Eurovision

[anortherncod]

On paper I don't actually think they can ask you any more about your intentions to have a family - but of course what happens in practice is something completely different...

North West Tonight has an Asian newsreader called Ranvir Singh and Granada Reports used to have a guy called So Rahman, but those are obviously regional programmes. George Alagiyah (sp?) is sometimes on the national BBC news, and Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel Four News, but really, it's just a drop in the ocean.

Natasha

[Melaszka]

BBC also has Matthew Amraliwollah (sp?) and Michelle Ahmed, but they tend to get used mostly on w/es and Bank Holidays. Then there's Rageh Omar as a senior reporter and the BBC also have an Asian man as their chief sports reporter (can't remember his name offhand - I tend to switch off when it comes to sport). BBC West has Seb Choudhury as one of its frontpersons and HTV West has Lisa Aziz.

Generally, I think ethnic minorities are fairly well represented on the news, but perhaps not so well in senior roles or at peak times.

I think the music industry is even less good at equal opps.

One of the reasons I don't like the accusation that Eurovision is now biased against the UK is that it seems patent that the music industry as a whole is completely blatantly utterly biased in favour of Brits and North Americans. The fact remains that an artist who makes it big in the UK will almost certainly make it big worldwide (although perhaps not in the US), while an artist of the same talent who makes it big in Poland or Iceland or Mali or Indonesia or wherever is unlikely to have any success outside their own country.The exclusion of African acts from performing at the main event at Live8 was shameful. How often does British Asian music get airplay on mainstream stations (except in the middle of the night)?

And women are also marginalised in the music industry - either excluded all together, or promoted more for their looks than their talent. Even someone like Kate Bush (arguably one of the most talented musicians in the world)probably wouldn't have got a record deal if she hadn't simultaneously also been one of the most beautiful women in the world.

And even amongst women who do make it in music, the majority are either solo singer/songwriters or singers in a band. Why is there such a dearth of female instrumentalists? One of the many things I admired about Furniture was that they were one of the few bands around in the 80s who had a couple of female instrumentalists who were in the band, not as eye candy to look good in videos, but as a halfway decent bassist and keyboardist who just happened to be female. Things havemaybe got a bit more equal since then, but not much.

[anortherncod]

I used to listen to Bobby Friction and Nihal's show in my first year at university when I was driving back from Leeds - now it's on in the middle of the night.

You've reminded me of some banal quote about Fairground Attraction's (remember them?) female singer Eddi Reader: "the first woman to incorporate glasses into her image!" Honestly...

And also, going back to Britain's Got Talent, why did the electronic strings group Escala have to be wearing high heels and matching dresses? That's what I call dumbing down for the masses. I actually said last night that they almost looked as if they had been put together - two blondes and two redheads, and my father-in-law said, "Oh, but they grew up together". Who's to say, though, that there wasn't a fifth member who was larger than the rest of them and got kicked out...?

Natasha

[Melaszka]

You've reminded me of some banal quote about Fairground Attraction's (remember them?) female singer Eddi Reader: "the first woman to incorporate glasses into her image!" Honestly...

About as banal as all the critics who derided Kate Bush for being "trivial" and "ridiculous" for writing a song about a washing machine, when you think about how many men write lyrics about motorbikes yet escape comment.

And also, going back to Britain's Got Talent, why did the electronic strings group Escala have to be wearing high heels and matching dresses? That's what I call dumbing down for the masses. I actually said last night that they almost looked as if they had been put together - two blondes and two redheads, and my father-in-law said, "Oh, but they grew up together". Who's to say, though, that there wasn't a fifth member who was larger than the rest of them and got kicked out...?

The soft porn marketing of female "clasical crossover" artists does my head in.

Going back to newsreaders, anchorwomen can't win. If they're anything less than a supermodel, men complain "Why is this dog on the TV?" If they do look like a supermodel, even though they probably also have a First from Oxbridge and years of journalistic experience, men complain that they're airheaded "autocuties" who've been employed only for their looks and/or that they're inappropriately sexy and "trivialising" the news.

[tallulahtaurus]

In my own personal experience mixed-race people are often seen to be more acceptable because it's felt they have more 'in common' with the indigenous white population, to the extent that - in my case - I've had people making racist remarks about black people to me and I have to underline what my own ethnic background is, whereupon they say things like, "Oh, I didn't mean you". (Revenge is sweet because then I get to watch them squirm!)

I apologise for my late arrival to this thread but oh my I am mixed race and have had exactly the same thing happen to me. I mean it's as if people have accepted me but then that crushing feeling that perhaps they haven't really...

Gah

I also have felt the same thing with regards to the supposed acceptance of black people in society. I mean all this thing about championing black beauty when in reality they mean Beyonce, who has perfectly straight blonde hair and really light skin....it's easy to accept when you remove the difference

I mean the amount of white people in my life who naturally assumed that I was gonna get my hair straightened, as if I should naturally want to look more like them.

Assimilation seems to be what is craved.

I don't quite get why society pats itself on the back quite as much as it does for finding Beyonce and Halle Berry attractive?

ALSO TO RETURN TO EUROVISION

I have never really liked it and even less since I found out that this song by Plastic Betrand didn't win (it came nearly last in fact) the year it was entered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLmSC7UQ19s

I firmly believe that it should have won for the performance alone which is... LOL technology

It's so, so funny. Although I think maybe that might be because I have some dangerous fixation on Plastic Betrand in reality....??

[anortherncod]

Have you read the meetup thread Tallulah? Me and Halle Berry could be twins y'know...

Natasha

[tallulahtaurus]

I hadn't because I can't go to the meetup since I have work so I will totally take your word for it.

I kind of look a lot like Beyonce myself so...

LOL

[anortherncod]

Work eh? Boo and hiss.

Maybe we should set up a lookalikes agency...

Natasha