Either way, there are some people who might think that all these minorities on the TV is what is ruining British TV, and as an extention ruining Britain...
like this woman for example...
...or this one...
...or even this one.
Personally, I agree with these ladies probable views about disabled, black, asian and fat people having a TV platform... but I don't agree for the same reasons they do. While they would happily see all minorities "Fark owf back to Niggaraguarrgh!" I am more offended by the shameless box ticking from TV execs.
thus making a programme like Shameless quite shameless in its exploitative portrayal of the discusting underclasses of Britain, much like the 3 racist women on the train, but I am not here to talk about them, at least not yet, I have other things on my mind.
With that in mind I would like to look back fondly over some of my favourite minorities portrayed on Channel 4 over the years.
Desmonds -like Shameless- is fictional, although it actually comes closer to a programme like the Cosby Show or the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I would like to say that the reason I have banded these three shows together was because they were among the first shows to offer entertainment to a black demographic, but the reason I am banding these shows together is because simply because they have black people in them and don't appeal to me.
Queer as Folk
Yup, gays are everywhere int' they? No TV show so accurately showed this as Queer as folk, where Aiden Gillen went around shagging underaged boys in a manner that essentially glorified paedophillia/addressed sensitive social issues like the age of consent. Canned after series 2 after sponsorship was withdrawn by beer company 'Beck' and interferance from channel 4. Queer as folk remains as discusting to look at during the sex scenes for hetrosexual males to this day.
Somewhere along the lines Channel 4 stopped using fiction to highlight minority groups, after executives discovered that just filming a group of disabled people in a room together is cheaper than paying actors, film crews, writers and editors to produce a piece of artwork which would then be subjected to attacks from critics. With a cheap documentary, if its shit just move on to the next one, With an efficient team you can make as many as 4 a month. The Progeria babies was a notable early one.
More recently, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding transformed the Traveller community from objects of distain discust and hatred to objects of intrigue. Pretty much televising an attempted rape in the process, but hey, thats alright, its part of their culture.
The latest group to come under the microscope of Channel 4 is the Amish community, a group of simple bible folk who have ways very different from our own, much like the Traveller community, or the gays, or even the blacks. The first series which focused on the Amish filmed a group of Amish children coming to live with several british families and seeing modern life... The show proved popular enough to warrant sending a group of british people over to Ohio to live like the Amish for the second series. taking a concept, and turning it on its head. because they did it one way in the first series and now they are doing it the other way. so thats that then.
This brings me back to my point about box ticking, reducing comunities and groups of people to simple demographics to be shown before being tossed away for another group which is more in vogue...
My idea for the next demographic is pretty topical.
Following in the trials and tribulations of racist women on trains. It could also explore just what it is about train journeys that make white women so racist.
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