BGT judge Alesha Dixon has fired up social media after wearing a BLM necklace on Saturday night’s show.
Ofcom might want to get a few extra people manning the phones again as there are likely to be a significant number of complaints, judging by Twitter.
BGT Diversity complaints
So far, over 24,000 people have shared their gripes over Diversity’s performance on the first semi-final show two weeks ago.
It has been dubbed a black lives matter dance by some, but was actually commentary about the most significant events of 2020, which included the murder of George Floyd and ensuing protests, as well as coronavirus and environmental campaigns.
This week, Ofcom released a statement explaining there is nothing to investigate.
The regulator said: “Ofcom received approximately 24,500 complaints about the above programme.
“Complainants outlined a range of concerns about Diversity’s performance, including that the themes of violence and racism were inappropriate for family viewing, that it expressed support for the political organisation ‘Black Lives Matter’ and that it was racist towards white people.
In our view, Diversity’s performance was an artistic expression of topical social issues.
“Ofcom also received a number of messages of support and praise for the performance. Ofcom has assessed this programme against the relevant rules in the Broadcasting Code (‘the Code’).
“Our assessment is that this programme did not raise any issues which warranted investigation.
“In our view, Diversity’s performance was an artistic expression of topical social issues and did not contain any content which was racist, unsuitably violent or otherwise inappropriate in the context of this programme.”
And yesterday, after ITV had already offered its support to Diversity in a statement, it went a step further and placed an ad in all national newspapers.
And Alesha clearly wanted to send a ‘FU’ message to anyone who was offended by the routine, or who jumped on the bandwagon of outrage.
BGT critics of Alesha’s necklace
While many people lauded the stance, and the majority of viewers got on with watching the show without feeling the need to pass comment, the vocal minority were busy working themselves up.
One wrote: “Stop promoting BLM terrorist organisation, first Diversity, now Alesha Dixon necklace 😡.”
Another questioned: “Has #BGT overstepped the mark again tonight?
“Alesha Dixon not only parades herself in a BLM necklace but makes reference to a dancing magician’s colour of skin.
“Don’t get me wrong the fella in question was very good. But this woman is trying to point score on the viewing public.”
A third raged: “Alesha Dixon promotes the terrorist organisation BLM with a tacky necklace on prime time TV.
“The only way to respond is to switch the show off and deny its two race baiters the publicity they crave.
“Time to retire Simon Cowell’s show. Maybe ITVs agenda needs a closer look.”
Many more viewers drowned out the criticism, praising Alesha and applauding her for ‘upsetting racists’.
Alesha Dixon on Diversity performance
Alesha previously told The Mirror: “On the day of the performance, the camera didn’t actually pan to the judges. I was sitting there in floods of tears.
“I had this overwhelming feeling of ‘Wow I can’t believe I am watching this on BGT’. It felt really important.”
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