BBC drama Robin Hood did it , so did its drama's Doctor Who and Ruby In the Smoke and Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street irregulars .
Is there any period of English history that they will not insert a non European ethnic character in.
Yes thats right they have done it again with Oliver Twist in which Nancy is played by African actress Sophie Okonedo.
All part of the BBC policy of altering the perception of the past to fit its PC agenda.
And it matters because...? I notice you complain that forthcoming "Sweeney" film is unrepresentative, as most crime is "black on black"?
Aren't we a little past the need to pick actors on the basis of skin colour. If it were a black person portraying Queen Victoria, then I could understand the miscasting, in the same way a white person could never portray Malcolm X or Nelson Mandela.
For a fictional character, it hardly matters what skin colour someone has, provided they turn in a decent performance, something which Sophie Okonedo did in abundance.
And since when did Doctor Who become a historical drama, with a need to select actors on the basis of skin colour. Last time I checked, it was a sci-fi.
All I noticed was a damn good performance from a superb actress. I wasn't even consciously aware that she was black, as it isn't something I give a great deal of thought to. I was far more interested in her acting skills.
Ollie501 I think my point is that the BBC is picking actors on the basis of skin colour, for a specific reason. To alter young peoples perception of Englands past. The fact that these are fictional stories does not alter the fact for they are set in clearly defined points in Englands past. Of course no one is claiming even when Dickens wrote the original story that it is a record of fact. But it is an accurate impression of the times. Yes there may be some anachronisms in a film version and it may not get every minute period detail precisly correct. But we would not expect the characters to sometimes communicate by telephone. If they did it is quite probable that some people would think that telephones, so long as they looked like the old bell phone you see in some period drama set in the 1890s and later, were operating in the 1830s .
As to Doctor Who I have not suggested that it should not cast black people, only that it has intentionally set out to create the impression of a significent black population in mid-16th Centuary london. In the story the Shakespheare Code every single crowd scene had intentionally been shot to include black faces.
As a minor point in the late 1960s, the BBC childrens people pulled the US tv series Time Tunnel ,on the basis that it was too historically inacurate .
The Sweeny ,why have the people making this new version decided that the ruthless gangstas are going to be Eastern European. What is the reason when every one knows which ethnic groups do almost all of the gun crime in London. Clue its not Poles , its not Indians.
Why not make the new Sweeny realistic, they could balance things by having one of the detective duo of Regan or Carter played by a black actor.
That's my point. Peoples perceptions of the past are completely wrong to start with. Black people didn't descend on our country in the last 20 years. They have been a long and thriving community for several centuries, a fact which the history books seem to gloss over.
Take a look at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/index.htm
In Dickensian, and Shakespearian times, there would have been a significant amount of Black people in the UK, and they are represented fairly well. Certainly in the 1800's, it would be unlikely for a Black woman to be in a position of authority, or to hold status or wealth, but the portrayal of a Black person as a lowly prostitute was probably an extremely accurate representation of their role in society. The Black slave trade started for the UK, in the 16th Century, so I would say it is anything but anachronistic, or politically correct to have Black people presented as they are in both Oliver Twist, and indeed Doctor Who.
I'm not suggesting we should disregard all historical accuracy, on the basis of political correctness. A Black Queen Victoria would be as ridiculous as a White Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, but in a racially ambiguous character, I would prefer someone with talent delivering a knock-out performance, rather than a poor performance from someone cast to represent peoples perception of what pre 19th Century life was like, particularly when those perceptions are completely misguided.
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Britain - particularly London and other major port cities - has always had a strong immigrant population. Chinese, Jews, French, Black... you name it. Not to mention the Normans, Romans, Vikings, Angles and Saxons.
There are records of blacks rising quite high in London society even in the 17th and 18th centuries.
And not just here - or have you never read Othello? If it was acceptable to Shakespeare, why not you?
Have you never heard of Mary Seacole (the 'black Florence Nightingale') or William Hall (first black recipient of the Victoria Cross, during the Indian mutiny)?
Perhaps the real problem is people like you who prefer to paint immigrants out of British history.
Frankly, I suspect Dickens - quite an astute social commentator - would have approved of the BBC's casting decision.
On your train of thought, I think I just caught the caboose.
ChrisRICHMOND The BBC prefers to paint ethnics into British History exclusivly into historical dramas which have a large young demographic audiance ratio.The aim being to make them think that England has always had a significant non-white population.Ultimatly when the English become the minority,in a few decades, British History will end.
As for Dickens he had some non-PC views regarding Africans, The Irish and Fagin was seen as being anti-semetic.We do know what his views would be in our own time, because he was a man of his time.
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Ugly Bessie In the past England may have had a small ethnic population , but very small more like less then point one per cent. Regardless of attempts to search through verious historical records to produce rare instances and then claim that it was the norm.
The fact is that we are at a key turning point in English History ,the Reformation and Industrial Revolution being others . In which in a few decades we will cease to be a majority English nation but a collection of verious competing ethnic groups. We can not know what Dicken's , who wrote a child's history of England ,would have thought if he lived today.
However it is clear that the BBC agress , if covertly with the NuLabour project to deconstruct England. To this end it is using specifically the Historical drama most liable to be seen by children to promote this transformation ,by altering young peoples perception of the past.
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UglyBessie,
You are wasting your time, I said the same things over and over again last year and I notice Petey (bless his little empty head) is still banging on over the same thing.
There are none so blind....
Quick someone call MI5, the BBC has dared to make 'Lark Rise to Candleford' with an all-white cast!!!!!!
Some producer is going to find a Horses' head in his bed for diverging from the Party Line!
If you love Satan and are 100% proud of it copy this and make your signature!
When in English history has 6% per cent of the child population been of Indian sub-continent origin and about 7 % of African descent. These are the goverments own figures and are out of date.Can you tell us any date ?
The BBC will not cast Black people in historical drama with an older demographic e.g Cranford/Larkrise they only do it if the show has a good percentage of young people among its audiance eg Sally Lockheart / Robin Hood
ROFLMAO
Oh so now it is not ALL historical drama, just those of the 'younger' demographic....
Yeah, yeah Petey, bleet on.
If you love Satan and are 100% proud of it copy this and make your signature!
anatja if you read my previous postings on this thread i said that it was being done in shows with a younger audiance base .I never said All
sharePerhaps that's because they wand to EDUCATE the younger audience to ACCEPT other races by making their appearance normal - as well as enlightening them about ethnic minorities in Britain's past.
That way, perhaps the majority of kids won't grow up to be BIGOTS.
On your train of thought, I think I just caught the caboose.
What do you mean ACCEPT other races they can do this in contemporary drama.
Why do they feel the need to do it with historical drama set at a time when other racial group would not be more then point one per cent of the population.
Could it be to soften people up to accept that in a few decades the English are going to be the minority in England.
If the Spanish Armada had landed we would have called it a conquest and would be typing this in Spanish thats if the Industrial revolution had happened.
Fact is you are perfectly happy for this country to cease to be a nation.In the sense that Japan is a nation or Isreal.
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ugly bessie did you read my reference to Spain.
French descent -you probably mean the Normans = Nordic people living in France.
DNA shows almost no trace of Italian <Roman Empire> or other groups in the English bloodline this has even been on the BBC.
Africans often have a problem with white faces, So do the people with Asia who have a problem with white and African faces. NOTE caste system of India. Why dont you just admit it.
Many Muslims class themselves in their words as "Aryans" eg Iran , I do not have a problem with the worlds 1 billion Muslims.I just do not think its a great idea to allow millions of them to settle in England .Am i correct in presuming you do?
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Ugly Bessie I am in no way advocating some version of the Nazi Nurenburg "racial purity " laws. If your grandmothers father fought for this country of course he should be regarded as an English man.
What i think of concern is this , about 71 per cent of the people coming into this country are from Asia and Africa. Its already one of the most densly populated countries in the world and the most densly populated in Europe.
Personaly i think we should have no large migration at all.
However as migrants tend to be concentrated in areas we are seeing parts of the country changed. I think we should be able to discuse the implications of Nulabours policy of mass immigration.
The BBC seems to see it as its remit to promote Nulabour policy in this field even to the point of using historical drama , when it has a large young audiance , to falseify peoples perception of the past.
"the shared bounds of common history" Abraham Lincoln
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The figures refering to non-EU migration can be found on migrantwatch and were also in the Express newspaper. Of course the Nulabour goverment which is entirly about spin, lies and deception will try and hide the truth.
Unless we withdraw from the EU we can do nothing about the free movement of people within the EU. That does not mean we have to run an open door policy with the entire world.
As it stands any one making it to the UK from Somalia can claim asylum, it being a continuing war zone. Even in the event of peace being restored they are not going to go back. Would you if you where them?
What evidence you mean that some Norman Masters Of Arms where really Black as shown in Robin Hood. Fot that matter they where not even Saxon despite similarity of looks.
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Ugly Bessie are you saying that very large numbers of people are coming into the uk every year from Asia and Africa or they are not. Fair enough i can post support of this claim.
Yet as i understand it you want to say this it not happening and their is no prospect of English people becoming the minority or you are saying that yes this is going to happen but that is a good thing. Can you clarify.
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Do you ever feel you are banging your head against a wall Bess?
You can lead a horse to water......
Petey is beyond help you might as well admit it and move on.
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Sasha/ UglyBessie
I started this thread by saying the it has become recent BBC policy <covert not written down> to cast black characters in historical drama when the shows are liable to have a large percentage young audiance: Oliver Twist , Dr Who set in past/Robin Hood /Sally Lockheart. Note that they do not do it with shows such as Larkrise / Cranford whose auidance is mainly older .
The black population pre-1950s was not even point one per cent no matter how much you search through old paintings, prints , census or Parish registers to find a rare exeption.
The BBC is doing it for the specific purpose of promoting the change in the nation -as our major cities cease to have a majority English population.
Do you think that perhaps he just copies and pastes previous replies?
They all seem to say the same nonsensical thing .
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anatja can you please explain what is nonsensical --are you saying that it is not understandable or that it is wrong?
Can you give an alternate explination as to why BBC historical drama set in Englands past,which has a fair sized young audiance has black people in the cast. Yet those period dramas where most of the audiance is going to be over 40 never do.?
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"embrace a changing society or recoil from it because it's too colourful for you."
Good Grief i have never seen such a stupid sounding statement. I forgot my English culture was so "grey and bland", have praise for colourful foreign cultures! basicly, B.S
The point he is making is that while you can find the odd example of non-europeans in England in history, sometimes they are placed into programs completely out of context just for the sake of having them in there.
if TV did a drama about ancient china, I doubt the would put non-east asians in it, even though the same arguament can be used there.
Your taking the fact their were non-white people before the 1950s, but your making it out of context and trying to make it sound like it was more windspread than it was, for goodness sake, my grandparents never saw a non-white person in their city until the late 1960s, regardless of what your multicultural text books say.
Seems like its only us English where, "we all come from mixed heritage" garb applies, all other peoples in this world you can find similier so called "mixed heritages" in their history, yet it doesnt apply to all the Chinese, Indian, Japanese, nigerian etc people who think of themselves as an ethnicity, only us English.
The reason we get pissed of, is its always our culture downplayed and always us told we have no right to an ethnicty or bloodline, but look at most of your double standarded world, the flip side of your logic means nobody of Indian roots born in England should not be able to call themselves "Indian" as they werent born in India, as to be "English" means to be just born in England, so sureally to be Indian you HAVE TO BE BORN IN INDIA, but I dont see you making a fuss out of that
get your head in order.
Take as an example the recent auditions for the part of Oliver in a West End theatre production. One of the boys was black. It was widely agreed that it would be difficult to cast him as Oliver, not because there were no black kids in England in the mid 19th century, but because of the social standing of Oliver's family. In mid 19th century England all of the wealthy established upper middle class familes were white. It was not racism to decide that a black boy could not play Oliver Twist; it was a fact that without an accurate portrayal of the social history the story would fall apart because the two depend on each other. The stoy may be fiction, but the backdrop has to be real. Same if there were auditions for a boy to play the son of a 19th century Zulu chief, a white boy could not play the part.
However, the black boy could be given the part of the Artful Dodger or any of the other boys, because there were non-white boys in England at the time, and Dodger was a child of the street who could have been any colour.
Slavery had only been abolished in the UK for a short time before Oliver Twist was written. Black people were free and able to imrove their social standing but things were still not easy for them and it took many more years before there was full integration. Dickens was a man of great detail and would have made a specific point of letting his readers know if any of his main characters was meant to be from a different ethnic origin.
I don't think anyone on this board is denying the existance of black or asian people in the UK throughout history, they are simply saying that the social structures and acceptabilities were different from today. Serious TV dramas should reflect this rather than paint a misleading picture.
I don't think anyone on this board is denying the existance of black or asian people in the UK throughout history,
I think that is precisely what PeterKing777 and Englandizer (bit of a giveaway, that name) are doing. In fact, the black population of England in 1780 was between 15,000 and 20,000, mostly in London, mostly working class (source: Museum of London), so it would be perfectly possible for Nancy, Bill or Tha Dodger to be black or mixed-race.
"The hour is come but not the man"
I never denied black people were in UK, im stating your being padentic and trying to paint a picture that was never really there with your overbearing acounts of "Multiculturilism at all costs"
shareHere in the Colonies they've been doing this for sometime. Approximately 20 years ago the "Tiny Tim" and "Mrs. Cratchitt" charcters were both black, everyone else was white in the Goodman (Chicago) Theatre Production of "A Christmas Carol". Those who questioned this casting were called racists and worse.
You said it very well, the social structures and acceptabilities were different than today. It is unfortunate that on both sides of the pond writers to often try to inflict (for lack of a better word) their views on the viewing audience.
Here is the BBC's Policy page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/diversity.shtml
Next week : Artful Dodger introduces Oliver to wheelchair skills
It would be interesting to know whether all descendants of former slaves, or black people who may have been there for other reasons, had left England by Dickens's time or some still lived in London. Dickens didn't seem to see anything wrong, at least when he wrote this book, of an unkind portrayal of a Jewish character who was not native to England. (In the book, the description goes a bit beyond portraying one unpleasant Jewish individual and more towards defaming an ethnic group.) Did he ever write about black characters, and what was his treatment of them?
Only anachronisms I noticed were the song "Abide With Me." Words were written 1847, music 1861, so the words barely before, and the music after, "Oliver Twist." This was used briefly in Part 1 and extensively in Part 2. In Part 1, the Dodger used the term "bonkers," which didn't come in till the late 1940s, and in Part 2, "antsy," which was not known until the early 1950s. I'm sure I must have missed a few.
Just had a look at that - it's nice to see a UK employer being totally up front for a change about their discrimination policies, and the fact that quite a large percentage of their job placements are 'ring fenced' for non-whites. The one form of discrimination that is nowadays permissible, I guess.
George... don't do that!
I've only just seen this on PBS - and while I generally agree with you Peterking, that the BBC is ridiculous in its insistence on casting non-europeans in totally inappropriate roles, I have to admit I found Sophie Okonedo utterly believable in the part of Nancy - I thought she was wonderful, and in actual fact, there may have ben a few mixed race people about at that time, so the notion may not have been totally fanciful and PC. Had he envisaged Nancy as being black, of course, Dickens would most certainly have stipulated that fact. Thing is, it's only a novel, despite being extremely closely observed social commentary. Likewise Robin Hood - a mere legend, and ripe for manipulation for political ends. I must admit I only managed to watch about three episodes of that before giving up.
With regard to the Ruby in the Smoke, I believe that is a recent novel, and the author obviously agrees with the BBC's aim of manipulating 'history' to show that the UK has, in fact, always been heavily multi-racial. Yeah, right, we believe them, really we do....honest!!
IMHO, all the other PC efforts by the Beeb have fallen on their faces, but this version of Oliver Twist, despite a plethora of little black faces in Fagin's gang, struck me as very believable. I wonder what would have been said if they had cast Eamonn Walker, e.g. as Bill Sykes??
George... don't do that!
mmattagirl, while the story of Robin Hood is merely a legend it was still a tale set in the backdrop of 12th Century England. Just because It's fictional doesn't mean we should ignore historical inaccuracy. After all the story is set during the reign of King Richard I. I mean it would be like adapting "The Three Musketeers" which was set in 17th Century France and having any one of the Musketeers being black.
shareThat IS ridiculous, though not even as much as putting two black twins in "Ruby in the Smoke". Black men back then being largely popular ministers and marrying white women? What utter crock.
shareI remembered reading once that about one in ten people in London were black in the eighteenth century. I know that Oliver Twist is many years later but there would have been still a number of black or partly black people.
One thing though is that if you see the original drawings in Oliver Twist, Nancy is portrayed as rather rounded and quite plain. She tends to be pretty and slender in TV/ Movie versions.
It's very funny when people complain about 'PC' and don't know what they're talking about.
The idea of a black Nancy was not inconceivable, thus considering black actresses for the role is not silly. There is nothing wrong with black characters appearing in that era.
Reading this thread reminds me that the BBC is in crisis and getting very silly.
share