Why are period dramas so white?

Have you ever noticed that in film and on TV, period dramas tend to have almost entirely white casts? It’s almost as if, at least in film and TV land, black people do not feature in British history at all. The Guardian’s Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out how accurate costume dramas are in terms of racial diversity, and looks into the reasons why period dramas might get whitewashed Subscribe to The Guardian on YouTube ► https://ift.tt/16bR3Lu Why so many black people love kung fu ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2uDE8TuULs Support the Guardian ► https://ift.tt/2VEEwKb Today in Focus podcast ► https://ift.tt/2D74a4z Sign up for the Guardian documentaries newsletter ► https://ift.tt/2feoDdN The Guardian ► https://ift.tt/1AFLGzy The Guardian YouTube network: Guardian News ► https://ift.tt/1J9JUwL Owen Jones talks ► http://bit.ly/subsowenjones Guardian Football ► https://ift.tt/1yECE17 Guardian Sport ► http://bit.ly/GDNsport Guardian Culture ► https://ift.tt/16bR6H2 Sources: Why I no longer want to speak about race by Kolton Lee ► https://ift.tt/3cPloCA Black British History: New Perspectives from Roman Times to the Present Day- Hakim Adi ► https://ift.tt/3cGXnOh The Oxford Companion to Black British History - Cecily Jones ► https://ift.tt/3387gAf Black and British: A Forgotten History - David Olusoga ► https://ift.tt/3cL0moM Black Tudors ► https://ift.tt/2plDrGU Black Britain and Asian Britain - The British Library ► https://ift.tt/2vJpkV3 The National Archives | Exhibitions & Learning online | Black presence | Introduction ► https://ift.tt/2TTEGhx Black Prisoners at Portchester Castle | English Heritage ► https://ift.tt/3cQH8OO Black Lives in Britain in the Late 18th Century | English Heritage ► https://ift.tt/2wGn5Sp Cultural Diversity in London, 1821 ► https://ift.tt/2vJpls5 Multiculturalism in Shakerspeare’s plays ► https://ift.tt/2vUbpLN A map of Black history in nineteenth century London ► https://ift.tt/2Q0ERGD Lady Macbeth: how one film took on costume drama's whites-only rule ► https://ift.tt/2p4Up0v 'No one will know the difference': studio wanted Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman ► https://ift.tt/35hc7ic