This is absolutely what I have been saying. C4 actually has a remit to do this. The BBC on the other hand should be playing to the spoken word on the street and the 'average person' rather than trying to push boundaries.
The irony for me is we've had a week of people rabbiting on about 'political appointments' at the BBC. All of whom have some heavy duty left wing allegiances but don't appear to be self aware of this. Then when a government who had been democratically elected puts someone with a different view and different political beliefs in (Robbie Gibb) , they've had a complete meltdown because they've no longer had free reign to do what they want and have been challenged. But there's a problem with this - his views actually are shared and reflected by many ordinary people are are not extreme. They are very mainstream and he has a long career in media with a commitment to journalism. He was a May appointment - she won an election and a lot of people agreed with her on many issues. There's a loss of sight that there are a lot of conservative (little c) people in this country who have views which are mainstream and actually pretty centre and even they have felt alienated at times. You don't have to agree with those views to recognise them.
Personally I probably disagree with him on a lot of issues (Im not exactly a Theresa May fan and I think that's on record on MN!), but I also think what's happened is deeply problematic in terms where the BBC are and this entire concept of representation.
Representation has become this idea of showing different ethnic backgrounds, women and rainbow sexualities. That's actually all highly political and even the BBC itself has started to recognise it has a problem with white working class boys getting jobs there. It did a documentary a number of years ago about it which was fascinating and pointed out that it's talent from ethnic minorities was overwhelmingly middle class and the problem with class was getting worse not better.
I think that's one of its biggest issues right now. The BBC always has had something of a class issue - this goes back decades. The middle class families would watch BBC on a Saturday night whereas ITV was much more working class and frankly looked down on in a rather sniffy way.
As the political rift in the country has widened along this rift, the BBC almost has come to represent this divide and the concept of 'the lanyard classes'.
This isn't saying that the likes of Greg Wallace have been somehow hard done by (he's really not and MasterChef really is the most pompous and pretentious of shows in terms of it's very concept where people aspire to be chefs who charge huge amounts of money for a single meal which is way beyond the means of pretty much most of the population). It's saying that there's a sense that representation on the BBC is top down in a prescribed way that doesn't reflect modern Britain accurately.
It's a middle class left wing idealism that I think particularly grates with northerners. One of the things that has REALLY pissed me off over the years has been this representation of the North. When the BBC moved to Salford some years ago, there was a big issue with staff being unwilling to move and one of the most laughable reasons that was really given was that workers were worried that they wouldn't be able to get the same selection of artisan cheeses. This isn't remotely a joke. This reflected how snobby some of the staff were. In the end Booths ended up putting in a supermarket on the BBC campus which pretty much is the biggest fuck you possible (it's since closed as BBC staff weren't spending enough money there to justify being outside it's core area). The large influx, put up house prices.
In terms of on screen shows northern BBC drama has an obsession with council estates and terraces and stops just short of whippets. The one that actually upset me was 'Mother's Day' which was about the Warrington bombing. It made out the families involved to be much lower class 'and northern' in its dramatisation even down to the estates it was filmed on and the manner they were portrayed. Its just not remotely reflective of the area or the people who were involved. It actually upset people who were caught up in the real events or from the local areas it was supposed to represent - for this reason, not it's subject matter which is pretty shocking in its own right given what it's about. Warrington is an odd place which differs from some of its neighbours. It has faired much better, due to higher employment rates than other towns . It was a bell weather political town until recent boundary changes so this isn't insignificant either in terms of how people felt about it. It was like the executive producers in an office somewhere couldn't be bothered to go 15 mins down the motorway from Salford out of fear they might catch something if they did and said 'its northern, make it gritty and northern they are all the same'. For me it massively grated as frankly patronising and dishonest.
It's this underlying level of snobbery which seems to run through so many of these themes which I know from experience are not reflective of the world I live in. The BBC moving north was supposed to cut costs and to start to mitigate this issue. Unfortunately it's just sunk further into metropolitan bubbles with derision for places and people just down the road in provisional northern towns. You can go less than 5 miles from Salford Quays and almost be on a different planet. But equally you can stay safe in Didsbury or Wilmslow your whole life and never be ever made aware of how much of a massive bell end you are.
All the above places are my world which is why I find it particularly hard - I traverse these boundaries on a regular basis. These are people in my social circles but I also belong to these other social circles. There's a weird tension - migration from the SE has caused cultural tension locally. I know older people in some places talking to you differently if they know you are 'from round here' and it's invisible to people who have moved in. I'm talking white British people talking about white British people. It's about being priced out of areas and general issues with gentrification. Gentrification issues put migration issues into perspective - it's not just race - this is a massive over simplification which suits better off left wing circles just as much as the likes of Reform; it's about a pace of change, cultural attitudes and changing economic fortunes. The problem here is that polarisation on certain issues suits both ends of the spectrum to exacerbate. The BBC really hasn't got to grips with this massive shift and how it affects it - in part because many of its own staff very much have been part of some of these problems on a real world level.
The reality is we don't go around referring to pregnant people in the real world. This is a phrase that comes from public sector managers and pisses off grassroots and normal people. It undermining many of the issues faced due to biology or biology related conditions for women - it's anti-progressive because it's sexist. Gender neutral is by hampered by the fact that it tends to actually favour men and default human is in practice, male. And this in turn has class implications. And the same principles can be applied to a great number of different issues to sex and gender too.
People want a BBC that reflects the world they live in accurately. They don't want a BBC that reflects an overly stereotyped and sanitised world which wants to shape society. They want a society shaped BBC.
I applied to work for the BBC some years ago. It was my dream job. It was a long shot and I didn't think I'd get a job. I got through the first round though - only to have to do an interview based on psychological algorithms. I had a massive argument with DH at the time. He said I should fill it in one way because they were looking for certain people to fit into the organisation, I refused to saying that wasn't me and I couldn't be someone I wasn't. I got rejected - I'm actually fine with that, on paper I should not have got a job. Almost all the jobs went to people moving up from London. I do wonder about the process though and how interviewing through psychological algorithms really was a bad idea for the organisation as a whole in the long term.
I find the whole thing weirdly fascinating as an observer who is passionate about it all. I wanted to work for the BBC because I really believed in the concept of impartiality and wanting to 'get to the truth'. Watching from the sidelines just how it's lost its way on this and struggles with it's own self awareness is morbidly grim. It's like watching a slow motion car crash from my perspective.