Culture & Society

BBC’s diversity chief slammed for stating highly acclaimed ‘Luther’ series not black enough to be ‘authentic’

April 15, 2021 | | Print Article

The diversity manager for the British Broadcasting Corporation has prompted widespread ridicule for claiming that the highly regarded crime series Luther which ran on BBC television for five seasons lacked authenticity because of the fictional main character’s choice of cronies and cuisine.

A-list actor Idris Elba played the title character, a London detective, on the show and will star in a feature film that continues the saga.

Golden-Globe-winning Elba, who has 100 acting credits on IMDB, is perhaps best known for his role as Stringer Bell on HBO’s The Wire and for playing the lead in the biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. He is also being touted as possibly the next James Bond as Daniel Craig finishes his run as Agent 007.

Elba’s starring role in Luther apparently wasn’t good enough for diversity official Miranda Wayland, who in remarks at a digital trade show observed that the show was insufficiently diverse, the Daily Mail reported.

“‘When [Luther] first came out everybody loved the fact that Idris Elba was in there — a really strong, black character lead. We all fell in love with him. Who didn’t, right? But after you got into about the second series you got kind of like, OK, he doesn’t have any black friends, he doesn’t eat any Caribbean food, this doesn’t feel authentic.”

The BBC, which is funded by an increasingly controversial license fee charged to U.K. households, reportedly plans to spend about $124 million on content that is more inclusive and diverse in the 2021-2023 time frame.

Accordingly, the BBC hierarchy has reportedly adopted a non-compromise policy when it comes to the requirement for diversity in its content going forward. Wayland joined the broadcast network in February 2020 with an imperative to push for more diversity among on-air talent.

“Casting more black directors was only part of the solution, she added, but Luther’s creator and writer Neil Cross expressed surprise, insisting that Elba only took the role in the first place because race was not considered important to the character,” the Daily Mail added.

With authenticity or lack thereof allegedly in play, Cross more or less indicated that it would be inauthentic for him as a white guy to try to write a black character.

Generally speaking, woke corporations on both sides of the Atlantic have created an industry for diversity-monitoring bureaucrats.

As alluded to above, Twitter scoffed at the diversity manager’s assumptions, including parody account Titania McGrath. Here is a sampling: (** Language warning)

Parenthetically, the BBC has faced repeated accusations of liberal and globalist bias in its news division.

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Robert Jonathan
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