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Midsomer Murders is hardly a TV series associated with controversy. The series has trundled on for many years now, putting people to sleep with a ever-rising death toll in sleepy English villages on ITV. That is until now, when Brian True-May, the producer and co-creator of the series, in an astonishing interview in The Radio Times, completely dismissed the idea of having ethnic minorities in Midsomer. The reason he gave was that the Midsomer series is “the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way… I’m trying to make something which appeals to a certain audience, which seems to succeed, and I don’t want to change it”. Bear in mind these views were given freely in an interview.
My reaction to this is mixed. I have watched Midsomer Murders a few times when there is nothing else on and it is obvious to all that it exists in some idealised world of the quintessential English village, with plenty of “ooh Vicar!” moments and middle class eccentrics wherever you go. It doesn’t deal with gritty urban, ethnic realism because that is not its remit. The series is incredibly popular worldwide, and that is because, while providing escapism, it upholds many popular stereotypes of the English. And part of me wonders what possible roles are there for ethnic minorities apart from being the murderer or the murdered? It’s hardly the role of Othello or any other cause celebre.
In that regard, True-May has a point. However, what many people have found unacceptable is his conflation of “English” with “white”. If you are not white, you can’t be English. Perhaps True-May means that in his fantasy Midsomer world, having ethnic minorities would be unrealistic. Even so, to purposefully exclude people of a certain ethnicity from a TV show, and then to brag about it, is bigoted, if not racist, behaviour. In the interview True-May admits his views are not “politically correct” and that Englishness should include ethnic minorities, but is adamant that to include them within Midsomer would be untrue and commercially unsuccessful. Even if he is merely referring to its popularity in other countries, which is the context for his remarks, it is an astounding case of foot-in-mouth.
What, then, is the future for Midsomer? With the departure of its central character Tom Barnaby, it is already on delicate ground. Even taking into consideration the suspension True-May, an inclusion of ethnic characters now will certainly be seen as tokenism, but their continued exclusion will be seen as the perpetuation of discriminatory policy from ITV. When we have had a black Friar Tuck in Robin Hood, would it be any more outlandish to have ethnic minorities in the British shires? Would ethnic minorities seriously impact Midsomer’s commercial success if they merely fitted into the tradition of ever more outlandish murders? Personally I don’t think so. It remains to be seen what ITV and All3Media, the production company responsible for Midsomer, will do in this battle with integrity against perceived commercial success.
Listen to the online interview here.
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