Josie McFarlane
Encyclopedia
Josie McFarlane is a fictional character
that appeared in the BBC
soap opera
EastEnders
. She was played by Joan Hooley
between 1998 and 2000. Since leaving the serial, Jamaican-born actress Joan Hooley has publicly accused EastEnders and the BBC of racism and tokenism
, for giving her character no significant storylines, and using her as a prop.
n born Josie, was the mother of Mick McFarlane
and she arrived in Albert Square
in August 1998 to visit her son, who she thought was a successful musician. However, Mick's music career had failed and he had ended up selling CD's on a market stall in the Square, as well as running the Bridge Street café's night bistro. Josie, who always had high aspirations for herself and her family, was none too pleased to find out that her son had been lying about his professional status, but Josie was also harbouring a few secrets of her own.
Her husband, who she worshiped, had recently died, but before his death he had been defrauded in a Jamaican property scam and so Josie was now practically penniless. But perhaps more shockingly, Josie had fostered a young girl named Kim, who she claimed was a distant relative of Mick's. Actually, Kim was the illegitimate daughter of her philandering husband, and after her mother's death, Josie had kindly taken her in instead of seeing her go into care. When Mick was finally made privy to this information he was extremely shocked and even more surprised to find out that both Josie and Kim planned to stay in Walford
instead of returning to Jamaica. Despite his initial misgivings Mick soon welcomed his mother and new sister into his home.
Josie and Kim later moved into number 3c Albert Square, where Josie became friendly with her downstairs neighbours, Dot Cotton and Lilly Mattock
, although Josie and Dot used to bicker constantly.
Josie initially got herself a job as a barmaid at The Queen Vic and she later became the receptionist at Fred Fonseca's doctors' surgery. However, things did not run smoothly for her in her new post. Josie was a strict perfectionist, she also expected perfection from everyone else and she wasn't adverse to telling them so either. Her strict mannerisms only sought to frighten away half the patients. She eventually managed to settle down with a lot of coaching from Dr Fonseca, however, yet more problems arose when she discovered that her employer was homosexual. Josie was a strict Christian
and she felt that working for a homosexual conflicted with her religious beliefs. She even went as far as to accuse him of coercing Kim into becoming a lesbian
. She continued down a path of self-righteousness, judging everyone by her own, impossibly high standards. After she discovered that her son had gotten involved with ex-prostitute, Nina Harris
, she could not condone their friendship and her aloof manner towards Nina infuriated Mick, who ended up branding her a 'lonely, bitter, old woman'. It took bigoted remarks by racist Jim Branning
to make Josie realise that she was as prejudiced in her own way as he was, but by then it was too late. Having forgotten to renew her visa
she was threatened with deportation and so she was forced to return to Jamaica, leaving Kim in Mick's care. She promised Kim she would return when she sorted out her visa, but so far she has not come back. Her last appearance was in February 2000.
, Gita
and Neelam Kapoor. As they were the only Asian characters in the show, EastEnders received criticism for axing them from angry black and Asian MPs, including Oona King
, MP for East End
constituency Bethnal Green
and Dr Ashok Kumar. In response to the criticism, bosses at EastEnders announced the upcoming arrival of various new ethnic minority characters in July 1998. These included, Asian doctor Fred Fonseca, and the Jamaican relatives of Mick McFarlane
(Sylvester Williams), including his mother Josie McFarlane.
According to the press report, BBC bosses held a brainstorming session including black and Asian representatives among the writers and cast, to see how they could reflect black and Asian life in London more fully. Josie, played by Joan Hooley, and her stepdaughter Kim, played by Krystle Williams, made their first appearance on-screen in August 1998.
The character Josie has been described as "well-groomed...confident" and someone who "set high — if not impossible — standards, and inevitably people failed her." She had few central storylines of her own, and in November 1999, it was reported that Matthew Robinson was axing the character. According to a report in the Daily Mirror, actress Joan Hooley was called into Robinson's office "and told her services would no longer be required." An insider is quoted as saying, "The writers have been told to start thinking of ways to get rid of Josie. Obviously Joan was shocked, but the powers- that-be just didn't think it was working out."
An EastEnders spokeswoman says: "Joan had come to the end of her contract with the programme." The character was written out of the serial after she was threatened with deportation for failing to renew her visa, making her last appearance on-screen in February 2000. Her exit has been described by journalist Danny Buckland as Josie's only decent storyline, but he adds "even this belated plot was unrealistic". Hooley commented, "There was no explanation about the visa problem. Also it is totally implausible that Josie would have gone back to Jamaica without her daughter Kim."
She commented, "It was tokenism. I felt like a prop in the corner. It was very demeaning and a form of insidious racism. That is a very strong phrase to use against the BBC and EastEnders but I feel very badly about how they handled my character. They were just fulfilling a duty to have a black face in the show. The way most blacks are often portrayed on television reinforces the image of them as gangsters, pimps, whores and freaks. EastEnders could have helped provide a positive role model but they didn't take the opportunity."
Hooley claims that she was promised major storylines that never materialised, was asked to come up with ideas for black characters, but that all her pages of suggestions (including developing an interesting relationship with the character Dot Cotton or having Josie start her own business) were ignored. She also claims that she was only used for two-thirds of her contracted appearances. She said: "In the 18 months I was in EastEnders, I had no impact. There was nothing that made people sit up and take notice of what Josie was doing. It was like they remembered I was around and threw me a line where I would slide into the bar and say, 'Hello, how are you' and then sit on a stool and say nothing for the rest of the episode. I came to feel that I was letting the black community down because my character was so empty. People of my own colour often accosted me in public and accused me of playing a token black. I was so little-used that they even wrote me cheques for episodes I never appeared in. So why did they not use me? Why are they wasting the taxpayers' money? It was very dispiriting."
She accused the BBC of having an underlying lack of faith in the public's ability to accept that the UK has a multi-racial society, commenting ""The BBC likes to show itself off as being politically correct but I have seen some aspects that are not wholesome, even if it is unintentional. They may not believe it is there and they probably don't intend it to be there, but I have seen this insidious racism at first hand. There are degrees of racism and this, of course, is not the same as insulting or assaulting someone but it is still pretty distasteful.
The BBC needs to know there is a degree of dissatisfaction among the public. I think people want to see that EastEnders is populated by many different ethnic groups. Black people in real life run businesses, fall in and out of love, have fascinating and exciting lives. So why can't we in EastEnders. We are not all losers or nobodies so why can't the BBC show that?...I really felt so ineffectual as a character because I had nothing to get my teeth into - there were no great dramatic scenes or relationships. My character was never given anything meaningful to say and that was such a wasted opportunity. My son said I should get out of EastEnders because it wasn't doing me any good as an actress or as a black woman...I have got to speak out so that things can change."
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
that appeared in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
. She was played by Joan Hooley
Joan Hooley
Joan Hooley is an actress and screenwriter. Born in Jamaica, Hooley moved to the United Kingdom as a young girl, and her career has been based there...
between 1998 and 2000. Since leaving the serial, Jamaican-born actress Joan Hooley has publicly accused EastEnders and the BBC of racism and tokenism
Tokenism
In the arts, employment, and politics, tokenism is a policy or practice of limited inclusion or artistic and/or political representation of members of a traditionally marginalized group, usually creating a false appearance of inclusive practices rather than discrimination, intentional or not...
, for giving her character no significant storylines, and using her as a prop.
Storylines
JamaicaJamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
n born Josie, was the mother of Mick McFarlane
Mick McFarlane
Mick McFarlane is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Sylvester Williams.Mick was an easy-going guy, who hoped to make it big as a musician. However his music career failed and he ended up selling CDs on a market stall in Albert Square...
and she arrived in Albert Square
Albert Square
Albert Square is the fictional location of the BBC soap opera EastEnders. It is ostensibly located in the equally fictional London borough of Walford in London's East End. The square's design was based on the real life Fassett Square in Hackney, and was given the name Albert Square after the real...
in August 1998 to visit her son, who she thought was a successful musician. However, Mick's music career had failed and he had ended up selling CD's on a market stall in the Square, as well as running the Bridge Street café's night bistro. Josie, who always had high aspirations for herself and her family, was none too pleased to find out that her son had been lying about his professional status, but Josie was also harbouring a few secrets of her own.
Her husband, who she worshiped, had recently died, but before his death he had been defrauded in a Jamaican property scam and so Josie was now practically penniless. But perhaps more shockingly, Josie had fostered a young girl named Kim, who she claimed was a distant relative of Mick's. Actually, Kim was the illegitimate daughter of her philandering husband, and after her mother's death, Josie had kindly taken her in instead of seeing her go into care. When Mick was finally made privy to this information he was extremely shocked and even more surprised to find out that both Josie and Kim planned to stay in Walford
Walford
Walford is a fictional borough of east London in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. The name Walford is both a street in Dalston where one of the series' creators, Tony Holland, lived and a blend of Walthamstow, where Holland was born, and Stratford. The suffix 'ford' is also found throughout East...
instead of returning to Jamaica. Despite his initial misgivings Mick soon welcomed his mother and new sister into his home.
Josie and Kim later moved into number 3c Albert Square, where Josie became friendly with her downstairs neighbours, Dot Cotton and Lilly Mattock
Lilly Mattock
Lilly Mattock is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by the late Barbara Keogh from 1998–1999. Lilly liked to forget her age and concentrate on having fun...
, although Josie and Dot used to bicker constantly.
Josie initially got herself a job as a barmaid at The Queen Vic and she later became the receptionist at Fred Fonseca's doctors' surgery. However, things did not run smoothly for her in her new post. Josie was a strict perfectionist, she also expected perfection from everyone else and she wasn't adverse to telling them so either. Her strict mannerisms only sought to frighten away half the patients. She eventually managed to settle down with a lot of coaching from Dr Fonseca, however, yet more problems arose when she discovered that her employer was homosexual. Josie was a strict Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
and she felt that working for a homosexual conflicted with her religious beliefs. She even went as far as to accuse him of coercing Kim into becoming a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
. She continued down a path of self-righteousness, judging everyone by her own, impossibly high standards. After she discovered that her son had gotten involved with ex-prostitute, Nina Harris
Nina Harris
Nina Harris is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Troy Titus-Adams between 1999 and 2000. The character was axed by John Yorke, making her final appearance in June 2000...
, she could not condone their friendship and her aloof manner towards Nina infuriated Mick, who ended up branding her a 'lonely, bitter, old woman'. It took bigoted remarks by racist Jim Branning
Jim Branning
James Archibald "Jim" Branning is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by John Bardon, first appearing on 29 April 1996 and becoming a regular character in 1999 and has remained in the series right up to 2011....
to make Josie realise that she was as prejudiced in her own way as he was, but by then it was too late. Having forgotten to renew her visa
Visa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
she was threatened with deportation and so she was forced to return to Jamaica, leaving Kim in Mick's care. She promised Kim she would return when she sorted out her visa, but so far she has not come back. Her last appearance was in February 2000.
Character creation and development
In 1998, EastEnders acquired a new executive producer, Matthew Robinson. Robinson was dubbed "the axeman" in the British press, after a large proportion of the EastEnders cast either quit, or were culled, shortly after Robinson's introduction. Among the departing characters were longrunning Asian family the Kapoors, including SanjaySanjay Kapoor (EastEnders)
Sanjay Kapoor is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Deepak Verma.Sanjay the market trader had an eye for the ladies and a weakness for gambling...
, Gita
Gita Kapoor
Gita Kapoor is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Shobu Kapoor.Gita had a fierce temper, which was needed to keep her troublesome husband in check. Any success they achieved was down to her...
and Neelam Kapoor. As they were the only Asian characters in the show, EastEnders received criticism for axing them from angry black and Asian MPs, including Oona King
Oona King
Oona Tamsyn King, Baroness King of Bow is a Baroness and Member of the House of Lords, and former Chief Diversity Officer of Channel 4. She previously had served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow from 1997 until 2005, when she was defeated by Respect candidate George...
, MP for East End
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
constituency Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...
and Dr Ashok Kumar. In response to the criticism, bosses at EastEnders announced the upcoming arrival of various new ethnic minority characters in July 1998. These included, Asian doctor Fred Fonseca, and the Jamaican relatives of Mick McFarlane
Mick McFarlane
Mick McFarlane is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Sylvester Williams.Mick was an easy-going guy, who hoped to make it big as a musician. However his music career failed and he ended up selling CDs on a market stall in Albert Square...
(Sylvester Williams), including his mother Josie McFarlane.
According to the press report, BBC bosses held a brainstorming session including black and Asian representatives among the writers and cast, to see how they could reflect black and Asian life in London more fully. Josie, played by Joan Hooley, and her stepdaughter Kim, played by Krystle Williams, made their first appearance on-screen in August 1998.
The character Josie has been described as "well-groomed...confident" and someone who "set high — if not impossible — standards, and inevitably people failed her." She had few central storylines of her own, and in November 1999, it was reported that Matthew Robinson was axing the character. According to a report in the Daily Mirror, actress Joan Hooley was called into Robinson's office "and told her services would no longer be required." An insider is quoted as saying, "The writers have been told to start thinking of ways to get rid of Josie. Obviously Joan was shocked, but the powers- that-be just didn't think it was working out."
An EastEnders spokeswoman says: "Joan had come to the end of her contract with the programme." The character was written out of the serial after she was threatened with deportation for failing to renew her visa, making her last appearance on-screen in February 2000. Her exit has been described by journalist Danny Buckland as Josie's only decent storyline, but he adds "even this belated plot was unrealistic". Hooley commented, "There was no explanation about the visa problem. Also it is totally implausible that Josie would have gone back to Jamaica without her daughter Kim."
Criticism
Following her departure from the soap in 2000, actress Joan Hooley publicly slammed EastEnders and the BBC for being "racist" and failing to give ethnic minority characters decent storylines, saying that the BBC was doing nothing to challenge TV stereotypes of blacks as "whores, gangsters, pimps and freaks". She said she felt "emotionally abused" after spending 18 months with the show without ever having "any kind of meaningful plotline or meaty dialogue".She commented, "It was tokenism. I felt like a prop in the corner. It was very demeaning and a form of insidious racism. That is a very strong phrase to use against the BBC and EastEnders but I feel very badly about how they handled my character. They were just fulfilling a duty to have a black face in the show. The way most blacks are often portrayed on television reinforces the image of them as gangsters, pimps, whores and freaks. EastEnders could have helped provide a positive role model but they didn't take the opportunity."
Hooley claims that she was promised major storylines that never materialised, was asked to come up with ideas for black characters, but that all her pages of suggestions (including developing an interesting relationship with the character Dot Cotton or having Josie start her own business) were ignored. She also claims that she was only used for two-thirds of her contracted appearances. She said: "In the 18 months I was in EastEnders, I had no impact. There was nothing that made people sit up and take notice of what Josie was doing. It was like they remembered I was around and threw me a line where I would slide into the bar and say, 'Hello, how are you' and then sit on a stool and say nothing for the rest of the episode. I came to feel that I was letting the black community down because my character was so empty. People of my own colour often accosted me in public and accused me of playing a token black. I was so little-used that they even wrote me cheques for episodes I never appeared in. So why did they not use me? Why are they wasting the taxpayers' money? It was very dispiriting."
She accused the BBC of having an underlying lack of faith in the public's ability to accept that the UK has a multi-racial society, commenting ""The BBC likes to show itself off as being politically correct but I have seen some aspects that are not wholesome, even if it is unintentional. They may not believe it is there and they probably don't intend it to be there, but I have seen this insidious racism at first hand. There are degrees of racism and this, of course, is not the same as insulting or assaulting someone but it is still pretty distasteful.
The BBC needs to know there is a degree of dissatisfaction among the public. I think people want to see that EastEnders is populated by many different ethnic groups. Black people in real life run businesses, fall in and out of love, have fascinating and exciting lives. So why can't we in EastEnders. We are not all losers or nobodies so why can't the BBC show that?...I really felt so ineffectual as a character because I had nothing to get my teeth into - there were no great dramatic scenes or relationships. My character was never given anything meaningful to say and that was such a wasted opportunity. My son said I should get out of EastEnders because it wasn't doing me any good as an actress or as a black woman...I have got to speak out so that things can change."