How The Swiping Game Director Nia Nguyen Creates Space For Meaningful Representation

There’s a reason that the majority of your deep-and-meaningful conversations have taken place in your bedroom. You’re home, amongst your own stuff, in the place where you sleep, watch bad reality TV, and have sex. Bedrooms are our safe spaces and director-producer Nia Nguyen knew this when creating The Swiping Game series for SBS On Demand. 

From the intimacy of their bedrooms, a collection of Australians talk all things sex, relationships, dating, and love — and we get to watch. Based on the swiping of dating apps, the episodes are around 15 minutes long and hear a variety of people muse on the same topic. 

Whether it’s people sharing their thoughts on the fetishisation of Asian women in ‘What Is Yellow Fever?’ or dealing with sex and relationships as an asexual person, The Swiping Game asks the hard — and often taboo — questions. 

Aside from getting intimate with everyday Australians, The Swiping Game also sets a precedent for Australian TV.

Mainstream Australian television has attracted criticism for its white-washing of issues, and the Australian film and television industry has a long way to go until it’s truly diverse. However, SBS has set diversity targets and is actually reporting on progress, rather than performative gestures, to ensure everyone continues to recognise themselves and their communities on our TV screens.

According to Nguyen, almost 60% of contributors filmed in the four episodes are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, 5% are Indigenous Australians and nearly a quarter identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Ensuring true diversity, women and people of colour were also behind the camera as well as in front of it.

Refinery29 Australia sat down with first-time director and producer Nguyen to hear more about the development of the diverse series, The Swiping Game.

I’m glad I was asked to make the series because I got to hear about people’s sex lives. I’m nosy. But more seriously, I work with SBS Voices, a creative team within SBS that platforms the stories and talents of young, diverse Australians. We wanted to create a series that would allow us to explore topics that are relevant to people’s everyday lives but don’t often get talked about. Dating and looking for love is so universal that it was an obvious choice for us to focus on, especially with the popularity of dating apps.

Once we started to brainstorm topic ideas, we realised there was a limitless possibility with The Swiping Game. It was more a matter of choosing which topics to do first. We wanted to make sure the topics were relatable to a wide audience, challenging stereotypes and stigma, and platforming underrepresented voices while also including plenty of perspectives.

Both of the episodes What is Yellow Fever? and Love Me, Love My Anxiety go into areas that aren't often discussed publicly, like racial dating preferences and mental health. In the Is Sex a Dealbreaker? episode, we were able to include a variety of perspectives on asexuality. And, even if you don’t have kids, you probably know a parent who may never tell you the details of their dating life. In the episode Must Love Kids, we were glad to be able to spotlight single parents, especially because the pandemic has brought their daily juggle to the forefront.

Traditional casting methods haven’t worked for this series because, for so long, casting predominantly favoured white, straight people without disability. And people who don’t fall into these groups might feel they’ll be ignored even if they apply. People of colour, people with disability and those in the queer community have not traditionally been included in media. So I use a journalistic approach to make sure I find them. 

I also wanted to include humour as much as possible without taking away from the importance of the topics, so I tracked down some up-and-coming comedians to take part. Australia has so much great comedy talent that it surprises me to see very few opportunities on TV for them. It’s great to see comedians like Lizzy Hoo, who was in What is Yellow Fever?, more and more on the telly. While Kevin Jin, who features in a couple of our episodes, is now hosting a podcast with us about dating with anxiety. 

The bulk of the casting, though, is honestly rigorous work. There have been times when I’ve just wanted to give up and go with the easy option, but I remind myself each time to keep trying.

What I’ve found is that people are often so glad that someone wants to listen to their experiences. I think it’s human nature to want your experiences to be heard or, at least, see them reflected in media so that you don’t feel like you’re the only one going through it. 

The challenge is building trust as much as possible with our contributors while aiming to do justice in sharing their stories. When you give people the space to talk freely about their dating lives, especially in the sanctuary and safety of their bedroom, they can be very open. And the bedrooms are an incredible window into their personalities. I also think that, for some of our contributors, it was refreshing to be able to talk so freely about sex and relationships because it feels taboo to do so in our society. I’d like to think that people are watching our series and then comparing notes about sex and dating with their mates.

Diversity on and off-screen is really important to me so it’s been amazing to have the opportunity as a first-time director and producer to be able to live this. The sad thing for me is that I still think of it as an opportunity rather than a given. 

I had told myself back at uni that a Vietnamese girl growing up in the UK was never going to be a director so I should look at journalism as a ‘safer’ option. In the end, I couldn’t help pursuing TV.

With that came nearly a decade of projects where I’ve been the only non-white person on the team or, if there were a few others, being told I’ve helped fulfil the diversity quota, or seeing production leaders here and in the UK refuse to even consider a non-white or queer contributor to be included. Being able to platform diverse people, particularly from marginalised and underrepresented backgrounds, is at the core of SBS Voices and something that aligns with my own values.

I think Australia is definitely changing for the better in terms of representation but progress is still slow. I was amazed by SBS’s first home-grown historical drama New Gold Mountain last year, which put the spotlight on the Chinese experience of Australia’s gold rush. In February, SBS released new equity and inclusion guidelines for our TV shows. The aim is to create a more level playing field for people from under-represented backgrounds, to ensure everyone who wants to participate in this industry has equal opportunity to do so. We’re proud to work towards these goals on The Swiping Game. 

We hope the series is entertaining, helps expose people to different perspectives on a social topic and normalises conversations about sex and dating. A contributor in Is Sex a Deal-breaker? has a great list of suggestions to spice up your sex life. You're welcome! Also, if we can positively change any misconceptions along the way, that’s a plus.