EastEnders does not offer a realistic portrayal of working-class life and is not as multicultural as the real East End of London, its boss has admitted.Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather!
"It's not realistic in that respect but you look for an emotional truthfulness," he told the Radio Times.That’s a good one, ‘emotional truthfulness’. That’s going up there with ‘fake, but accurate’…
He said the BBC One soap "may be significantly white compared with the real East End".
But he added that it was "considerably more multicultural than it was even five years ago and is easily the most multicultural show on telly now".We’re number one! Yay!
The magazine also interviewed Coronation Street executive producer Kieran Roberts.Note the ‘especially’.
He said the long-running ITV1 soap presented "a warm and cosy version of the world" but added "it's a community that's sufficiently real and sufficiently recognisable that people are drawn to it."
On the soap's ethnic mix, he said he felt they were getting it "about right".
"I'd be very worried if viewers - especially viewers from ethnic minorities - were saying they didn't think the show represented them fully."
So, all you hairdressers, garage mechanics and butchers, don’t bother writing in to complain about your portrayal as bimbos, dim bulbs and losers – it won’t hold a candle to any complaint from an Asian viewer wondering why Dev Alahan is a corner-shop entrepreneur….
On "excessively white" soap-operas.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall a blog recently (not sure which) that discussed the 'diversity issue' in TV dramas - and the difficulty of ensuring no 'VEM' character was portrayed as evil, stupid, incompetent, or callous (OR got bumped off for no apparent reason)
So significantly white is down the scale a bit from hideously white, but not as good as moderately white. Got to keep that multi-culti balance going.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I've just got out of the bath so I'm considerably pink.
What about David Walliams and Matt Lucas' 'Come fly with me'.
ReplyDeleteDiversity by the bucket load, or is that not what they meant.
"...and the difficulty of ensuring no 'VEM' character was portrayed as evil, stupid, incompetent, or callous (OR got bumped off for no apparent reason)"
ReplyDelete'Midsomer Murders'..? ;)
"Personally, I've just got out of the bath so I'm considerably pink."
:D
"What about David Walliams and Matt Lucas' 'Come fly with me'.
Diversity by the bucket load, or is that not what they meant."
Ooooh, I suspect not!
I strongly suspect that all the TV satellite dishes in the, er, non-white areas of my town are pointed skyward not to gather Corrie reruns or EastEnder agonies, but to collect programmes from 'home' countries that feature no whites at all.
ReplyDeleteI doubt if your average 'slim watches much British TV. They may even not bother paying any licence for all I know.