BBC Diversity Chief Calls Character of Luther Not “Authentic,” but What Does That Even Mean?

There has been some discussion about the BBC show Luther and how it qualifies as Black “representation.”

Luther is a BBC crime drama created by Neil Cross about Detective Chief Inspector John Luther (Idris Elba) solving brutal murders in the Serious Crime Unit of the MET. It ran from 2010–2019, and there have been talks about a possible movie being in the works.

Miranda Wayland, the BBC’s head of creative diversity, told the MIPTV media conference: “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, okay, he doesn’t have any Black friends, he doesn’t eat any Caribbean food, this doesn’t feel authentic.”

Wayland’s thoughts are not totally off base, since the show was written almost entirely by creator Cross, who is a white man. He stated in response to the comments that “I have no knowledge or expertise or right to try to tackle in some way the experience of being a Black man in modern Britain.” He continued, “It would have been an act of tremendous arrogance for me to try to write a Black character. We would have ended up with a slightly embarrassed, ignorant, middle-class, White writer’s idea of a Black character.”

Cross purposefully made the character of Luther a grizzled, loner detective and as a result, he doesn’t have many friends and his interior life largely isn’t a big factor in the series. Actor Idris Elba has stated before that part of his attraction to the role was that it didn’t have any stereotypical elements to it.

The role is largely a “color-blind” one in construction because, in many ways, it isn’t constructed to perform anything other than what the crime drama usually asks from its male leads.

Luther is such a weird show to choose to make this statement about because the character of Luther is a solitary character. I don’t remember him eating or really having friends. His work consumed his life and his mental health.

The bringing up of Caribbean food especially is a bit jarring since we don’t know what Luther’s ethnicity is. Idris Elba himself is of Sierra Leonean and Ghanaian heritage, so if this was supposed to indicate his Blackness, it doesn’t even match his own. Also, as a member of the Caribbean diaspora myself, yes, food is part of my culture, but when you grow up in a white-dominant culture (like Luther does), it impacts your eating habits, as well.

I think Wayland’s point is a layered one that gets muddled because of the show she picked. There is no one, monolithic Black experience, and it can not be summed up with just foods or your friendgroup. However, Luther is a show with a Black lead and a lot of diversity, but behind the scenes it was likely a largely white environment. It is good for shows to think about the larger sphere of representation and going beyond just a lead BIPOC person and no one else.

But, it is also important that, if we constantly keep reminding people that BIPOC are not a monolith, we are not looking for stereotypic shorthand in a narrative that isn’t focusing on any interior lives. It is a complicated dance, and I personally preferred that Cross simply wrote Luther as a detective and didn’t try to create a narrative about Blackness.

That is just my opinion. What’s yours?

(via Yahoo.UK, image: BBC)

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