Cops in Culture #4: Death in Paradise
Reviews of the latest series of Robert Thorogood’s BBC detective program Death in Paradise, which centres on a succession of white English or Irish detectives being stationed on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie, have praised its unchallenging and untroubling nature and its exotic setting. And yet, following bell hooks’ critique of exoticism, I argue that it is precisely these qualities which define Death in Paradise as the product of a racist paradigm which it in turn reinforces in its audience.
Rebecca Nicholson praises the show for being “undemanding” to watch, “familiar, warm and dependable.” What makes it so? From her article I surmise that it’s the show’s simplicity, the absence of plot lines which make the audience too uncomfortable (or “darkness,” as she terms it), and its rigid formula, “regular as waves, lapping against the shore.” These aspects alone do not make the show morally problematic. However, when considering these aspects in conjunction with the racial and cultural dynamics of the show, it’s inescapable that the most constant thing about Death in Paradise is its assertion of the primacy of “white male genius,” to the detriment of everyone else.
No one could claim that, through Death in Paradise, Thorogood is actively attempting to reassert notions of colonial hierarchy, but in my opinion the overarching and unchanging paradigm of the show, coupled with its monolithic, cliche ridden and caricature based execution, is indicative of unconscious racial bias on the part of the writers. No doubt they would be indignant at the charge. The fact that the show garners about 8 million viewers per episode proves (as if more evidence were needed) that the same bias is present in the British public, and that, on primetime BBC1, evocations of such racially problematic narratives can still provide an easy route to commercial success.
Of late, the Black Lives Matter movement has cast unprecedented light on the ideology of white supremacy, bringing to the fore the fact that racism is perpetuated in the media subtly and not always deliberately. Binary conceptions of racism have been shown to be outmoded and far too limited in scope to tackle the issue of race in modern society. I think and hope that such binary and over-simplified conceptions, which form a part of the broader white supremacist ideology, have started to be replaced by a recognition of the unconscious bias which pervades all of our brains due to the cultural structures under which we are socialised. This is not one thing but a thousand things, a myriad of signs and messages to which we are exposed daily. I posit that Death in Paradise unconsciously represents one small facet of this enormous hegemonic machine. If 8 million people tune in every week then what ideas are they imbibing? Or rather, what pre-existing notions in their mind are being reinforced when watching Death in Paradise?
The White Male Detective
As Sirin Kale rightly points out, the black characters constantly defer to the white detective, calling him ‘sir’ and marvelling as he solves crimes in front of their eyes with pure instinct, cases which are seemingly always beyond their own capabilities. The white detective orders them around with impunity, and the Caribbean characters are largely reduced to doing grunt work. An example of this is in the latest season, when detective chicken-n-chips does all the mental labour, logically ensnaring the murderer with his genius. The criminal attempts to flee, prompting the detective to immediately call for the help of his subordinate Caribbean colleague to physically capture the criminal. The message is clear: English = intelligent, Caribbean = physical. The show establishes a clear hierarchy with Englishness at the top and Caribbean at the bottom. The law enforcement setting provides convenient cover for the racial dynamics at play.
The rigid and utterly inflexible definition that the writers give of Englishness (or more generally ‘whiteness,’ taking into account Ardal O’Hanlon’s stint in the lead role) is pure essentialism. No matter which iteration of the white male detective, he is constantly shown to be distinct from his surroundings. He complains about the heat whilst wearing a suit, drinks hot tea, eats nothing but chicken and chips, and generally does not engage with the culture of the island. In the first episode of the latest series the detective recognises that he is ‘somewhat inclined to stay in his comfort zone’ and has ‘not made much of an effort to participate in island life,’ expressing a desire to ‘do better,’ though this resolution is soon subverted. This is the running joke of the show. His bumbling demeanour is a thin veneer of modesty, a stereotypically English veil of self-effacement and awkwardness which is meant to obscure our own national superiority complex. All of the other characters are portrayed as more easygoing, more sure of themselves, more at home on the island, but, crucially, less intelligent.
In keeping with the utterly reactionary ethos of Death in Paradise, Josèphine Jobert’s Florence Cassel is relegated to ‘helping’ the detective acclimatise. This is an extension of their work relationship, where she helps him to solve crimes. Sirin Kale identifies her characterisation as the “hyper-competent female detective.” This, I believe, has become a trope advanced by lazy and insincere writers who are incapable of creating nuanced female characters. No longer able to merely portray women as sex objects or constantly make them the butt of jokes, the writers of Death in Paradise, and many other similar shows, opt for making their female characters “hyper-competent.” Despite this apparent competency in the professional sphere, Cassel is apparently unable to solve a crime without the male detective, has no agency, seemingly no inner life (despite her tragic backstory), and her main preoccupation in the series seems to be getting the detective (whichever one, it doesn’t matter) to loosen up. She is an extension of him, she revolves around him, and like all the peripheral characters in Death in Paradise, she is perpetually eclipsed by his genius. The show makes insincere attempts at feminist sentiment, with references to patriarchy and sexual violence, but if the show’s writers were truly committed to gender equality then they would recognise the sexism inherent in the paradigm of the their show and change it. The superficial references to feminism, without any proper attempt to free the show from the sexism which blights it, bear the hallmark of writers who perceive feminism as a transient part of the current cultural zeitgeist, not as a timeless and important political issue.
I can’t help but think Jobert would be better suited to the main role anyway, although they’d probably make the CGI lizard the protagonist before that happened, and realistically it’s not hard to look good next to Ralf Little delivering his lines like he’s in a post-match interview. Another recurring female role is that of Catherine Bordey, local restauranteur and respected businesswoman. Her vocation requires dedication and organisation, and within the framework of the capitalist ideology her position as business owner distinctly commands respect. I think it’s telling that the writers decided to make this character white. To my knowledge there are no such black characters, despite the population of the island ostensibly being majority black.
Paradise and the Other
Kale Identifies the “exotic” setting as critical to the show’s appeal to British viewers. In the final episode of series one, Detective Bordey (hyper-competent female detective no.1) says to Detective Poole: “I was starting to think you’d loosen up a bit” and he replies “I have. I mean, sitting on the beach, beer in hand, free spirit, I’m virtually feral.” The writers’ blinkered conception of Caribbean life and culture is presented to the audience as “feral.” Albeit an attempt at humour, this line exposes the putrid colonial ideology at the heart of Death in Paradise.
The show commodifies white Britain’s desire for contact with the Other while constantly reinforcing the idea that they are incompatible, simultaneously degrading the already homogenised culture in question to, in bell hooks’ words, a ‘spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture’.
In her essay ‘Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance’, hooks posits that ‘the commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling’. This is the context in which white society is most comfortable with Blackness, as entertainment, deflecting attention from the political and intellectual contributions of Black people, which have often been criticisms of the white supremacist structures which enable the continued economic exploitation of those deemed ‘subaltern others.’ The representation we get of the racialised Other in mainstream culture is one of erotic physicality, sensuality, unbridled passion, sometimes violence and danger. And, as with the succession of white English detectives learning to ‘loosen up’ and be rejuvenated on the island paradise, hooks states that ‘in the cultural marketplace, the ‘Other’ is coded as having the capacity to be more alive, as holding the secret that will allow those who venture to experience sensual and spiritual renewal’.
Recent years have seen increased, shall we say, visibility, for minorities in the media. However, if many of the representations, masquerading as progressive and compassionate, are in reality monolithic, fetishised and exoticised, on primetime national TV, can it be said to constitute positive progress? Current events would indicate otherwise. 51% of young people in punitive custody in the UK are people of colour, almost doubling since the Tories took power in 2010. Black women are four times more likely to die due to pregnancy and childbirth complications than white women. Black footballers are still routinely abused by white football fans on account of their race, always accompanied by a chorus of voices demanding tougher regulations from social media companies concerning their direct messaging services and the like. I wonder when emphasis will be placed on getting the British public to stop being racist.
So we can see that this hyper-visibility has not come with much meaningful augmentation of the material conditions of people of colour. It is undoubtedly important for minorities to be able to see themselves represented in the media, although one might surmise that the main result of this visibility has been to enrage bigots within the population. hooks states that ‘from the standpoint of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the hope is that desires for the “primitive” or fantasies about the Other can be continually exploited, and that such exploitation will occur in a manner that reinscribes and maintains the status quo’. This succinctly summarises Death in Paradise. The writers have managed to repackage colonial myths for a younger generation. “A safe 9pm show that the family can watch together,” in the words of executive producer Tim Key.
Escaping the Dark
So how can we address these issues and ameliorate the situation? To quote bell hooks again:
Mutual recognition of racism, its impact both on those who are dominated and those who dominate, is the only standpoint that makes possible an encounter between races that is not based on denial and fantasy. For it is the ever present reality of racist domination, of white supremacy, that renders problematic the desire of white people to have contact with the Other. Often it is this reality that is most masked when representations of contact between white and non-white, white and black, appear in mass culture
Indeed, any critical discourse, or discourse at all regarding race, is distinctly lacking from Death in Paradise, establishing ‘a contemporary narrative where the suffering imposed by structures of domination on those designated Other is deflected by an emphasis on seduction and longing where the desire is not to make the Other over in one’s image but to become the Other’.
Nicholson declares Death in Paradise “refreshingly free of ‘darkness.’” I declare it a delusional fantasy designed to assuage the guilty conscience of white society while simultaneously asserting its own supremacy. Its ostensible lack of “darkness” is one of the fundamental problems with Death in Paradise.
Kale poses the question of whether, “racial dynamics aside, Death in Paradise is a good or bad show?” I strongly argue that this question cannot be answered without addressing the problematic racial narratives at the very core of Death in Paradise. Can we not build into our definition of ‘good TV’ an understanding that the promotion of racial hierarchies and commodification of Otherness amount to imperialist nostalgia, are morally indefensible, and do not belong on our screens at any time? It would be remiss to adjudicate on the quality of a show while neglecting the reality that creative media is always imbued with ideology, and that the passive drip feed of Death in Paradise into the sponge of prime-time consciousness cannot but reproduce its violent paradigm in the minds of viewers, adopting it in turn to reaffirm its hegemony in society as whole.
There is an appealing escapism inherent in watching TV. We escape the mundane, the gruelling, the inexpressible stress and alienation of existing in a late capitalist society. My question is, where are we escaping to? It’s clear that those shows free from challenging content (or “darkness”) achieve wider viewership and greater commercial success than those which confront the audience with difficult questions and moral ambiguity. It’s probable that Death in Paradise would lose viewers if the show was to deviate from its reactionary, illusory paradigm. But is it morally justifiable to pander to such bigoted demographics for commercial reasons at the cost of meaningful political change? The answer is decidedly no.