fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3560 ]

[ SECRET POST #3560 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3560 ⌋

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I'm always rather amazed and pleased by how many people of Indian or African or Island (Jamaica, the Caribbean, etc. Is there a better word for that?) are in all the shows, as leads or major secondary characters and stuff. A lot more than in most American entertainment.

And a lot more women, it seems, as leads, who are not there for some kind of romance or 'fridging.

Is this just my selective viewing, or is British tv a bit more inclusive in that respect?
(And why does nobody seem to want people from Oceania or Asia (Japan/Korea/China, etc.) in their shows?)

i've noticed the same!

Yes!

I'm not British, so I'm not entirely sure, but it might be because of how the BBC is funded. It's basically paid for by a tax on your tv, and since it's taxpayer money, that means it has to represent everyone's interest, be for the public good etc. So you have a lot of documentaries, educational tv etc. But they also have to reflect British society in every way. It's not perfect obviously, from what I hear people often complain it's too 'London'. But it would explain why you'd have more diversity. So either you're watching a lot of BBC or maybe the other channels followed along? Again, not British though.

Well, that would make sense. And seems like a better way of doing things than we have over here, where it's all about profit and if it doesn't make you a was in the first couple months, then bye bye! (And following is better than leading, so we get so much of the samey-same crap.)

I don't ever really notice if something is BBC or Skye or whatever - just that it's not American, heh.

ayrt

Well, there are complaints of course. One is that you have to pay this license fee that funds the BBC if you want to watch any tv, even if you never watch the BBC at all. The rest of the channels are still paid for by ads, or part of a cable/digital/satellite package or whatever.

A second one comes from the fact that it's taxpayer money, and therefore not everyone's always going to be happy how it's spent. Sometimes because it has a bit too much 'diversity' (though no one would put it that way of course). Or because it's too vulgar, or has nudity, or it's too pretentious and not for the average viewer. It's too populist, or too cerebral, or yet something else.

But most people seem pretty pleased with the BBC from what I understand.

How much is it, do you know? I wonder if it's the same as our cable service, price wise?

And yeah - people will always bitch about *something*.

Wikipedia says it's about £145/$190 a year. And most of it goes to everything the BBC does: all the tv channels, radio stations, online stuff. So it's a lot, but they do get a lot in return IMO. BBC 1 & 2 are pretty much the only reason I keep my tv anymore.

A *year*? Wow. That's like...nothing. Some cable over here charges fifty to 100 a *month*.

I'd take that a year any freakin' day.

It's not cable though? I think? It's really just the BBC, I think. If you want any other channels you have to pay extra.

Re: As an American watching British tv.....

tabaqui - 2016-10-03 03:55 (UTC) - Expand

£145 is a lot of money, though. And that's just what we pay for basically owning a TV; we still have to pay loads more each month if we want to watch anything more than the few things on the BBC channels at any time. We pay £55 a month so we also get other channels and that doesn't give us sports (costs an extra £30 a month) or movies (another £45 each month).
But yes, we do have much more diversity in our programming because of the laws that govern the BBC. In the last decade or so, other producers have improved their diversity to be more in line with the Beeb's. The audience expects it but the main reason is because they want to be eligible to be picked up the BBC so they have the widest audience.

Re: As an American watching British tv.....

tabaqui - 2016-10-03 15:40 (UTC) - Expand

Re: As an American watching British tv.....

(Anonymous) - 2016-10-03 22:18 (UTC) - Expand

I notice that too! And also that the women are more often as average-looking as the men, which pretty much never happens in Hollywood television. I enjoy seeing relatively normal-looking people for a change, instead of models.

YES. The woman are just women, the men are just men, nobody could double as a Vogue couture model or anything. That's always quite nice, too.

American anon here! I find Brit TV- especially English TV- to be a bit more inclusive.

It really seems to be.

American who also watches British TV here, and ditto all of that. This is not to say that they don't have problems with diversity in their media, but their game is a lot stronger than American television. What I also find refreshing is how many woman you see over age 40 who don't have perfect skin and taut, size 5 bodies and STILL have leading roles or romantic roles.

YES. I've noticed this, too. Every woman is not a blonde stick-insect with huge boobs, under twenty-five (or trying real hard). It's refreshing.

What shoes are you watching?

Oh, man, it's just all the shows over the years. And of course right now I can't even think of anything, because you asked a *specific question* and my brain went blank. But other than period dramas, pretty much any 'modern' tv show that they've imported over to here in the last fifteen years. (By imported i mean shown here, not redone with an American cast.)

I feel like Brit TV is a lot more casual about POC people, like they seem less concerned about representation and just about having good actors, no matter the skintone.

That does seem to be more the concern than carefully weighing out how many of this, how many of that. I wish American TV would get over itself.

Well for all the problems the UK has with racism, and believe me we have problems up to our lugholes, it never really (despite some politicians' best efforts) had the same level of aggression and determination to keep the non-whites in their place. There was never the race-ware aspect that America has had. It makes it easier for talent to achieve without someone consciously determining to keep the [insert racial slur here] out of the business.

Of course it also means some racist things have been slow to vanish, we still did blackface balck and white minstrel shows until the 1980s because the emphasis was on the entertainment and perceived exoticness of the performances rather than the deliberate mocking (that is not to say the mocking was not there, but it wasn't the sole point) of black people. Gypsy is still the preferred word for Romani travelers and Oriental is an acceptable catch all term for many Far Eastern groups (although the latter two are still a preferred term by both communities too, although that is slowly changing).

Racism in the UK is more likely to be directed at Pakistani and Irish individuals than black people these days. Although that was not always the case, three decades or so ago it was the Irish and the Blacks. Black people were integrated more quickly though.

I wonder if black people integrated faster than the Irish for some of the same reasons that Mexicans get so much shit in the US? I mean, not that black people don't get shit on, but we have Border-Wall Trump gaining significant political traction with his racist fuckery. We share a border with Mexico, so we don't just get waves of immigrants, there's always new ones coming in. Same with the UK and Ireland, maybe?

I think it was more to do with the IRA insisting on bombing civilians right up until the late 1990s. It is hard to integrate when the police keep asking why you live on a fifth floor flat but have ordered 30 tonnes of artificial fertiliser and blasting caps.

Interesting observations. And i did not know about the blackface thing being *that* recent.

There's a food/trinkets market here that's mostly imported Korean and Japanese stuff, and the owners are Korean and they named it 'Oriental Food Market'. So, yeah, some people here do that, too, still, but usually only people who are legitimately 'oriental' as opposed to anyone else.

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