Quote:
In an open letter to broadcasters and culture minister Ed Vaizey, a group of East Asian performers has claimed that, despite being the third largest minority ethnic group in Britain, East Asians are not “reflected on our stages and screens”.
In particular, the signatories have argued that long-running soaps such as EastEnders and Coronation Street have failed to represent the UK’s East Asian community or provide roles for its actors.
British East Asian Artists – a campaign group comprising actors, performers and writers – states in its letter: “In 30 years, except for one Chinese DVD seller who lasted barely three months, the popular soap opera EastEnders has never featured any recurring East Asian characters whatsoever. The hospital dramas, Casualty and Holby City, have featured only three young East Asian regular characters each despite the high number of (diverse) East Asians working in our health service. Coronation Street, set around Manchester with its long-established Chinatown, has featured only one East Asian character (a female Chinese immigrant) in its entire history.”
It adds: “When East Asians are featured they are nearly always heavily accented, the women passive and submissive, the men brutish, asexual and devoid of any individualistic character. East Asians are, more than any other ethnic minority, rarely seen as indigenous.”
A spokeswoman for the BBC responded to the criticisms by claiming that the Corporation “always strives to reflect the diversity of modern Britain through our output and across our workforce so that they better reflect our audiences”.
She added: “We know more needs to be done to ensure more people from ethnic minorities are better represented both on and off screen throughout the broadcast industry which is why we listen to our audiences and staff, using that feedback to help inform our decisions. This is ongoing but we are making progress.”
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http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2014/...-asian-actors/
Kind of shocking and embarrassing for a show suppsedly set as a contemporary East London drama
FFs, Stacey's been back for 5mins and she's on her 4th or 5th duff duff. Shabnam has none. If I were actress Rakhee I'd quit EE immediately, that would really show EE up for what it really is. All big SLs★ in 2014 have featured whites: Johnny coming out gay, Stacey return, Ian and the market, Cindy's pregnancy, Carol's cancer, Ronnie killing Carl. The few dramas the Masood had were equally about whites, Tamwar's white saviour Nancy, and the lovely white Carter's saving him from his nasty drunken theiving Asian Muslim dad, the nasty mixed lesbian* Tosh dating the lovely white Tina
★A big SL is one that gets most hype,a way to measure is if I see it on the cover of those tacky sosp mags I see in Tescos. Always white actors on cover.
* love how all doomed plot device relationships now involve a non white character, so EE and other soaps can tick ethnicity box but ultimately write out these relationship eg Kim rejected by every other guy, Bradley ditching mixed girl Syd for Stacey, Becca rejected by Max for Stacey, Shabnam #1 rejected by Dean for Stacey, Denise soon to be rejected by Ian for Jane, Ray rejected by Bianca, same trope happens in other soaps I see black girl Gemma (?) rejected by chav boy for Dingle girl, girls dad rejected by Alicia for David, on Corrie Todd flees from mixed guy after stealing his cash...