Coronation Street is to be investigated by the broadcasting regulator after hundreds of viewers complained about a “racist” comment a character made about her hair.
The episode, broadcast on August Bank Holiday Monday, saw Eva Price, played by Catherine Tyldesley, visit Audrey’s hair salon, where she remarked: “I have more roots than Kunta Kinte.”
“No idea who that is, by the way, just something my mum used to say.”
Kunte Kinte was a character from the novel Roots: the Saga of an American Family, which was developed into a hit TV miniseries.
Roots tells the story of a young man taken from Gambia and sold as a slave, and the author, Alex Haley, claimed Kinte was based on a real-life ancestor.
Ofcom has launched an investigation into the ITV soap after receiving 472 complaints about the the incident in the episode.
Many complainants expressed concern that the comment belittled the seriousness of the subject matter of Roots.
“We’re investigating whether a comment made by a character in Coronation Street was offensive and breached generally accepted standards,” said a spokeswoman for Ofcom.
A spokeswoman for the soap said in August: “We apologise if this dialogue has caused offence.”
