The BBC’s head of creative diversity made a valid point about Idris Elba’s Luther. That’s not how it was reported
Luther first aired on BBC One more than a decade ago, yet it’s still the focus for debate about Black representation in British television. Why? Because it’s still one of a handful of examples of a major British drama series with a Black lead character. That scarcity is the crux of the issue, however misleadingly it is currently being framed by headlines such as “Idris Elba’s Luther ‘isn’t black enough to be real’, says BBC diversity chief”.
The “diversity chief” in question was the BBC’s head of creative diversity, Miranda Wayland. She was speaking this week at an industry conference and was making an entirely different point about Luther. But to understand that you’d have to read beyond the many misleading reports that followed. All of them served to turn this into a widely repeated viral story that erroneously suggested that Wayland – a Black woman – was making the patently ludicrous argument that there is only one way to be Black.
