Can Super Heroes Rescue TV Diversity?

A few days ago Marvel comics announced that Captain America would become an African American. They also announced that Thor the Norse god of thunder (another super-hero) would become a woman.

Cue receiving a flurry of emails and texts that this was a great day for diversity: Today a black Capt. America, tomorrow a gay James Bond and who knows what next year will bring?!

I must confess I was a little less excited by the prospect.

First of all I think the idea of broadening out backgrounds of comic book superheroes is a great idea. Why shouldn’t Spiderman be Asian? And as this is a blog about TV Diversity why should so many major TV characters be white from Dr Who to Sherlock Holmes? Coincidentally in the recent American adaptation of Sherlock Holmes - “Elementary” - Dr Watson is an Asian woman.

But I believe this is window dressing that fails to understand the real issues of diversity.

Although the debate about TV diversity on screen is often centered around arguments about the number of black or disabled actors the problem isn’t this simple or shallow.

Diversity is about people seeing their reality reflected in the programmes they watch.

That is why I’ve seen Lenny Henry getting the biggest round of applause when he asks an audience; “Where are Luther’s black friends?” (referring to the character played by Idris Elba). Luther may be black but it would be wrong to think that viewers’ appetite for more diversity on television is satisfied by one of the actors having more melanin than usual.

This is one of the reasons why for some TV executives diversity can seem like a thankless task. The number of BAME faces on our screens can increase and yet viewers still seem unhappy. I have been to presentations where senior producers have been able to roll out the increase in on-screen diversity to disbelieving audiences (truth been told I have been one of those producers).

We have neat graphs and pie charts to show how well we are doing but it doesn’t match the perceived reality of our audiences. And that is because the programmes and the characters do not match the actual reality of our audiences.

I think this is a reflection of the fact that irrespective of how many people you have in front of the camera it’s not until the people behind the camera start to look more like the diversity of the audience that the programmes will more accurately reflect the reality of the audience. And unfortunately the number of people from diverse backgrounds behind the camera is still far too low.

Or to put it another way: A black Captain America and female Thor might be able to come to diversity’s rescue but only when the writers of comic books are 50% women and 36% non-white American (and we haven’t even started talking about disability and sexuality).

Jay Mukoro

Jay Mukoro is an incredibly talented television producer who has worked on some of the most important landmark current affairs and documentaries on British television in the last ten years from “Mixed Britannia” to the Bafta award winning series “History of Modern Britain”. His work serves as an inspiration for many BAME people working in television.

 

On Wednesday 23rd April several of his friends and colleagues received an email from Jay’s wife Olivia who wanted as many of Jay’s friends and colleagues to know about her husband’s current situation and not hear about it through gossip and rumour.

 

Our prayers and hopes are with Jay, Olivia and their families.

 

 

 

Dear Jay's friends,

 

 

As I think most of you know, I'm writing with terrible news - on Sunday around 2pm in Barbados Jay went into the sea just in front of our loungers (and in front of the life-guard hut). I saw him walking into fairly busy water to just above knee height. I think he must have got into serious trouble in the water because when I looked up I couldn't see him. I raised the alarm with the lifeguards and we searched all day with the lifeguards, coast guard team and police but he wasn't found all that day. Since then they have been looking every day, searching by boat and driving in the water, checking the hospital etc but nothing. Since he had nothing with him and he had just gone for a short swim and I was on the beach all day looking til dark, with no sign of him getting out (by anyone on a very busy beach), I can only fear the worst. Jay isn't a strong swimmer and though he is careful and cautious but the waves and current on the beach arestrong.Over the past few days they have continued searching the sea for a body and nothing has been found but they will continue looking.

 

My family (Mum, Dad, Helly and Pose) have flown out and are being amazing as you can imagine. We've been told there's nothing we can really do - but so that we've exhausted every avenue we're putting posters around and doing interviews with the local papers (thereare already tv / radio and newspaper announcements but they're very brief so we'll try to raise the profile as much as possible).

 

I am so sorry to bring such devastating news to you of someone who I know you all held very dearly.

 

Love to you all,

 

Olivia xx

Change Is In The Air

Something exciting is happening in the world of TV Diversity it is almost tangible. 

First Lenny Henry called the Bafta award ceremony "all white". It was picked up by nearly all the papers as a major event. To be honest I didn't think too much of it. I'd heard similar comments before and they rarely amount to anything other than The Guardian readers and Daily Mail readers taking opposite views and trotting out their usual comments.  

Then Lenny along with Kwame Kwei-Armah and a few others took part in an RTS panel discussion on the " Flight of the Black Actor" asking why there weren't more opportunities for BAME actors in the UK, and whether actors feel forced to go abroad. I'm sure most of the people attending didn't notice it but both Kwame and Lenny mused about taking the same approach to BAME diversity as the TV industry has taken to Regional diversity. They were throw away comments during the question and answer session but with hindsight were the start of a snowball. 

Taken together the Bafta comment and the RTS event caused a big enough stir in the press for the Minister for Culture, Media & Sport - Ed Vaizey - to call an industry wide "summit" of the great and the good to see how we could address the declining number of BAME people in the creative industries. 

It was at that summit, midst all the usual platitudes of "needing to do more" and the usual suggestions of "more mentoring" and "training", that Lenny presented the "Henry Paper" outlining that the TV industry should follow the Regional diversity model for increasing diversity. It was still a little rough and consisted of less than two sides of A4. I was at that summit and the overall consensus of the paper was; "best of intentions" and "commend the idea" but "how would it work practically?". And "Maybe Lenny should stick to comedy?"

Then Bafta, the very people who's award ceremony Lenny had criticised, invited him to give their annual keynote speech. Again I was there and I can tell you the speech - "I have a dream screen" - was electric. Lenny put flesh on the bones of the "Henry Paper" explaining exactly how adopting the Regional model would work in practice. It was almost like going to church there were so many 'converts'. You could feel people being converted to an idea that had seemed fanciful previously. 

Then Trevor McDonald came out with the statement that things were getting so bad that we were living in a "media apartheid". This was quickly followed by Krishnan Guru-Murthy saying that we needed to look at radical solutions for increasing diversity in TV and hinted at quotas and ring-fenced money. He didn't mention Lenny Henry but then again he didn't need to. 

Then this week Lenny Henry took part in a televised interview for the TVCollective. What followed might have been a turning point in the debate on TV diversity. Samir Shah, the Ex-head of BBC Current Affairs and Political programmes came out in support of Lenny Henry's proposals. No longer the "well meaning person who should stick to comedy" (as I heard whispered before), but now "the only person with a coherent plan". 

All this has taken place in less than nine months. I have no idea if Lenny Henry's plan will be taken on board by the TV industry - but then again I would have never predicted the events that followed Lenny's comments about the Bafta awards.

What I do know is it feels as if change is in the air and for someone who has been following the issue of diversity for more years than I care to remember it feels exciting. 

Diversity vs. Stereotypes

I haven’t got any gay friends. 

They seem to be everywhere nowadays; getting married, becoming Members of Parliament even becoming priests. So I think I want to rectify my lack of gay friends. But I don’t want any old gay friends I want a really gay person. Not someone like Will from “Will & Grace” you would hardly know he was gay. Someone more like Jack. Someone who snaps their fingers almost like an African American woman and says “girlfriend” a lot. You know the type?

If you didn’t realise the last paragraph was a joke or find it highly offensive I suggest you are on the wrong website. 

However my concern is that when we try and address under-representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people (BAME) in the media we almost take a similar approach. 

With the best intentions broadcasters and large media organisations regularly role out different initiatives to try and help BAME people into the media. But all too often they target a specific type of BAME person. 

The schemes go to the poorest black neighborhoods, with the highest unemployment, with the highest crime rates. They find people who invariably left school with few if any qualifications from the most dysfunctional backgrounds. It is almost as if they are purposely trying to identify the “real black people”, like the “real gay people” in my example above.

My sister-in-law works with young people from deprived backgrounds and she can wax lyrical how these are possibly the hardest type of people to reach and find long term employment for in any kind of work - let alone in professions like the media. They are almost setting up the people they recruit to fail. 

First of all I have to make it clear that the vast majority of these initiatives are commendable and I don’t want any of them to stop. But I see them more as charitable outreach rather than trying to seriously address the problem of diversity in the media. 

Nearly all the black and Asian people I come across who work in television who have suffered discrimination, or prematurely hit a glass ceiling in their career, are university graduates (with at least one degree) and they come from well functioning backgrounds with good support structures. 

If the media industry is having serious problems addressing the concerns of these well adjusted people why do they keep focusing their efforts on an even harder constituency to place?

Diversity schemes need to recognise diversity in all it’s varied forms including gender, sexuality, class, disability and race. But they also need to recognise diversity within these groups as well - free from stereotypes. Not all black people are poor, not all people from lower socio-economic backgrounds didn’t go to university, not all gay people are camp, not all disabled people are in wheelchairs.

When it comes to increasing BAME diversity in the media I want us to help all black and Asian people and not just focus on the stereotypes. 

(Now who is going to invite me to their gay wedding?)

IF IT’S GOOD TWEET IT, IF YOU WANT CHANGE EMAIL IT

When I first became an executive producer I used to hate italics.

Let me explain:

After a programme is transmitted on the BBC a few viewers normally phone the duty log or write in saying how much they enjoyed the programme or complaining about the programme. The correspondence and a summary of each phone-call is collected and then forwarded on to the executive producer. Some of these comments are italicised.

Italics indicate that the person leaving the comment has asked for feedback. As an executive producer, that means that for the next twenty minutes (or longer) I have to draft a response explaining why I have made certain editorial decisions, or even made the programme at all.

People often think that faceless automatons answer complaints to the BBC and we just send out standardised responses. Standard responses can be sent out if we receive a number of emails, phone-calls and letters raising the same point, but the executive of the programme or a senior member of the production team originally drafts even these responses.

It's BBC policy to read and respond to comments, and we owe it to the people who pay our salaries - the license fee payers - to be as accountable as possible.

I say I used to hate italics because they meant extra time out of my working day. But over the years I’ve grown to realise that they are incredibly useful. They force me to think about my programmes in more detail and can force me to confront an issue that I may not have adequately thought about while making the programme. They can influence my editorial decisions when making future programmes.

The reason I raise this is because I was on a panel discussion recently about under-representation of African-Caribbean people in television. The discussion was lively and the audience raised concerns about black people on TV across the different broadcasters from the BBC to Sky.

As the audience voiced grievance after grievance about how television treats black people I asked them if any of them had ever written to any of the broadcaster about it. Or if they had ever called a channel after they had watched a programme they were particularly annoyed about. The answer was a resounding silence.

These were people who clearly felt strongly enough about TV Diversity to take the time out on a rainy weekday evening to leave their warm homes to discuss it. But not one of them had raised their concerns with people who actually mattered.

Some of them may have put comments on their Facebook page about “negative portrayal of black people in the media” or tweeted about “#LennyHenry and his Bafta speech”. But no one in the BBC, ITV, C4, C5 or Sky had received the equivalent of an italicised comment demanding a response. No one in the audience had made one TV exec stop and think about their editorial decisions, or possibly influenced an exec’s future editorial decisions.

In the last few days I have seen that TheTVCollective - an organisation raising concerns around diversity in television both in front of and behind the camera - has launched an email campaign for people to email the Minister of Culture Media and Sports Ed Vaizey supporting Lenny Henry’s Bafta speech calling for ring-fenced money.

Whether you support TheTVCollective’s specific campaign or not I believe the idea of emailing, phoning and simply letting the people in positions for power know what you think about TV Diversity is long overdue.

If you see a programme that covers diversity well please call and email the broadcaster about it. I know from experience that it is easier to get a re-commission if you have a stack of positive feedback behind you. If you don’t like a programme tell us, it really does make us think twice. And finally if you have thoughts about television in general let the broadcasters or people in power know. It’s doubtful your #Diversity tweet will be read by any TV execs, Director General or Culture Minister but a comment to the right email address will - especially if you ask for feedback.

Make my day and fill up my email inbox with italicised emails.

(Don’t know how to contact your ‘favourite’ TV channel? Find the website links below packed full of  useful email addresses, postal addresses and phone numbers)

BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/contacting_bbc

ITV: www.itv.com/viewerservices

Channel 4 www.channel4.com/4viewers/contact-us

Channel 5 www.channel5.com/contact-us

How To Turn Your Job Into A Career

A friend of mine has just landed a new job directing an observational documentary for BBC1. He’s a great director, his self-shooting skills are second to none and he just happens to be black. The series he will be working on has nothing to with ethnicity and is not about racism. This is exactly the kind of example that people interested in diversity in the media, like myself, are trying to achieve all the time: People chosen for their ability, working on a broad range of work irrespective of their race, gender, disability or any other characteristic that should be completely irrelevant. So why am I not ecstatic? Why is it not ‘mission accomplished’ as George W Bush would say?

The fact is this is not his first directing gig, it’s not even his tenth. He has lost count of how many documentaries he has produced and directed. Sometimes he will have three programmes one after the other to work on. Other times he won’t have any work for months on end.

Talking to him he says he can’t complain - he knows that other people don’t get as much work as him and in many ways he is quite fortunate. But over a coffee he described his dilemma:

“What I have are ‘jobs’. Sometimes I get great ‘jobs’, sometimes I have not so great ‘jobs’. But I look at a lot of my colleagues and what they have are ‘careers’. I get no sense that the jobs I get are going to add up to anything.”

My friend is not alone.

One of the biggest battles in increasing diversity in television is about creating careers and career structures for people from diverse backgrounds.

The first thing to identify is that different groups may have different career paths, and these different career paths need to be recognised and valued.

Let me give you one simple (and possibly obvious) example. The career paths of women are different from men. If we simply treat everyone the same we will disadvantage women. It wasn’t until the last 20 years that the television industry really began to recognise the impact that maternity leave and raising children can have on a career path (women still do the vast majority of childrearing). It wasn’t enough to give men and women the same opportunities to apply for jobs and expect them both to have the same careers. Women’s career paths needed to be acknowledged and policies such as flexible working hours needed to be implemented. Countries with the most flexible working hours legislation have the smallest gender gaps in employment.

My concern is that while this difference in career paths has at least been recognised for women, it is hardly discussed for people of colour and with disabilities working in television. The result is that many end up having ‘jobs’ and no ‘careers’.

Two very quick examples.

The first is related to factual television. In this genre people have to break through the barrier of non-directing Assistant Producer to being a Director. It is a big step and many people find it difficult irrespective of gender, race or disability. However, over the last ten years I have seen a very clear path develop. The Assistant Producer becomes a self-shooter and effectively becomes a second camera on shoots. As people gain more confidence in them they start to shoot entire sequences by themselves and eventually people trust them with a crew. Finally they start directing all by themselves. It isn’t easy to do, but it now seems to be an accepted career path.

A career path - that is - for someone who isn’t disabled. Self-shooting is a very physical activity and is incredibly difficult for people with certain disabilities. 

So when an executive producer wants to get an AP that can self shoot, they may well overlook the disabled person who - through no lack of talent - hasn’t got that experience. They don’t have to be prejudiced to discriminate. There’s a structural problem.

Here’s the second example. It’s about the path to senior management in the BBC. 

The path often proceeds as follows: A person works at the BBC for a number of years; leaves the BBC to “prove themselves” outside in the cut-throat commercial indie sector; then returns at senior level to the corporation. Sometimes, BBC senior management are then even poached back by the commercial sector.

Many black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people try to follow this path and leave the BBC - but then their careers stumble. This is because they don’t usually have the same wide range of informal contacts in the industry that are so vital to get on in the commercial sector. In turn, this is because the BAME employment percentage in the independent television industry of just 5% which is a lot lower than the BBC’s BAME employment rate at around 9%. Again, there’s no prejudice at work here - but there is a structural problem.  The BAME people face additional difficulties in replicating career paths trodden so well by their white counterparts, and end up going from job to job.

While we need to battle for people from all diverse backgrounds to get jobs in the television industry, my producer friend is a good reminder that we also have to equally fight for them to get careers. The first step is to stop being naive to structural difficulties, and recongise that not all career paths are the same.

I Am Television's Invisible Man

“Hello! I’m right here!!”

“Can you hear me?! Can you see me?!”

“I know you saw me yesterday because we were having coffee together but today I’m invisible!”

I know too many professional black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people (BAME) who have shouted those words out loud at the radio and TV in frustration, or sometimes silently screamed it in their heads in work meetings.

Here is what normally prompts those shouts and make us wonder if we are invisible:

Well-meaning liberals who say they want to get rid of the glass-ceiling

Every couple of weeks there is a discussion around the glass ceiling that BAME people face in professional occupations. This discussion might be in the news or at a management meeting. One week the discussion will focus on the fact that of the 18,510 university professors in the UK only 85 of them are black. The following week on Newsnight you might hear a discussion on how only 5% of QC’s come from non-white backgrounds and the figure drops to 3% when you look at High Court judges. And then another week there will be a discussion on C4 News around the fact that just 10 people from ethnic minorities hold the top posts of chairman, chief executive or finance director of the top FTSE 100 companies – that’s 10 out of a possible 289 (3.5%).

Finally, working in television I often hear people discuss the low number of BAME people in senior level positions in the media. For example a few years ago only two of the seventy-four senior managers in BBC News were BAME, and the figures have not improved massively.

The reason we feel invisible as BAME professionals is not because nearly all of us in one way or another have hit a glass ceiling but because the discussion is normally between white people as they talk about how; “They really want to solve this problem and would love to have more black people at senior levels”. At which point if the discussion is in a news programme friends I’ve known are jumping up and down shouting at the TV; “What about me?” or “If you want to solve the problem promote me!”. Or if the discussion is at a work meeting they sit there in quiet disbelief wondering if anyone else can see the irony of the situation.

This week marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of the great African American novelist Ralph Ellison who wrote the “Invisible Man”. In that book his black protagonists describes himself saying: “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.... When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”

I too have experienced my fair share of invisibility. I’ve been told I broke through one glass ceiling (from producer to series producer) due to a black Production Executive “seeing me”. There was a staffing meeting where senior management were lamenting that they didn’t have anyone to series produce their next documentary series. The meeting was taking place in a glass panel office as I worked just the other side of it. It was the Production Executive who suggested my name, to which I am told, everyone said “of course – he’d be great”. The rest they say is history. But up until that point despite the fact I was sitting in their eye-line I was invisible.

I believe this ‘invisibility’ has an incredibly damaging effect on black professionals, not only to their career progressions but to their confidence and mental health.

Every time a member of senior management professes to really want to break down the glass ceiling and then fails to promote staff from the diverse backgrounds it is even worse than if they hadn’t said anything. They are sending out a message that the BAME people who are around them, the BAME people that they know are just not good enough. Because the logic would be that if you really wanted to promote BAME staff you would simply do it unless there was something wrong with the BAME staff.

The contradiction between senior words and actions eats away at our confidence and eventually our wellbeing.

My experience however is that BAME staff are more than up to the task when we break through glass ceilings. But my experience is that sometimes like the character in Ralph Ellison’s seminal novel we are invisible.

In marking the 100^th anniversary of Ralph Ellison’s birth I would highly recommend reading the Invisible Man. Sadly its message is just as relevant today as when it was first published.