Task 3: Historical Context - Dixon of Dock Green vs Luther

The second text I looked at was Dickson of Dock Green a British show which was broadcasted on the BBC from 1955 to 1976, it was a television series following activities of police officers in London, majorly in the East End of London. It usually focused on small crimes in the community and Dixon was portrayed as a great influence on his colleagues through his family like nature. He was also a protagonist who always solved the case therefore being portrayed very positively.

This show was similar in some ways to my text Luther, in both we see a determined police officer who did whatever they could to solve the case Dixon and Luther were both somewhat family men, who put work before family, both were also set in London. However Luther was different in the way that it showed more high profile cases whereas Dixon of Dock Green showed more shows that were community crimes, still high profile in a way but not as big as Luther, Dixon of Dock Green then became somewhat of a soap whereas we see Luther being shown in 3 episodes through one season which is usually shown once in the calendar year. Another thing that separated both was the colour of their skins.

Luther was a black character whereas Dixon was white, had you shown Luther back in the 50/60s, the BBC would have been ridiculed for having a black male as the main character, throughout the years in Dixon of Dock Green, never was there a black character playing a decent enough role, many of the shows featured all white characters, which stopped the BBC getting backlash, due to major racism towards ethnic minorities in England, many shows resulted in not showing black characters which worked in a good way for them, the show was completely white and no one complained, times back then, murders shown in Luther would have also shocked the audience and created moral panic throughout the public, many would view what happened in Luther as extreme but now days, even though it isn't often, we still see stuff like this happen whereas in the 50/60s this would have received major backlash. So you could say society has changed majorly, had someone said back then that in 60 years a black man would be the main character of a hit show on the BBC they would have been ridiculed whereas now, there is a hit show called Luther which features a black protagonist which isn't frowned upon, society has overcome racism in a way which has let this become possible and they've become more comfortable with fictional murders that allow the BBC to show such violence without receiving much backlash.