The Celebrity Traitors star, Nick Mohammed, claims that he finds it annoying because, as a person of colour, he is constantly forced to discuss his identity and is not allowed just to be goofy.
He claims, “‘If you find a queer writer, a person of colour, a disabled writer, someone from the trans community… inevitably the commissioner will have steered them to write about their identity,’ he said. ‘It’s so frustrating, because I just want to write about anything. If I was writing about racism growing up in like 1980s and 90s in near Bradford, that is so much more what they want to hear from me than like, oh, it’s Mr. Swallow doing his thing, trying to put on A Christmas Carol or whatever he’s trying to do. They just don’t want to hear it.”
The emphasis on identification, as stated by Mohammed, who is also well-known for his parts in Ted Lasso and Slow Horses, is “a symptom of the fact that the higher up you go within TV and film commissioning, the lack of representation becomes really pronounced,” he told hosts Karis Aldridge and Joy Hunter.
He furthermore added, “This really feels like a bunch of white people sat around the room and said, how do we solve it? I was like, oh, great, let’s have a diverse pot of money. And that’s for diverse people to tell their diverse stories. We’ve done it, we’ve nailed it. They have a very specific view of what they think tackling the diversity and lack of representation problem is. Sadly, it’s a little narrow-minded. Things have come on, but it is identity-skewed. Look at the recent commissions. They are all primarily about identity, because there’s this expectation that that’s what will get your show greenlit.That’s not to say those shows aren’t good. But true representation would be a trans writer writing about a dentist.”
Mohammed is adamant to break the ‘cycle’ of vieled and showy representation of diversity, as in his concluding remarks, he proclaims, “We need commissioners of colour high up. If you’re a person of colour trying to break through, you look at what else is being commissioned and assume that’s your only route. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’ve got to break the cycle. It’s not to have a pop at identity shows, want to see those shows too. But they can’t be the only part of the picture.’
