Author Caitlin Moran has said Diversity’s TV Bafta win for a Black Lives Matter-inspired routine proves the public cares about social justice issues.
The dance, on Britain’s Got Talent, won the only award voted for by the public, the must-see moment.
The performance involved a man dressed in a police uniform kneeling on Ashley Banjo to evoke the murder of unarmed black man George Floyd in the US last year.
The routine sparked more than 24,000 complaints to Ofcom, which were dismissed by the TV watchdog.
Journalist and writer Moran was a judge for Bafta’s must-see moment award and said she hopes Diversity’s win silences critics of the dance.
She told the PA news agency: “A lot of people came out and supported them (Diversity), but the fact that the public, this is the only category that the public can vote for, the fact that the public voted for this and it won as well, again proves that this isn’t a small piece of virtue signalling.
“The majority of the public that watched said, ’yeah I get you, that should’ve won.’
“And I hope it would at least, for maybe one day, silence the kind of professional people who kind of just go, ‘it’s all about virtue signalling, most people don’t really care about diversity and having different and interesting things on television’ – they do! They voted for it! All that stuff one this year, it’s not a passing trend. People like this stuff, it wins!”
After winning the award, Banjo thanked the thousands of people who complained.
The TV Baftas saw a diverse list of winners, with Michaela Coel named best actress while her drama I May Destroy You was named best miniseries.
Moran dismissed any claims some of the winners were undeserving.
“No one can say this was tokenistic efforts going on here,” she told PA. “The kind of people that will go, ‘you want a quota for your women and your people of colour’ – they had no leg to stand on. Because these were the best shows of last year.”
