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Midsomer Murders -only if you’re white.

The producer of Midsomer Murders has been suspended after a comment about ethnic diversity has shocked television executives.

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The producer of Midsomer Murders has been suspended after a comment about ethnic diversity has shocked television executives.

Brian True-May, co-creator of the show, said the series “wouldn’t work” if there was any racial diversity portrayed in the sleepy village life of the fictional county of Midsomer.

“We just don’t have ethnic minorities involved. Because it wouldn’t be the English village with them,” he has told the Radio Times. “It just wouldn’t work. Suddenly we might be in Slough … We’re the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way.

“Maybe I’m not politically correct … I’m trying to make something that appeals to a certain audience, which seems to succeed. And I don’t want to change it.”

The long-running series is known for its quaint village setting with classic whodunnit mysteries.

But an ITV spokesman said: “We are shocked and appalled at these personal comments by Brian True-May which are absolutely not shared by anyone at ITV.

“We are in urgent discussions with All3Media, the producer of Midsomer Murders, who have informed us that they have launched an immediate investigation into the matter and have suspended Mr True-May pending the outcome.”

Source: Guardian

29 Responses

  1. Well if Mr True-May wanted to ‘keep it that way’ he should have kept his big mouth Shut. What an idiot. However the show does accurately reflect the ethnicity of sleepy rural English villages. Very few non-white people pass through or live in these places. T-M should have thought about and chosen his words more carefully, perhaps ‘old fashioned englishness’ or ‘traditional englishness’ would have been more appropriate.

  2. I was brought up in a small country village in the UK. And I can tell you now, we have never had a single mixed race person or someone from another ethnic minority than Anglo Whites ever live in the Village. If Midsommer murders are trying to capture the essence of true English village life then there would be no black people. Not because the producer is being racist because he is trying to make his programe is realistic as possible. This is PC gone mad if you ask me.

    Australian tv dramas are exellent television on the whole but they oftern suffer from having no different ethnic characters in their programs, before I came to Australia I thourght this was because there weren’t many non whites in the country anyway. Then i went there and was shocked at how many I saw, and how this hadnt at all been depicted in any of the TV programes I had watched.. Ie. If Neighbours (my favourite show) wanted to represent the real Melbourne it would be like spot the white person. (No offence).

    I think British TV on the whole is very good at representing mixed raced characters in TV Dramas and soaps. Although at times I watch soaps like Emmerdale and think, yer right as if there would be an asian family living in that small rural village in real life?

    I think when it comes to having a diverse cast you have to look at how realistic it is for the setting of your programe. Ie. A soap set in Melbourne should not have an all white cast, a show set in a small English village far out in the country should.

  3. In reality it comes down to socio-economic class not race. Those quaint cottages we see are these days very expensive – so two types of folks live there – those who have lived there a long time (or their descendants) and those who can afford to move in. Quite honestly, both of those classes are predominantly, but not exclusively, white.

  4. You’d think that’d make the the minorities rather sensible avoiding the place that probably has the highest murder rate per capita in Britain. Probably more than St. Mary Mead. Seriously I don’t usually watch it. I’ve seen some episodes. But I generally avoid it and that would be with or without non-white characters. Barnaby Joyce is alright as well as his family. Too bad about the murders (yes I get it’s in the title of the the show).

  5. The only thing wrong here (apart from ITV’s mock outrage) is that he didn’t express his thoughts as well as Allie did in her comment. This, “We’re the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way”, comes across very badly but I don’t interpret it as necessarily anti-ethnic.

    I see this as the other side of the coin from something like The Wire where they have an abundance of actors of African descent, to accurately portray the cultural mix of the neighbourhoods where most of the story takes place.

    @Dick – you’re going straight to Hell but will prob be laughing all the way there!

  9. “We’re the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way.” Okay, that’s offensive. Englishness is not defined as white.

  11. I don’t know much about the entertainment business but I know enough to know this would Have to have been discussed on multiple occasions with the commissioning network (ITV). Shame on them for their pretend outrage now that their dirty little secret is out of the bag.

  12. With or without the man voicing the opinions he has.

    Did no one at the places mentioned, All3Media and ITV, not notice it had been a ‘white’ storytelling show all this time?

  13. So ITV didn’t notice the lack of ethnic diversity during the many many years it’s been on their network? Only when somebody mentioned it? That sounds unlikely.

  15. I’m not really sure I understand the outrage – he is correct isn’t he? The type of villages that Midsomer is based on have very little ethnic diversity. Or is the problem that he had the cahonies to say it?

    I don’t see this in the same category as the idiotic tweet from family guy tool or even the run of ‘fa**ot’ tweets/tv etc from last year.

    1. The kind of villages depicted in the show may be overwhelmingly white Anglo-Saxon but there would be some diversity. Statements that “it’s a fact” would overlook some representation. In the life of the show it does seem odd to not have surfaced by now. At least now we know why.

  18. I think an investigation would include checking to see if he was misquoted, or it was taken out of context. This happens so often, and it can easily twist a harmless comment into its opposite.

    Having said that, the Radio Times is not the kind of publication that would be so underhanded. I suspect it is what he said, and that is a sad state of affairs.

    I hadn’t noticed the lack of ethnic diversity in Midsomer Murders, and it surprises me. I’m sure the real villages are quite well represented by minorities.

  20. What’s with all the racist shitheads opening their mouths today?

    Yeah we get it, white people rule the world. Often by taking land that isn’t theirs and killing off indigenous culture. Quit rubbing it in our faces

  21. Political correctness gone absolutely mad. Mr True-May said nothing offensive, he was merely stating a fact, which is that the average sleepy English village tends to be monocultural, with few, if any, ethnic minorities living there. That is fact, it is not a racial slur. Migrants tend not to locate to small villages for the simple reason that there are few employment prospects. ITV need to take a serious chill pill, this man has said nothing wrong.

  22. True-May is 100% correct.
    But not politically.
    However, we’ve spent some holidays in the “small villages” of the English countryside and, he’s right – have never noticed a non-white strolling the streets.

  23. I do wonder what form these “investigations”, that are so often called when things such as this happen, take. It’s obvious what he said and what he meant.

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