GBBO Is Ending Its Nationality Theme Weeks Due To Racism Accusations
"The Great British Bake Off" is widely revered as one of the best comfort shows on TV, a gentle competition where everyone seems to genuinely like and support each other. Unfortunately, it's also long been viewed as having problems with racism and cultural insensitivity, specifically related to its theme weeks. But there's good news for anyone who had to hear people on the show pronounce "taco" — "GBBO" is ending some of its theme weeks for Season 14 explicitly in response to these issues.
The show isn't ending all of its thematic episodes — bread week generally hasn't landed them in hot water, for example, so that's still on. But after last year's absolute debacle of "Mexican Week," the backlash was apparently so significant that the show finally decided to call it quits on international or cultural themes. It makes sense, though: the hosts showed up to the intro bit in sombreros and serapes, then kicked things off by saying, "We shouldn't make jokes about Mexico" (indicating they knew there was an issue here) before ... making a joke about Mexico. It didn't get any better during the episode itself when contestants and judges alike repeatedly butchered the pronunciations of "guacamole" and "pico de gallo" (and one peeled an avocado as though they'd never seen one before). It's not surprising people weren't thrilled.
GBBO has a history of problematic incidents
But while "Mexican Week" was the most glaring and well-known example of the show's flaws when it comes to presenting certain international cuisines, it's hardly the only example. "Japan Week," which aired during Season 11, featured primarily Chinese and Korean ingredients, and in Season 9, the show repeatedly referred to naan as "naan bread."
Nor is the problem even limited to theme weeks; "GBBO" has a perplexing history of featuring Jewish baked goods. Unlike the well-known nationality theme week issue, it seems that the show rarely acknowledges the existence of Jewish culture at all. During a Season 5 episode, bakers made challah and never once acknowledged its origins or even its name, referring to it instead as a "plaited loaf." Then, in Season 8, they actually did acknowledge babka's Jewish roots — but only one week earlier, they neglected to mention the origins of bagels, one of the most iconic Jewish foods in existence.
It's unclear who has been calling the shots at "The Great British Baking Show" or why they've so consistently decided to make these kinds of choices about representing international cuisines. With the end of theme weeks (and with a new host replacing Matt Lucas), at least part of that problem seems to have been mitigated, though the show still has a long way to go.