Is HGTV perpetuating colonialism?

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Andy Dehnart
Apr. 26, 2023, 6:30 pm

HGTV is heading to Zambia for its next renovation series, Renovation Wild. A press release sent Tuesday announced that the show will be “the network’s first ever Africa-based series.”

Its stars, Grant and Lynsey Cumings, look a lot like most of HGTV’s other stars, which is to say: very, very white.

They may be very nice people! And the show may be very interesting. But for a show set in Zambia—and the first Africa-set show for one of the United States’ largest cable channels—this seemed like a curious choice.

That’s because, as of 2014, “white people make up less than 40,000 of Zambia’s 13 million-strong population,” the BBC News reported. That’s 0.3 percent of the population.

That disconnect prompted me to post a photo and the show’s title to Twitter. My friend Damian Holbrook from TV Guide Magazine offered a succinct summary in the form of a perhaps more-accurate title: “Construct It or Colonize It”?

Is a show about white people running a safari operation just perpetuating colonialism? Is HGTV reinforcing stereotypes about African nations by titling the show “Renovation Wild”? Let’s explore.

HGTV says Renovation Wild, which premieres May 15, “will chronicle the incredible journey” of Grant and Lynsey Cumings, who will “work arm-in-arm with their right-hand man and project manager, Ngoli, and resort manager, Juliet, to take on the challenges of renovating in a remote locale.”

Ngoli and Juliet are only mentioned once in the press release, and HGTV did not send a press photo of them. They are clearly not the stars of the show, and are not even mentioned in the first episode’s description.

In the press release, Grant is quoted talking about his life: “I was born here in Zambia, our safari lodges are here and we’re raising our family here, so everything is on the line. And it’s survival of the fittest out there.”

According to the website of Chiawa Safaris, which Grant and Lynsey own, they “oversee Chiawa Camp’s day to day operations from Lusaka,” which is 225 kilometers away from the camp, or about a six-hour drive.

What I found most interesting about the website was the About Chiawa Safaris page, which gives a detailed history of the Cumings’ family’s time in Africa. They “are 5th generation Africans”—and I’m quoting here from the website—and their family has a “rich sense of history.”

That history includes the following things their relatives did:

• “heading for the gold and diamond fields of South Africa in 1898”
• “spent his time fighting for the British”
• “became a diamond buyer for De Beers”
• “grew up in South Africa’s mining fields and who went on to become one of South Africa’s authorities on gold mining”

“finally settled on the Lower Zambezi to put down their safari roots, a place of refuge and solitude, an untamed place of raw beauty set on the banks of the Zambezi River, where there was no one else. Just them, and the animals”

One of the camps that’s being renovated on HGTV opened in 1991, and the history says that “guests had the privilege of enjoying this wilderness all to themselves and becoming part of history in being the first tourists to explore and enjoy this wilderness.”

All of this seemed to scream “colonialism” to me.

While I do know that Zambia has hosted reality TV before—the very first leg of The Amazing Race season 1 took teams to Zambia for the show’s first-ever challenge—I am not an expert on Zambia. So I interviewed someone who is.