Evaluate the relevance of Gilroy's ethnicity theory to long form TV drama
Gilroy's ethnicity theory argues that a large proportion of people have been gathered together as "The Black Atlantic" with a large chunk of what we see through media is generalised but typically holds a majorly white cast in terms of dominant or lead characters. This is shown in Homelands by the generalisation that the terrorist is an immigrant and the lead detective are white Americans with acceptation for David Estes one of the lead agents who is a black male. Trapped uses the theory with a major proportion of the cast being white other than three minor characters altho this could just be following accurate records of Iceland's occupants with 93% of them being Icelandic and 7% other 3 of that 7% are Polish so overall it is a majorly white area.
One of the main forms of generation in Homelands was saying that those from Middle Eastern locations, primarily islamic culture, were terrorist and the Americans were made to be the heroes against them and in the case of Nicholas Brodie who was associated with middle eastern people became a terrorist Homeland spread the false message of one group of people are evil one group of people are heroic and if a member was associated with the other they would also become bad generalising a group who believe in piece as much as the average Christian American as bad hence the show is racist and Gilroy's theory is present. in Trapped Gilroy's theory shown as much the main aspect comes from the lack of diversity between the characters as previously stated with only 3 minor characters with different ethnic origins and the statistics of Iceland's occupants the criminal in trapped was one of the people in Iceland showing less signs of generalisation but at the same time showing less diversity.
Trapped has a very basic set of characters with Andri Olafsson as the lead detective following the theme of a straight, white male lead but rather than just being he has to have a downside in this case food he was recently divorced and loved his food like Sherlock was addicted to cocaine and morphine and James bond being addicted to drinking and sex making this a very stereotypical thing to make the character less of an angel and more relatable. In Homelands the lead detective was Carrie Mathison switching it up by having a female lead only issue was she had to be overly sexualised which is ,wrongly, common when working with a female character. her fatal flaw was her mental state which is also common throughout Film and TV.
Overall Homelands has some upfront racist features compared to Trapped which just isn't as diverse Gilroy's theory is completely referable in Homelands but only slightly in Trapped with Homelands falsely generalising cultures and Trapped taking a safer but less inclusive approach. The theory is fully present in drama and media as it says that the generalisation of black people has been present ever since the British empire which relates to america as they originally started through the British Empire.
