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WELCOME TO DIVERSITY CHALLENGE...
Posted Thursday, February 14, 2008
WELCOME TO DIVERSITY CHALLENGE...
Hi chaps
Well.
The Diversity speech went well, I'd say.
It made the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Mail, the Evening Standard, the front cover of the BBC's in house mag, Aerial...
Who would have thought that such a personal speech would stir things up in such a way?
I wanted the speech to be written from the heart and I wanted it to be funny. It also had to have a serious intent -ask questions like: How come diversity has almost ground to a standstill in our industry? Why is there a black / asian sit com every ten years? ... how come when you walk on a tv or film set , there's hardly ever any people of colour around? ... and so on.
In the speech I talk about the past and the programmes my family and I would watch back in the day like Til Death us Do Part, Mixed Blessings, Love thy neighbour, it ain't half hot mom. The strange thing was, even though these programmes contained racist comments from the silly to the downright offensive, our family would watch them and try to enjoy them- 'Look there's people like us in it, that must mean it's meant for people like us!'
I talk about how programmes like Til Death and Love thy neighbour provided racist school bullies with verbal ammunition, words like Paki, Wog, nig nog and coon became the lingua franca of the playground. The argument that Rudy in Love thy neighbour coined the counter attack pejorative terms 'Snow flake' and 'Honky' did not help when you were being kneed constantly in the testicles by Philip Sherman.
I discuss my career in the speech and talk about starting on New Faces - a great show from the seventies, where anyone could audition, black, white, asian-dancer, singer, ventriloquist and if they passed muster, they'd get on the show.
Wouldn't it be great if there was something on TV that catered to non singing talent? X factor's great and Britain's Got talent is a hoot, but they are skewed towards singers? Comics don't get a look in any more - and if you're a double act or a sketch troupe -you might as well forget it - the TV guys don't seem to want to give those people a chance any more...I wonder if that is really the case?
I talk about appearing in the black and white minstrels and how painful that was; the truth of it is, I wasn't advised about the whole thing - I was told the Minstrels would be a 'Good place to learn stage craft' mainly because the audience weren't there to see comics -they were there to hear the old songs and look at the shiny costumes. When
I got out of the minstrels people talked to me like I'd been in Jail 'When'd you get out man?' 'You've lost weight.' 'Here's some money man-take it!'
The main thing the speech did, I think was to present a list of things that we could do as an industry to redress the balance of diversity, because, clearly - things have to change ...we'll put links to all the articles about the RTS speech if we can, and I might even stick the speech on line if you want - but there's my list of what the industry could do:
Len's List
Title card: Len's List:
1. When you're commissioning your programmes ...put diversity on the agenda. Write it in there so it doesn't get forgotten.
2. Reach out to schools and colleges and make people aware that ethnic minorities are welcome in the UK TV Industry - get in on the ground floor otherwise these people are not going to be able to contribute to our industry.
3. Set targets. You know who I'm talking about. If you don't set targets, you're gonna have an empty plate up here. I don't want anyone to end up with two cheesy balls and a pepperami ...set targets ...do it tomorrow.
4. Create internships to give people without the benefit of an Oxbridge education the chance to participate in programme making. I'm talking mentoring, apprenticeships the full works.
5. When you're looking for people to put in front of the cameras ... why don't you try going off the beaten track a little bit? You might just find... someone like me.
6.You commercial guys ...start thinking of ethnic minorities as an untapped market. They're the audience of the future; they're consumers just like everybody else, start going for that diversity pound.
7.and you might not be able to do this tomorrow ...unless you're Mark Thompson or Michael Grade ...but... Start appointing ethnic minority staff. None of this changes ...unless you appoint staff.
I finish the whole thing with a kind of remixed quote from Goethe, which is about the magic in being bold and committing to a good cause:
"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
Len
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