 – has delivered a folksy yet invaluable truth: possessions aren’t everything.

If you think we’ve reached the most offensive moment as The British Tribe Next Door announces itself, clearly you have never experienced Channel 4 at its gimmicky worst (it’s hard to believe this is the same channel patting itself on the back over its superior news coverage). The Himba are, we discover, astonished by mirrors, cannot understand how stairs work exactly and gaze at an English breakfast the way you or I would a buffet of deep-fried wildebeest testicles.

Moffatt and the fam are theoretically the outsiders here. Yet it’s the Himba who are reduced to an infantile “other”, scraping by simply to share their peasant wisdom with spiritually malnourished westerners. One of the key plot lines set up in the opening instalment concerns Moffatt’s younger sister Ava-Grace, and her stereotypical “first world problem” of phone addiction. Will extended time with the Himba remind her there is more to life than selfies and WhatsApp? Or will the Himba end up obsessively playing Candy Crush and posting to Instagram Stories? At the risk of spoiling the show, I think we all know how this one is going to play out.

Moffatt is never less than likeable, but crikey she’s embroiled herself in the mother of all controversies. The British Tribe Next Door is in the process of burning social media to the ground. People are taking to Twitter to express outrage at a series that leans so far into inherently racist tropes – the pampered yet esoterically impoverished westerner contrasted with the primitive but wise African – that you can almost hear its vertebrate snap.

So it goes on reality television nowadays. The genre is locked in an arms race where the ultimate goal is a concept so absurd and/or offensive that having an opinion on it is mandatory. Never mind The X Factor desperately trying to reclaim its relevance by marching in a bus-load of fading celebs. Send Scarlett Moffatt to Africa and Channel 4 couldn’t get off the front pages if it wanted to.

The British Tribe Next Door isn’t the only series to benefit from this strategy of provocation. Hours before it aired, Caroline Flack was forced to defend her upcoming ITV reality offering, The Surjury (no, that isn’t a typo). Here, members of the public essentially audition before a panel of experts for the chance to undergo a cosmetic procedure.

The premise was likened to a creepy Black Mirror plot by The Good Place star Jameela Jamil. And at least one cosmetic surgeon has revealed he declined to be involved due to ethical concerns. Flack pushed back on Twitter – the goal was to honestly tell people’s stories, she said – and the mildest of dust-ups with Jamil ensued.

The pushback may have been stressful for the presenter. But it’s hard to imagine anyone upstairs at C4 was unduly miffed. A few days ago, none of us had heard of The Surjury (because there’s a “jury” – eh, get it?). Now, it is guaranteed to be written and tweeted about incessantly ahead of its expected early 2020 transmission date.

Reality TV has always been moderately unhinged. Until recently, though, the bonkers end of the genre was a largely American phenomenon. As far back as 2004, the Fox network debuted The Swan, an “extreme” makeover show where the makeovers extended to plastic surgery. Of course, the world in general was a far calmer place 15 years ago. As the craziness in our politics and everywhere else has cranked up, so reality television has worked hard to keep pace.

Thus, in this age of Donald Trump, never-ending Brexit and roaming Twitterstorms, the only way for reality TV to break through is by going up, up and beyond. As ever, when it comes to pressing our outrage buttons, Channel 4 is out front. Not content with parachuting lovely Scarlett Moffat into an implicitly racist cringe-fest, it is counting down to Meat the Family, which will see volunteers encouraged to eat their pets.

Mercifully – but also slightly disappointingly – nobody is going to be shown poaching pooches or wedging a gerbil into the George Foreman. Rather, devoted meat eaters will be invited to bond with a lamb, pig, chicken or calf. Three weeks later, they will decide whether to bung it in the oven or send it to an animal sanctuary.

C4 has sought the high ground by pitching Meat the Family as a rumination on the implicit hypocrisy governing our everyday relationship with fellow living things. The idea is to encourage some overdue soul-searching by that devoted dog or cat lover who will, without blinking, cheerfully tuck in at Nando’s. Won’t someone think of the chicken, etc.

Controversial TV series ‘Meat the Family’ is designed to drum up shock and outrage (Channel 4)

But while this lofty(ish) purpose is no doubt part of the calculation, it would be naive to think that the channel isn’t also hoping to drum up shock and outrage – and free publicity. In a way, this continued coarsening of reality television mirrors the downward direction of our politics. Much as Donald Trump has set an example for foaming-at-the-chops Brexiteers, so British broadcasters are taking their anything-goes cues from across the pond.

The home of the brave is also the home of bonkers reality TV. This is the nation that gave us Best Funeral Ever (work it out for yourself), Vanilla Ice Goes Amish (what it says on the tin) and more recently, 60 Days In, where volunteers are sent undercover for two months to a jail. Nobody on the inside knows their real identity, even though some of the participants are nominally celebs (eg the daughter of Muhammad Ali).

Given 60 Days In’s solid ratings, one imagines it will only be a matter of time before the format is transposed to Britain. Moffatt would be advised to make the most of her African odyssey. If Channel 4 has its way, her next project could be Strangeways, Here She Comes.