This article discusses the controversy surrounding a contestant on BBC's The Traitors who claimed to be Welsh but was revealed to be impersonating an accent. The author connects this incident to a long history of disrespect towards Welsh culture and language in British media.
The revelation left a bad taste in my mouth (Picture: Euan Cherry/BBC/Studio Lambert) Not to be dramatic, but coming of age with a Welsh accent alongside Little Britain still haunts me. At university, chucked into a cawl (stew) with students from across the UK, I was acutely aware of my background as they imitated Matt Lucas’ character Daffyd Thomas, also known as ‘the only gay in the village’. The messaging was clear: Welsh people were not to be taken seriously.
How far we’ve come, I thought while watching the new series of BBC’s The Traitors. Not just one token Welsh person, three actually Welsh people (Charlotte, Elen and Leanne)! However, we soon learn that Charlotte ‒ who claims to be from Abergavenny in Monmouthshire ‒ was actually born and raised in London. She’s impersonating a Welsh accent in order to seem more ‘trustworthy’, she claims. The revelation left a bad taste in my mouth. We’ve been disrespected for centuries (Picture: Lowri Llewelyn) Here we are, 22 years after Little Britain first aired, and the British media is still using the Welsh accent as a prop; if not the butt of the joke. But putting on a Welsh accent and adopting our culture is far from lighthearted fun – we’ve been disrespected for centuries. In 1847, a British government report ‒ today referred to as the Treachery of the Blue Books ‒ concluded that speaking Welsh was the cause of stupidity, unruly behaviour and even sexual promiscuity among women. In the 19th and 20th centuries, school pupils caught speaking Welsh were forced to wear a heavy wooden plaque around their necks reading W.N., or ‘Welsh Not’. The child wearing the plaque at the end of the period might be subject to punishment, including beatings. Which brings us to today, where Welsh in Wales is a minority language spoken by just 17.8% of the populatio
WELSH CULTURE LANGUAGE DISCRIMINATION TRAGEDY MEDIA REPRESENTATION
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