Netflix tropes

[evanescene]

Been at home ill for a few days. I've been thinking about tropes on netfkix dramas. Is it.now statutory that;
Richard Arrnitage plays a sexy, slightly troubled male lead in an ABC1 profession
There should be at least one BAME character but they must speak with a middle class voice
Houses all look recently renovated,.spacious with kitchen islands. Everyone drives a 4 x 4 and has untroubled children about to head off to uni with a posh BAME partner
If Olivia Colman is employed she will be playing the part of a ballsy, career successful womam with an air of general disappointment with and borderline disdain for male incompetence
Swearing is acceptable but only if delivered in a posh voice by a gossipy milf type 45 year old woman eg she nudges her best friend while looking at a couple of new colleagues getting on well and says "do you think they're snagging?"
Irish or Scotrish characters, if male are good looking slightly edgy lovable rogue types. If female they're usually married to a high status male with a posh English accent but get to vocalise more than their English homologues.
People with central European accents will normally be in service roles and helping a sick parent back home

I'm sure I've missed a lot

Bumping

I was watching a Harlen Coban series (not the one with Michelle Keegan) and was thinking that for supposedly working class people, they live in very large, well decorated houses.

I don’t get the mention of BAME characters. They exist. And many are middle class. This is a very weird observation.

Like commenting they must has a “man” or a “child” as part of the “tropes.”

There's a lot o these kinds of tropes in HC tv adaptations. I haven't seen any of his where I'd have thought the characters were working class though

I think OP means because there’s only ever one person who isn’t white as the main character eg one black main character and one Indian minor character (partner of uni child) and they're middle class. But the white characters are numerous and a mixture of working class, middle class and posh.

So she is saying there should be more?

You maybe right. I read it differently (“there should be at least one” not “there is only one”.)

That’s how I read it. As if to fit the Netflix trope there should be at least one character who isn’t white who is in the main story and maybe a minor character who isn’t white.

That’s how I read it and why I thought it was weird to class it as a “trope”.

Like calling it a trope to have a woman in a show.

I agree that Indian characters are always 'partner of uni child' - I hadn't noticed this before but its so true!

Two recent shows - Perfect Couple and Kaos - were the first time I had seen an Indian character just allowed to play a role without justifying their Indian-ness and why they were there, and not having a heavily exaggerated Indian accent.

I also wondered after reading OP mentioning 'BAME character with a posh/middle class voice' twice if they have some sort of odd obsession with BAME characters not being Middle class or posh? Are they not supppsed to be - there's more than enough working class or poor BAME characters to go round so i wouldnt begrudge the odd posh ones you see every now and then.

But then OP carried on talking about posh with other characters, so I decided OP probably just has a problem with people being 'posh' or 'middle class' at least on Netflix.

It’s funny what people notice. Maybe OP noticed that because the representation of BAME people is always so stereotypical (if I see another show where the BW are all feisty and / or single mothers and the boys are all caught up in gang violence I will scream) that when they show them being boringly middle class it makes no sense.

But I agree with you it’s odd to call that trope - when I doubt they would consider it a “trope” for a show to have a white middle class character.

(if I see another show where the BW are all feisty and / or single mothers and the boys are all caught up in gang violence I will scream)

Yes this is the common trope. The posh/middle class ones are very welcome to grace our screens for a change.

Netflix borrows heavily from Greek mythology, not just KAOS & Bridgerton, but lots of other stuff too.

I think it’s a trope because with white people we see a range classes/personalities/accents but we don’t get that for people who aren’t white. There’ll be middle class white people speaking properly and, a working class Essex/cockney cheeky chappy white neighbour, the ‘low class’ white ex boyfriend/estranged sister etc but for eg black characters we don’t get that, we get one who is middle class.

Surely the trope is not the specific class but that there's usually only one type of BAME or Black character. The 'token Black friend' or that one Black character with no other family members in the film.

The representation of BAME characters is more often shown as working class, so fixating on the 'middle classness' of the few is what's odd and comes across as if the problem is that they're middle class and shouldn't be.

There should be a wide range of characters who aren't white with different personalities, class, accents, etc just like there are for white characters.

Can you give mean example?

Grrr it quoted the wrong person!

Sounds like they need to increase the numbers of BAME characters in shows so they can get that class diversity.

(But I actually find it tends to be the opposite personally.)

I hate that every series MUST have a 6 year old child who is generally a literal genius, who often talks down and kidsplains to every adult in the scene.

Never Have I Ever the main family is all Indian and the supporting characters are various ethnicities.

In documentaries, every interviewee must be shown in the act of Sitting Themselves Down On A Chair in preparation for the interview, as if the manner in which they Sit Themselves Down On A Chair provides a quick insight into their character and humanity.

Yes, the trope is that there are "token" black characters e.g at least one but usually no more than two
and often there's correlation with the "class" thing

E.g. usually in police dramas there is at least one black character in a senior role, whereas in real life the vast vast majority of senior officers are white.
On one hand it is trying to avoid the older trope of black people always being lower class criminals, by putting them in professional senior middle class jobs.

But in doing so it has created its own trope in vastly over-representing the diversity of real life police forces, particularly when the show is set outside of London/major cities.

Rather than if it was really race blind casting whereby you might have the DS being black, an inspector being from a south Asian background and a chief supervisor who was of Indian heritage OR all three being white if they were the best for the job with no other considerations. But instead it's always a carefully arranged mix - we have to be diverse but not TOO diverse!

The dad always has to pinch a slice of toast from the gloriously arranged breakfast table as he’s shrugging his jacket on as he heads off to work

Some amazing observations here. The Dad cheekily pinching toast, the precocious child patronising adults..yes. There also seem to be an.above average number of high functioning middle class women who have a free spirited, kooky sister with a colourful love life and liberal attitude to alcohol. Also, specifically in American films depicting a family dynamic, at some point a 30something mother will say to her husband about their pre teen son that "he is desperate for your approval". The same husband will also usually have a difficult relationship with his own father, due to the latter not having been around because of working away while younger.

Always going out in the dark to check a creepy noise; like you do. Usually wearing a heavy woollen sweater whilst in torrential rain