I’m not going to lie, watching live on Tuesday night was one of the most devastating pieces of TV I’ve watched in my life.
And now a few days have passed and it still feels so raw. I have felt less devastation when real life relationships have ended than this one. The rational side states that is only a TV show, but the irrational side states it’s much more and on so many different levels.
1. I’m old enough to know better.
Having been let down by TV for as long I care to remember and writers/producers penchant for fulfilling the dead/pregnant/goes back to a man lesbian tropes over the last 30 years.
We are somewhat conditioned that wlw never ever get their happy ending. I can think of one exception - Badgirls - Helen and Nikki. For so many of us the series ended there.
2. What was so important about this relationship?
Remember when afterellen first started and Sarah Warn’s tagline was “visibility matters”
That sums Berena and McElliott up. Seeing women who are close to my actual age on mainstream TV is so fucking important. I’m white. I’m not a woman of colour, but we all know how the male/female and white/poc/bame hierarchy works and how low down a wlw/person of colour is. I’m not mentioning religion as that is a whole other cosmos that will take forever to unpick.
Now, Holby City has form in not allowing wlw relationships to play out on screen - Tash Bandura and Kirsty Cross, Mickie the nurse are the ones that spring to mind over the years.
Writers have a social responsibility especially writers who are funded by the BBC to reflect the population that pays £148 each year to access everything the Beeb produces.
My flatmate works for the organisation and it’s very much a work in progress for staff and diversity. I myself work in an organisation where the Director of HR doesn’t give a shit about diversity, doesn’t see why it matters, but there is a small group of colleagues who challenge and influence policy. We had to fight to get a banner on our email signatures to highlight the fact that there is a colleague network; my BAME colleagues are having the same battle to have a BAME colleague network banner. Why, because visibility fucking matters, we are role models, we are a rich source of information and insight. We are valuable.
Who says long term relationships played out on screen are not loved by the viewer. Coronation Street has done pretty well of creating iconic partnerships over the years - Jack and Vera Duckworth, Stan and Hilda Ogden. Yes, there are events chucked in for dramatic effect, but they stay together.
What I would have loved to see is a wlw relationship whether marriage was involved or not played out on our screens.
Just for once break the mould of wlw TV tropes, we fucking deserve it. That’s all I wanted. There is the #metoo #timesup movements, why can’t we have a #whataboutus.
Stonewall have their workplace equality index (WEI), the Bedchel test. I’m at the point now that there needs to a Positive Visibility Index that is set up as a global initiative by the UN to ensure TV and movie visibility is assessed, rated, and networks and studios are ranked.
Contracts get renewed, amended, terminated. That’s life. No matter what industry you work in. It can be a personal choice or an HR management decision. Or in terms of TV - producers/writer/on screen talent decisions.
We can of course speculate as to whether is was a narrative or a personal decision by the writers or Ms Redgrave. When in actual fact it’s all immaterial now.
There is one. It will probably be fairly messy as the writers are all over the place.
What I wouldn’t give to have Maxine Alderton poached from Emmerdale to write Berena reunion scenes in two years time.
I do hope the writers will not destroy or forget Serena’s sexuality or worse still resort to one of the standard tropes. It’s Holby, it’s continuing drama. I’ve stored my bar in the shed at the bottom of our garden until my faith in writers getting it right is restored and middle-aged wlw will be positively represented on screen in the next five years.
5. A change is not a gift from above. it’s won from below
There has been talk about formally writing to Holby’s producers and possibly the wider media about this. Count me in.
I’m also mildly disturbed that the likes of Diva Magazine who despite awarding “Berena” a story-line gong in June 2018 have not said a word about it. My dislike for Diva is well known, but seriously, when even our own fucking media ignores it, we have to do something about it for future.
