Framing The Fosters: jokes, racism and Black and Asian voices in British comedy television

This chapter interrogates the relationship between television comedy, power and racial politics in post-war Britain. In a period where Black and Asian Britons were forced to negotiate racism as a day-to-day reality, the essay questions the role played by television comedy in reflecting and shaping British multicultural society. Specifically, this chapter probes Black and Asian agency in comedy production, questioning who the joke makers were and what impact this had on the development of comedy and its reception. The work of scholars of Black and Asian comedy television such as Sarita Malik, and of Black stand-up comedy such as Stephen Small, has helped us to understand that Black- and Asian-led British comedy emerged belatedly in the 1980s and 1990s, hindered by the historical underrepresentation of these communities in British cultural production and the disinclination of British cultural leaders to address this problem. This chapter uses these scholarly frames of reference, alongside research that addresses the social and political functions of comedy, to re-open the social history of Black British communities in post-war Britain through the story of sitcom.

Black British drama, losses and gains: the case of Shoot the Messenger

This chapter contributes to the debates around television drama and black representation that are presented in this book collection. It focuses on Shoot the Messenger (STM) (BBC2, 2006), which was heavily promoted by the BBC as a ‘bold’ and ‘thought-provoking’ television drama. The one-off ninety-minute BBC Drama production focuses on the psychological journey of a Black schoolteacher, Joe Pascale (portrayed by David Oyelowo), accused of assaulting a Black male pupil. This chapter discusses how stylistically, STM’s non-realist techniques, non-linear form and overt constructedness depart from the traditional modes of social realism that have prevailed in Black British television drama. Moreover, it breaks with British television drama traditions in terms of production, having an almost totally Black cast and written and produced by two Black women: Sharon Foster and Ngozi Onwurah respectively.

Scheduling race

This chapter argues, following Garnham’s lead, that the scheduling of ‘minority programming’ and the commitment to finding, or rather, creating audiences for this type of programming is a much more crucial moment in the cultural process than receiving the commission to make the programme in the first place. The relatively small amount of research literature stresses the process of scheduling as an ‘art form’, or as Jonathan Ellis puts it, the last creative act. But this chapter goes further and emphasises the ideological role of scheduling – specifically in relation to the representation of racialised minorities. Using a case study of British South Asian television workers reflecting on their experience of scheduling, the narrative demonstrates how this consideration is neglected and particularly opaque within a stage of production that has a determining effect on the recognition and representation of minorities on television.

Myth of a multicultural England in BBC’s Luther

This chapter critiques the representation of Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) characters on Luther in the historical context of racism within the British police forces, particularly the Metropolitan Police Service (Met). Using social and cultural historical methodologies informed by British cultural and media studies, the chapter argues that, even though Luther has been lauded for positive representations of race, the show actually conforms to a multicultural paradigm, which has matured from the 1980s, that privileges assimilation, the tokenization of racialized ‘others’ and masks the continued marginalization of Black Britons. On 4 May 2010, Luther premiered on BBC One to mixed reviews. Anchored by Elba playing the titular John Luther, the show was a new twist on a comfortable English television standard: the detective series. In the Telegraph review of the first episode, Serena Davies praises Elba’s acting, but highlight’s Luther’s lack of originality. ‘It is formulaic… Its ‘big idea’ is that we know the killer from the start of each episode – something Columbo did for decades... His team think he’s unreliable but keep him on because of his brilliant criminal intuition (see also Wallander, Cracker, and Prime Suspect).’

The iconic ghetto on British television: Black representation and Top Boy

The chapter explores the importance of the concept of the iconic ghetto, examining its discursive importance in reproducing racism. It has particular resonance given that the majority of black people live in concentrated areas of urban centres and therefore how they are represented to the broader society through the media has major consequences. The essay develops a critical discourse analysis of Top Boy to understand how the iconic ghetto is reproduced throughout the show. From this analysis, the basis of the iconic ghetto that was portrayed throughout the show becomes apparent and is captured in the number of themes explored including the proliferation of poverty, crime and violence agency, a lack of female and agency and ultimately blaming the black communities for the problems the show exaggerates.

A little Brit different? BBC America and transnational constructs of Britishness

This chapter examines how BBCA has represented contemporary Britain in its programming choices since 1998, when it began service in the United States. With a healthy range of programming that featured black and Asian Britons from 2004–11 no longer being offered by the channel, the essay argues that the diminished presence of these characters of colour directly affected cultural diversity on BBCA. In turn, the changes in programming choices has constructed Britishness in a manner that reinforces a mostly white, nearly homogeneous nation-state, one that draws from an American fascination with ‘Anglophenia’. There has been limited research on the subject of BBCA specifically, but works by Christine Becker and Melinda Lewis provide insights on its efforts to represent Britain and to capture a portion of the American television market. The chapter also draws from an original interview with past CEO of BBCA Bill Hilary (2004–6) conducted in May 2016.

Reframing the 1950s: race and representation in recent British television

This chapter interrogates a small but interesting group of programmes broadcast in the last few years that engage with the domestic realities of London in the 1950s and present a corrective to established notions of the nation at that time. The purpose is to critically examine the representation of race and immigration in these narratives that are ostensibly about gender politics. Since heritage programming has traditionally ‘excluded a significant Black narrative presence,’ even when its aims have been progressive, it is important to map the ways in which these programmes re-present race and construct the immigrant ‘Other.’ All three programmes – The Hour (2011–12), The Bletchley Circle (2012–14) and the phenomenally popular Call the Midwife (2012–) – are primarily created by women, written by women, feature women in most of the lead roles, and forcefully reassert the place of women in British history. Although each show conjures a longing for the era that they represent, their function is framed as something beyond the notion of nostalgia, as being ‘essentially inauthentic, ahistorical, sentimentalizing, regressive and exploitative’ – characterizing much of the acritical debate around heritage screen fictions.

Introduction

Even in the midst of contemporary political and cultural transformations, Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) remains an important part of everyday practice (public debate, private domestic rituals and market trends), of national order (how the national community is imagined, organised and addressed) and, ultimately, of public interest. This introductory chapter sets the context for the collection, a time when various shifts and conjunctures are impacting on and shaping how ‘race’ and racial difference are being perceived. It outlines how rapidly changing media contexts and environments are coinciding with the kinds of racial representations that are being constructed within PSB.

Imperial fictions: Doctor Who, post-racial slavery and other liberal humanist fantasies

Utilizing an interdisciplinary amalgam of critical ethnic studies, media studies, cultural studies and post-colonial theory, this chapter considers how the 2005 reboot of Doctor Who utilizes deracialized and decontextualized slavery allegories to absolve white guilt over the Transatlantic Slave Trade, express and contain xenophobic anxieties about post-colonial British multiculture, reinforce black racial stereotypes, and bolster white privilege by demanding viewers adopt the series colour-blind liberal humanist standpoint. In The Racial Contract, Charles Mills asserts that ‘white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, evasion, and self-deception on matters related to race are among the most pervasive mental phenomena of the past few hundred years, a cognitive and moral economy psychically required for conquest, colonization, and enslavement.’ By closely examining the imperial fictions and post-racial slavery parables of Doctor Who, the chapter hopes to illuminate the program’s ‘structural opacities,’ how its colour-blind universalism sustains and nourishes the boundaries of contemporary whiteness and colonial consciousness, and the fraught place of race in multicultural and ostensibly postcolonial Britain.