This was the year when, more than ever, TV trends were influenced by what is #hashtag #trending #on #line. It’s the logical conclusion of marketing men clocking the fact that entire shows are watched, and made a success of, via Twitter. In fact, the audience now has an audience of its own, in the form of a trend forecaster desperately hammering the refresh button to see what’s working with key demographics. As a result, this year, TV execs packed up the wagon and set out west to monetise marginalised identity. (Previously, the only way disenfranchised audiences got their point across was by graffitiing it on to the set – also the best part of Homeland this year).
Between Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover, Laverne Cox’s enduring popularity, and “trans” being named by lexicographers as the word of the year, gender identity was all over 2015 and a whole slew of trans-related programming followed, from Amazon comidrama Transparent to face-clawing trans-gressions such as C4’s doc Girls To Men. Comedy Boy Meets Girl, which centred on the romance between a trans woman and a cis man, broke new ground. Its viewers should also be given credit for not being turned off by those two uncomfortable words: BBC sitcom.
An edgy premise and outsider box-ticking was a start, but to create a truly 2K 15 show required a bit more. Showing how it could be done was Jane The Virgin. With a largely Latino cast and a decent proportion of dialogue presented unapologetically in Spanish, the TV lie that immigrant families speak perfect and unbroken English was finally put to bed. Also feeling conflicted, this time re God and Love Interests (the soul eternal v stirrings internal) was Tracey in Chewing Gum, both written and played wonderfully by top-notch comedian Michaela Coel.
Creator Lee Daniels succinctly describes Empire as the Black Dynasty. This year it brought to the screen – among many, many other things and in musical form – the unique torment of being the gay son of a homophobic former hip-hop mogul and record company CEO. Downton Abbey even did its bit for diversity this year, trying its hand at a gay storyline with strained scenes in underlit cupboards (“It may be against God, Barrow, but you’ve always been good to me, teaching me to read me instructional books and that.” “Well, agricultural practices are changing young, Jimmy, and with them the world”).
A notable mention goes to the BBC’s Defying The Label season, which mostly managed to detach itself from the saccharine “Oh bless ’em, such an inspiration” approach that TV reserves for disability. One favourite was John and his crew on the documentary Life Begins Now, three adolescent boys with Down’s syndrome, who were preparing to leave college for a life John optimistically considered would be full of guns, strippers and other thugged-out accoutrements. It proved that teenagers attempting to conceal their vulnerability under affected gangsterisms and misguided hats are side-splittingly funny, whatever their class, creed or chromosome.
Finally, I loved the wit and eyebrows of Nadiya Hussain on the GBBO. I enjoyed them nearly as much as I loved watching a Certain Type Of Viewer give themselves an aneurysm at a second-generation Bangladeshi woman winning the Great BRITISH Bake Off; a competition in which she turned out stunning examples of Austrian Spanische Windtorte, Bavarian Russe and French mille-feuille. Happy Christmas, everyone.
