The BBC has come to the defence of Holby City after it received complaints of ‘too many gay characters.’
The British medical drama premiered in 1999, but has only recently featured four LGBTI storylines. That’s four characters out of 17 main characters.
But the BBC’s head of continuing drama, Oliver Kent revealed some viewers think that’s too much.
He said: ‘We had complaints recently because it was deemed by some viewers that we had too many gay characters.
‘And that’s because at the time we had two gay love stories. We had four characters out of 17. I don’t think that’s disproportionate,’ he told the Daily Star.
The show features gay characters Dominic Copeland and Ben Chiltern, played by David Ames and Lee Mead respectively.
TwitterHolby City
The BBC boss said they’ll forge ahead with their strong diversity policy.
In response to the complaints of ‘too many gay characters,’ Kent said they could actually do more with LGBTI representation.
Kent said: ‘What we could do more is represent bisexual characters.
‘That is what we could be better at exploring. I don’t think we have quite got that as right yet as we could.
‘I think we could probably be better at that. And I don’t know how but I think we could,’ he said.
British soaps need to do more for diversity
Yesterday (13 July), Emmerdale writers came under attack for playing to tired bisexual stereotypes.
So much so, they apologized to fans for their harmful representation of bisexual people, after swish backlash on Twitter.
Producer of the show, Iain MacLeod, said: ‘We took the view with the character of Robert that his sexuality was low on the list of things that were most interesting about him. He’s devious, manipulative and self-serving and has been since birth.
‘But he recently cheated on his partner and we’ve got a very angry backlash from certain portions of our audience. They feel that we’ve pandered to this incorrect perception that bisexual people are somehow promiscuous or untrustworthy.
‘It’s just a really good example of us as an editorial team forgetting people’s sexuality and having this attitude of, “We can tell any story we like about anyone.”
‘But actually this has been an interesting exercise in checks and balances,’ he said.
