The new Netflix show 'My Oxford year' gained some notice in right wing circles upon its release for its (nearly) homogenously white cast. A conventional romantic drama, it centres on the (white) Hispanic American Sofia Carson as she embarks upon a master's degree in 'Victorian literature', whilst being progressively wooed by her bumblingly charming DPhil tutor Corey Mylchreest (a relationship which would now be proscribed by university guidelines). While I haven't finished it, there is only one non-white character so far, a South Asian medical student who speaks in RP. Indeed all the students are vaguely upper middle class with the cityscape incongruously populated by Cockney geezers (the actual local Oxfordshire accent is tonally closer to a West Country one). The demographics of the show are noteworthy in themselves, and there's an article to be written on the cultural distance which now separates us from the late 2010s. Counter intuitively, there was a period in the aftermath of Trump's first victory in which white male characters were jettisoned from low brow Netflix dramas and forgettable movie releases (or if they could be found, only as malignly predatory figures).
For better or worse, as the events surrounding the American Eagles' ad show, there seems to be a conscious embrace of aesthetic whiteness in response to a perceived new right wing cultural hegemony, or at the very least, no longer a felt need to shoe horn Potemkin diversity into every show. While the jury should be out on whether this superficial cultural victory is good, it's still resulting in a popular culture which is easier on the eyes.
The show is more interesting in that it reflects the way in which the world wants to see Britain, and the growing dissonance that exists between this image and the reality of the country. 'Brand Britain' remains Oxbridge educated Heathclife types wooing young women; this trope caters to the sexual preferences of the fairer sex globally. Even woke Bridgeton portrays tall white men romantically engaged with women of colour. Saltburn, Notting Hill and Pride & Prejudice are global Britain. Conversely the increasingly multicultural reality and its curated image on BBC iPlayer are inherently provincial phenomena. Oxford in particular, the setting of the show, is a good case study. While it's central to the residually existing foreign and romanticised vision of the country, it typifies better than anywhere else the rapid departure even the nicest parts of it are making from basic civilised norms.
For context reader, Oxford is the city of my birth. And while my experience of it has been primarily through the prism of a local resident rather than that of a student, its worth touching upon the university initially. 'My Oxford year' presents Oxford as having a white student body, a depiction which is probably out of date by a decade. As Neil O'Brien has highlighted the White British proportion of Oxbridge student has precipitously fallen to 67%, as a result of a deliberate program of social engineering. To be clear, this is obviously not driven by the desire to accommodate existing minorities because 1) its forcefully lowered the proportion relative to the national one of 76% (ergo marginalisation of the majority and not accommodation of minorities) and 2) this has been facilitated in part by the growth of international students. Much like the absurdity of Igbo immigrants being given racial preference over Old Stock Americans on the basis of 'historical disadvantages', Britain's elite institutions are attempting to gerrymander their demographics by opting for non-white foreign nationals over academically excelling natives. Oxford's overall student body is now 78% UK born versus 88% in 2008.
Some of the 'diversification' of the university of course is additionally being driven by increasing numbers of non-white diasporics being given a 'leg up' to entrance, as witnessed by groups of self segregating girls in hijabs on out reach programs, who dot the city during the summer months. Foundation years, for those not familiar with British tertiary education, are pre-course immersion periods designed to help maximise selected chances of successful entry.
Originally pioneered by several colleges but now expanded to 10 under the Astrophoria program, they are becoming the favoured weapon of choice for the discriminatory Woke left. While they don't guarantee acceptance, there is a high degree of carry through, and much like the historical beneficiaries of affirmative action, these students underperform sometimes significantly relative to the student average in final examinations. They exemplify the stealth introduction of positive discrimination to the British university system. There has never been a legal requirement for British further education institutions to promote 'diversity' and indeed until recently this was frowned upon as inimical to academic excellence. The change, because of its none legally mandated character, is therefore more imperceptible but nevertheless real. Those colleges which have opted for the introduction of foundation years are conspicuously more racially diverse than those which have resisted the measures.
It should be noted more direct preferences for students from 'BAME' and 'underprivileged' backgrounds in admission are occurring at Oxbridge and Russel groups universities more broadly. Owing to my professional background, I am aware of the fact that Year 13 students from non-white ethnic backgrounds on occasion have been given preferential conditional offers requiring lower attained A-levels. Its hard to gauge the extent of this, but the most logical explanation is that the 120% increase in UK domiciled non-white students at Oxford from 2013-24 (14% in 2013 vs 30.8% in 2024) is a consequence of conscious changes in admission policies.