Nadiya Hussain responds to critics

[PruthePrune]

Nadiya Hussain responds to critics

I can understand her being upset that her shows have been axed, apparently ratings were falling, However, I find it hugely disappointing that she has brought race/religion into it. No one is entitled to a BBC show and I think she has had a bloody good run. AIBU?

Why? She has a point?

It's the same shit she was expected to swallow as a kid with a smile on her face.

Like it or not race/religion are relevant.

She's a grown up, she's allowed to express her hurt if she wants and respond to people who think that she's making a big deal of it.

If the ratings for a show aren't good then the TV company will axe it, thats standard I suspect. She would be better focusing on finding another company willing to produce her shows or publishing more books or whatever.

I hear her, and understand what she is saying. Why should she be grateful?

She’s bringing race into it because it’s relevant. You won’t understand if you’re white, especially if you’re white and British-born, but others are forever being told to be “grateful” to Britain in a way that you will never be. It’s exhausting and I’m glad she’s telling everyone to fuck off in the politest way possible.

(ETA I also wouldn’t care if she said it in the most impolite way, but I imagine that would have created even more of an outrage…)

I love Nadiya.

Look at Jeremy Clarkson. All his shows are now on Amazon Prime.

She'll find a way....

Well perhaps race WAS a factor given that people have been commenting that she should be grateful. They probably wouldn't use that word if Mary Berry or Holly Willoughby were fired. They'd say, 'they had a good run, they've got loads of experience and will go on to find something else that uses their presenting skills.'
So, while Nadiya should accept that brutal axes are a sad aspect of TV life, she's also got the right to point out that the gratitude word has difficult connotations for her.

She’s had a really good run on the bbc. Her career has outlived all the other (mostly white) bake off winners.
Her management should have been prepared and shopped her around to the minor channels, got a more cheaply produced show on where her repeats do well.

I don’t think she’s the first tv cook whose stint has come to and end and 10 years isn’t a bad innings. I love her shows and her books - very rare find in charity shops btw which is telling - but personally I think she’s being over sensitive about the ‘be grateful’ comments. Isn’t that just another way of saying ‘well done, you had a good run’. There’s only a few who seem to have been on our TV channels forever – I’m thinking Mary Berry, Delia Smith, but even the latter has disappeared from our screens lately. You only have to watch Saturday Kitchen and all the vintage clips of previous tv chefs to see how many come and go. However, I haven’t been able to find any information about which aspect she says is unfair, so there might be more to it.

I just googled as had not heard of her, to see who had asked her to feel grateful. In a quote she says she’s allowed to feel angry at being treated unfairly. Was she treated unfairly?

Actually (poor) white people are told to be grateful all the time.

If you lost a job would you think it’s reasonable to have no ill feelings and only feel grateful you had it when you did?

I thought she was eloquent and correct. There is a book called ‘The Grateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You’ that lays out the same point - the burden of always being told you should be thankful for what you have, because you’re lucky to be ‘here’ (insert relevant country) in the first place.

Perhaps, but it’s not the same thing. At all.

And women are told to be grateful for having work, too. Get paid less than the men? Just be grateful you have a job at all, love.

Nadiya might be right, she might be wrong, but I expect it's touched a nerve in her that relates to previous experiences.

No doubt the stats will prove falling ratings, I doubt her show would have been axed otherwise.

Equality means being subject to the same pressures as everyone else - in this case, being let go by the BBC because the ratings weren’t enough any more. It’s always about money in the media.

She HAS had a good run in her corner of the media world, which is constantly on the lookout for something new. In her case, the TV bosses at the time pounced upon a smiley, pleasant-looking brown woman with her head covered because it would have gone some way towards countering the criticism that all we see on our screens is people from the same part of society. So in that sense race/religion is an element here, but one which has worked in her favour.

She and her agent have been pretty smart with the rest of the media too. She’s had a lot of attention in magazines and features pages. Lots of stuff about her anxiety, not just her cooking.

She’s only going the way of scores of other TV cooks… that is, off to the satellite channels.

I think she's stabbed herself in the foot her.

There would have been a chance of further opportunities, but if she had an outburst like this I can see her brand tanking.

Her whole brand is the smiling face and being upbeat. And if she's having an almost rant about being forced to feel grateful. I can see people backing off from her.

She may have just ruined any chance of a comeback.

Tbh I was watching her programme a couple of days before I heard she had been axed and I was thinking she had become stale. Most tv chefs do and cooking programmes have become quite irrelevant when you have so many new faces on social media. She would do better by looking for new outlets rather than complaining.

She won Bake Off and she was fantastic. I feel sorry that her shows are cancelled, because I liked her and her programmes. However, commissions do depend on ratings. I hope that she finds something else to suit her talents.

I think she needs to understand that tv is brutal and very few cooks get more than a couple of series whatever their race. I must admit i haven’t enjoyed her later series, the dishes didn’t really make me excited and I don’t like her presenting style - much prefer Jamie Oliver (in fact perhaps controversially in all honesty I prefer cooking shows fronted by men, just me perhaps and don’t like Mary berry either).

rather than grateful she needs to be pleased with the success she has had and consider what she wants to do going forward.

…her last series was pretty poor, loads of rehashed stuff, nothing new. She was a good baker, but a bob-average chef. She did well to make pots of money from winning a baking show.

People do long running stints then it ends. It’s tough like losing any gig.

Agree she's had a good run on the BBC. Cookery shows are a v crowded market.
Even Delia Smith has moved on from conventional TV some years ago now. She could have grumbled that Jamie Oliver et al had taken her spot.

She shouldn't have to be grateful , but she always seems so very dramatic and attention seeking.
She still has a very sort after career - and has had her books published.

I enjoyed "Nadya's Asian Odyssey", and I think maybe travel programmes could be her thing?

I think she's perfectly entitled to express her disappointment and actually she has been positive about pursuing other opportunities so I don't see her as moaning. The barrage of 'you should be grateful' comments she's referring to are typical of how this country treats people from ethnic minorities - people feel she should be grateful for being 'accepted' and having some success. But she is simply pointing out that she has got where she is through her talent, hard work and tenacity. That's not unreasonable.