Killer instincts

After yesterday's post about the multiracial dating scene, it was interesting to see that a new controversy has emerged here in the UK on a similar theme. This time it's ITV coming under fire, after executive producer Brian True-May described the anti-diversity approach to casting on his long-running drama Midsomer Murders.

For the uninitiated, Midsomer Murders is one of those shows that seems to have been running since John Logie Baird decided that the corner of his living room looked a little empty. The formulaic detective drama depicts the adventures of Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, as he attempts to solve the weekly murders in a sleepy English county. Despite representing the last bastion of 'English genteel eccentricity', over the last fourteen years the quiet rural community has been responsible for more untimely deaths than the Jigsaw killer.

When they're not polishing the silverware or taking tea on their immaculate lawns, the people of Midsomer are busy bludgeoning, drowning or poisoning their neighbours, spouses and elderly relatives. In fact, there have been so many inexplicable deaths that most of the villages in the county would struggle to get a quorum for a residents' association meeting. It's a far cry from the rural world I grew up in, where local life would be rocked to its core if someone double-parked outside the post office.

Like Murder, She Wrote before it, the success of the show is predicated on the audience's suspension of disbelief, primarily around the likelihood of a peaceful community having a per capita murder rate that would make Mogadishu seem like a desirable place to live. But one area where the show maintains a scrupulous adherence to authenticity, lies in the exclusively white faces of its cast.

Speaking to the Radio Times, True-May said "We are a cosmopolitan society in this country, but if you watch Midsomer you wouldn’t think so. I’ve never been picked up on that, but quite honestly I wouldn’t want to change it... Well, we just don’t have ethnic minorities involved. Because it wouldn’t be the English village with them. It just wouldn’t work."

It didn't take long for campaigners and activists to condemn his comments, accusing him of "distorting the presence of black and Asian people in rural areas", and leaving production company All3Media with no choice but to suspend him. However, True-May's neighbours in the village of Great Missenden came out in defence of their aryan purity, with 63 year-old Ron Stock stating "The whole reason of the show is to depict the tiny little villages of England. There just aren’t any ethnic people around here. In everyday life in Great Missenden you wouldn’t see any at all."

Whatever you think about Brian's attitudes, maybe he has a point. Given his old-school, middle-Englander perspective, perhaps the format of the show wouldn't work with ethnic minorities. After all, it'd be almost impossible to write a compelling whodunnit if there was a black face in amongst the suspects. The team at Causton CID wouldn't even have time to whip off their overcoats before fingering the most likely culprit.

I'm not a racist but...

The story of The Hobbit's arduous journey to the big screen is longer and more gruelling than the one described in the book itself. Directors jumping ship, legal wrangles over copyright, strikes and a studio bankruptcy - it makes a trek across Middle Earth seem like a piece of piss.

Now it looks like all the pieces are finally in place. The cast has been named, Peter Jackson is snuggling into the director's chair and the veggies have been growing in Hobbiton for 18 months now.

But it's not all plain sailing down in New Zealand, since a new controversy has erupted over the film's discriminatory casting policies. Apparently, Middle Earth is the fantasy equivalent of Tunbridge Wells, and won't tolerate any multi-ethnic halflings.

According to Digital Spy, an actress who attended a extras casting session was turned away for being the wrong colour. Naz Humphreys has complained to the press, saying "It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin. The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who wasn't pale-skinned."

It's a shame that the franchise has been tainted with suggestions of racism, since Tolkien's tales are all about the need for different races to unite against evil. Having said that, a hobbit of Pakistani descent might seem a little incongruous when surrounded by flaxen-haired, apple-cheeked kinfolk. 

Several years ago, an amateur production of The Sound Of Music saw a multi-ethnic cast of children playing the Von Trapps. Although the kids were all meant to be fantastic in their roles, it did give the impression that their deceased mother was something of a bike.

Peter Jackson's representatives have been quick to apologise for the 'casting restrictions' and stress that "It is not something the producers or the director of The Hobbit were aware of. They would never issue instructions of this kind to the casting crew. All people meeting the age and height requirements are welcome to audition."

But for some, the damage has already been done. So it won't be long before the set becomes overrun with offensively racist statements like "Is it true that all Hobbits have big feet?" and "Once you go Orc, you never go back."

All white on the night

The sky is falling. The end of the world is nigh. Our cosy, ordered, same-as-it-always-was existence is threatened. And people of colour are to blame.

That's the gist of the various articles appearing in the tabloids today, based on the findings of David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University. According to the highly respected boffin, "WHITE British people will be in a MINORITY in their own country by 2066." Note that the upper case emphases come courtesy of The Sun, so that their readers know what the story is about without having to read it.

Apparently, the soaring immigrant birthrates mean that white Brits are gradually being outnumbered by their non-white neighbours. Obviously, this kind of story is a tabloid editor's dream, so the emphasis is on "record breaking levels of immigration" rather than the "thousands of Brits" who leave these shores "for a better life abroad."

We're entitled to seek our fortune overseas, it's practically our birthright. But God forbid anyone attempts to come to UK for similar reasons. Once again, the inconsistent logic applied to issues around immigration raises its ugly head. The Sun's article references Home Secretary Theresa May's plans to cap the influx of migrant workers, despite the fact that the tabloids are constantly portraying immigrants as workshy-benefits seekers. 

The report also doesn't explain how the significant number immigrants from white Eastern European countries are going to reduce the amount of Caucasian faces in school playgrounds. Nonetheless, the warning is clear - white British people can expect to be the minority by around 2066.

If that hasn't scared you, then consider the fact that "The US, by comparison, is now about 65 per cent white (non-Hispanic) and that group is projected to fall to 50 per cent by 2045." Shocking isn't it? Except, well, the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, and its indigenous (non-white) population have been rendered a minority pretty much since we first washed up on their shores. But that doesn't really support our argument so let's move on before anyone questions the lapses in our logic.

Without breaking the space-time continuum, it's hard to know how Professor Coleman can speak so categorically about the next fifty years of international people movement, birthrates and life expectancy. There are so many variables at play that such long-term projections are borderline nonsensical. That's the basic paradox at the heart of all time-travel stories - as Sarah Connor famously said "The future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves." But as one of the founders of MigrationWatch, perhaps he's less concerned with the facts than he is with drumming up reactionary scare stories. 

And anyway, surely the uninformed masses should be celebrating. After all, come 2066, they'll finally have the statistics to prove what they've been bleating about for years. Since, in their minds, the needs of minorities always come before anyone else's, they'll be back at the front of the queue in no time. 

Skin deep

Beauty is a strangely intangible concept. What floats one person's boat might have the next onlooker dry heaving into their cupped palms.

It's also a constantly evolving concept, adapting to reflect other societal pressures and influences.

For instance, after decades of unattainable, cosmetically-enhanced hotties dominating the glossies, FHM tried to broaden people's minds by recapturing the magic of those 'girls next door' with its High Street Honeys campaign.

Like the grimly depressing 'Readers Wives' magazines that clog up the top shelves in your local newsagents, but without the hamburger shots, HSH makes a virtue of the kind of girls usually seen pushing a double stroller around Lakeside. Rather than airbrushed, many of these girls look like they've been given a good sand-blasting. Similarly, their make-up isn't so much artfully applied, as hurled from across the room.

But even the High Street Honeys look like candidates for the Paris catwalk, when compared with the hard-faced harridans gathered under the unpleasant banner of BNP Babes.

Profiled in a recent article in so-cool-it-hurts Vice magazine, the BNP Babes are a collection of low-res lovelies with the political beliefs of Enoch Powell and the collective intellect of an ASDA Bag-For-Life.

Deciding that the BNP should be hoisted by its own retards, Vice interrogated the girls' deeply-held and well thought out perspectives on issues of modern racial integration. The results were akin to asking a fourth-grade student to explain the motivations of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Sample exchange: What first attracted you to the BNP?
I don’t know. I couldn’t really actually tell you. There were a couple of the sentences I agreed with. Basically about how immigrants are coming and taking people’s jobs and that.

Throughout their interviews, Rebecca, Jo and Helen happily play along, utterly oblivious to the fact that they're being ridiculed. Admittedly, most people would become suspicious when asked "Has anything amusing ever happened to you in connection with spoons?", but the girls gamely attempt to soldier on, even choosing between "Hieronymus Bosch or a Bosch electric sander?"

Aside from an alarming insight into our falling standards of education, the article portrays three girls who've been easily manipulated by more forceful personalities into adopting an ugly perspective on the world.

The problem is, education and dialogue is the only way to break through the culture of ignorance and misinformation that swells the BNP's ranks every day. Not pointing and jeering at these misguided young women, as they pout in their cheap underwear and drape themselves in the Union flag.

In the war on drugs, law enforcement agencies have two choices - punish the end-users, who are really just victims themselves, or go after the suppliers. I wonder whether maybe racism demands a similar approach.

Racism rears its ugly head

In the world of PR, the key to getting your story out is to engage with journalists who'll embrace your 'angle'. So it's back to school for Angela Bucknor, Head of Marketing for Waltham Forest College, who mistakenly thought that the Mail on Sunday might be interested in a story about the educational establishment's diverse student body.

As a way of showcasing how much has changed in the last seventy years, tutor Gaverne Bennett decided to recreate a picture of the college's students that was originally taken in 1940. Whereas most of the students in the black and white photo were preparing to make their contribution to the war effort, today's intake are pursuing a wide range of vocational courses, from fashion and hairdressing to cookery and interior design.

Perhaps Bucknor naively assumed that the Mail would be happy to see evidence that not all young people are feckless, hoodie-wearing layabouts. But she didn't count on the seething undercurrent of racism that runs through the paper's journalistic output.

Matt Sandy's article prefers to focus on the fact that the students speak 76 languages and hail from a number of countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Croatia. There's also a pointed reference to the fact that one of the courses offered by the college is 'English as a Foreign Language' - making no mention of the fact that this shows a willingness on the part of the students to learn English, and thereby assimilate into British culture more effectively.

However, the most depressing element of this story is the views of the readers, as evidenced by the 'best rated comments' listed beneath the article:

And that's why the country has gone to the dogs....
- Daz, Hants, England
Change for the better? I don't think so.
- Jonty, Wales
The bottom picture makes me feel sad . Is it a misprint or a joke ( or a shamefull reality ) that it says it is now teaching "english as foreign language " ?
- david, plymouth uk
Like rubbing salt in an open wound.
- Robert, Derby
Have a look at the knife/gun crime figures within the U.K. for the 1940s' photo period and compare them to the 2010 photo period. What do you think is the major contribution to the massive increase in figures?
- Mike Jones, Hampshire
The picture says it all with what is wrong today
- Margaret, London

I imagine Nick Griffin almost choked to death on his crumpets when he read the paper this morning. Better luck next time...

Bad movie, worse poster

Movie studio Universal is in trouble today, for being a little heavy handed with the clone tool. Some eagle-eyed movie fans have noticed that cast members Faizon Love and Kali Hawk have been unceremoniously dumped from the posters for new comedy Couples Retreat. 

Although the film follows the misadventures of four couples on a tropical island, it seems that there was only room in the ads for six people. According to the rather embarrassed publicity team, efforts had been taken 'to simplify the poster to actors who are most recognisable in international markets'. That meant dropping the African-American couple from the line-up, and playing up Malin Akerman and Kristen Bell's A-list profile instead.

Having said that, the US original wasn't much better, with Love and Hawk so far in the distance it looked as though they'd been washed out to sea. 

However, on close inspection it seems that this new poster may not be the work of an unforgivable racist after all. Instead, it could just be that the artworker in question suffers from OCD and couldn't help 'tidying' up the poster. After all, the characters' leis and floral accessories have also been removed, as have all the tidemarks on their clothes. 

Interestingly, most companies usually get into trouble for manipulating people of colour into publicity materials, to make up for their lack of diversity, not taking them out. The Onion even ran an alarmingly accurate story back in 2000 on the subject, headed 'Black Guy Photoshopped In'.

Ultimately, the real issue here is just how bad movie poster artwork has become. This once noble artform has now been replaced with lazy studio photography and basic Illustrator work. I guess Taschen's long-running series of Film Posters books will have to end with the 1990s. 

Daily Heil does it again

If the newspapers are to believed (and God help us if they are) the biggest story currently gripping the nation is the change to the judging line-up on Strictly Come Dancing. Since the original announcement was made, the BBC has been beset with accusations of agism and attempting to fix something that wasn't broke, by replacing Arlene Phillips with series five winner Alesha Dixon.

This weekend the show returned to much fanfare, despite a line-up of celebrities so inauspicious they'd be hard pressed to muster a gig opening a supermarket between them. But all eyes were on new judge Alesha - was she up to the job, or was she just there to look pretty?

It's safe to say that Alesha didn't exactly burn up the screen with incisive commentary or catty put-downs. But she empathised well with the plight of the performers and gave constructive notes where she could. But this was not good enough for some people, with fans taking to the messageboards in their thousands to decry the BBC's decision and demand that the pretty singer be instantly axed.

Smelling the chance to roll around in some mindless cruelty, bitter Australian hack Amanda Platell sharpened her quill, dipped it in blood and wrote yet another staggeringly pointless article for the Daily Mail. As a regular talking head on those dreadful compilation chart shows that clog up the schedules whenever CSI Nantucket isn't on, it's a shame that Amanda misses the irony in condemning Alesha's for 'scaling new heights of inanity' and making 'asinine comments'.

Platell even manages to throw in some ad hominem attacks on Cheryl Cole, star of ITV's rival show X-Factor. Comparing Alesha to Cheryl, Platell concludes that they're both as vacuous as each other and have limited facial impressions, but Cheryl wins the day by having a saccharine sweetness and the ability to turn on the tears. Then again, we can hardly expect a cast-iron bitch like Amanda Platell to understand the nuances of human emotion. And given that her own face is about as warmly expressive as an angry scribble on a sandwich bag, the specifics of her critique seem particularly inappropriate.

But Amanda's not here to make friends, which is probably for the best, given her track record for upsetting people with her hateful columns and ill-concealed prejudices. Rather tellingly, Amanda uses an unfortunate turn-of-phrase in her character assassination of Alesha that indicates just how ugly some of her views are: "...we want a critical, intelligent, well-informed assessment of the performances, not the judging equivalent of being licked by a chocolate labrador."

Debate is currently raging as to whether Platell was making a racist remark in comparing half-Jamaican Alesha to a 'chocolate labrador'. Many people are arguing that it was simply an unfortunate slip of the keyboard, and an entirely innocent remark. However, I can't help but wonder. Kittens, puppies, labradors - all would have made for suitable similies. So why bring the colour of the dog into it? Especially when describing the first person of colour to join what has historically been an all-white judging panel.

Casual racism aside, Platell simply doesn't like Alesha because she's nice. Her article gives the impression that she would only be happy with a format change if it meant that each week's loser was hanged from the studio ceiling with their throat slit. After all, human sacrifices and supernatural pacts are the only logical explanation for how she manages to stay gainfully employed as a writer.