Tony Hendriks - JAMAICAN PALEFACE NEWS FLASH! The Crouches is a new all black sitcom on the BBC. Gasps of disbelief! followed by shocked silence then murmurs of "You sure?" and finally subdued congratulations of "Respect!" and "Irie!" Then the show aired and it was crap. Dismay! Worse, black people hated it. hiss! Well, not all black people phew! just those who saw it. Cho! So why? It wasn't black enough. Den mi nuh tell yuh man! Worse still, it was written by a white man. Fight dem a fight 'gainst black people.
Okay, now all the excitement is over, and trust me nuff people were excited about a new 'all black show' on network TV, let's make one thing clear, when they said 'all black' they meant all the actors are black. The writer and all but one of the producers are white and by BBC Director General Greg Dyke's own admission, the BBC is 'scarily white'. So is this a problem? Well, you ask a tailor to make shoes?
WRITING DIALOGUE
Look, of course a white man can write dialogue for black people, hello, it's me writing this, an a dat me a show unuh long time! Still, I'm not really white. But yes, writers of any race can assume the voice of another, a woman can write a man and vice versa, as long as, and this is the key, as long as you observe the golden rule of writing: Write what you know, research what you don't, make sure what you write is believable. Comedy or tragedy.
Did Aunty Beeb do wrong? Not totally, she commissioned a writer who had previously written a hit, you've got to figure he knows what's funny. Respect where respect is due, he suggested writing a black family. But disrespect where disrespect is due, as a white man he should have called a bredda and sister to collaborate and help him keep it real. How hard would that have been? Instead the tailor turned shoemaker.
You see that's the problem with middle class, bleeding heart liberals in the UK; they try desperately to convince themselves and others that "we are all the same". We are not homogenous! We are Homogenophobes! Yes, we all bleed red blood, breatheGod's air, want love, happiness, a winning Lotto ticket and enough money to make life smooth but we are also very different.
When it comes to humour very often what we like is completely and totally opposite to the Englishman. I've been asked a gazillion times what is the difference between black humour and white? There are several answers but this one is a big one: White people love a loser. Black people love a winner.
Some people think we should just be grateful for any black programme on TV especially in England where we account for less than three per cent o.f the population. No! Not if the programme doesn't represent us properly!
Any new production has to be good. But a new black show has to be as good as Desmond's or Cosby. Worse, in the big wide world. At least if we make a crap show in Jamaica it's only us who see it, but don't make us look bad in front of everyone else. So if a show is written by a white man and crap it is doubly bad. Instead of just being ashamed now we bex beyond belief.
If the show was funny, a huge success and we looked really good, we wouldn't care or even mention that it was written by a white man. We'd just laugh and take all the credit for it being about black people. Unless the only person to get rich was the white man, then we'd ball "Whitey a teef out we culture and make all a de money!" But if it was funny and everybody did well out of it the writer could be a half mongoose, half duppy, half snake, Nazi, Chi-Chi Man, we'd overlook it as a minor aberration and make out like thieves in the night.
Tony Hendriks can be reread and e-mailed at www.jamaicanpaleface.com.
