Is a “comedy about slavery” desirable, or even possible? And if not, what about satire: is that an applicable lens through which to consider one of the greatest crimes in human history? Sky, the writer Rufus Jones and the actors Hugh Bonneville and Sarah Parish – all of whom are involved in a putative series about the repercussions of an inheritance derived from slavery – are about to find out. The omens are not good: it’s attracted widespread criticism before even being made.
First, let me be clear: slavery and the myth of white guilt are not too taboo for comedy and, even more so, satire. Absolutely nothing should be. Satire in particular, which differs to comedy in so far as the underlying objective is to expose folly, vice, hypocrisy and human shallowness, is an important tool for generating empathy for the downtrodden, and understanding some of humanity’s more shameful and painful tendencies.
And contrary to popular belief, slavery and other subjects affecting the Black experience are subject to regular satirical inspection. The TV series The Boondocks, the drama The Good Lord Bird, Bamboozled, Hollywood Shuffle, Paul Beatty’s Booker prize-winning The Sellout, Django Unchained, Jordan Peele’s Get Out (starring Daniel Kaluuya), and the recently acclaimed film American Fiction have all added vital comedic and satirical perspectives to the landscape of understanding Black history and the Black experience.
So why, then, does news of Jones’s project, Forty Acres – which has been described as a “a comedy drama about historic slavery” – feel like a kick in the teeth without anyone having seen as much as a still from it? That has much to do with the middle-class funfair that is TV and film commissioning and the power disparities within, but also the history and grand-scale racial illiteracy of our ever-modest country, Great Britain.
Look again at the projects listed above. All are American, the product of a diverse group of creative people. But in Britain, when it comes to satirical or comedic pieces on race and minority religion, the money, power and creative control tend to be placed in the hands of white people, or at least, out of the hands and reach of people of colour. Think Four Lions, or Ali G (which helped transform the cocktail of deadly racism, classism and police brutality into a parodic joke with the “Is it cos I is Black?” line). Think the Channel 4 comedy Bo’ Selecta!, which its creator has since apologised for. Then think the Black and White Minstrel Show and remember that Britain has a long history of making racist shows.
There’s the argument that the race of the author or the programme-maker doesn’t matter: that anyone should be allowed to write about anything (and I think they should). But back in the real world, it is unthinkable that a Black person would be given the corporate green light to write something satirical or comedic about something dear to white people. I once wrote a satire about the sex lives of middle-class white women, but the very mention of the idea was the perfect conversation-ender during coffee with commissioning executives. Imagine me as lead writer of The Crown. Imagine the heart attacks across the nation. Imagine the spontaneous combustion of the Daily Mail.
Take it from me, who you are has a direct bearing on the stories you are allowed to tell. We can’t write too white, but that’s not all. Try being a Black or brown writer trying to explore, for example, the world and wiles of Black and brown politicians. I’ve tried. No dice, so far.
What, then, do we make of Forty Acres and its proposed exploration of a British family dealing with their “historic links to slavery” – echoing the real-life developments of the modern-day Trevelyan family, whose ancestors owned more than 1,000 enslaved people on the Caribbean island of Grenada, and the Lascelles, whose forebears controlled 24 Caribbean properties, 27,000 acres and almost 3,000 enslaved people? Is it all too sensitive? Does the involvement in the project of two Black writers and the Black American rapper/actor GaTa make it OK?
Perhaps, in principle, but it’s a tough sell in practice. Feelings are raw: slavery is a minefield. There are few laughs or even knowing smiles in a minefield. There isn’t much trust in how we and issues dear to us are depicted, and as news of this project emerges, we see excellent Black shows being cancelled and Black creative talent underused – despite the pledges made by film and television bosses in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter phenomenon.
We are interested in how a terrible past affects the present and how everyone affected comes to terms with that, but are we ready to chuckle at the reckoning? The very idea that humour survives even the bleakest events is heading for a stress test.
Nels Abbey is a writer, broadcaster and former banker
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