EastEnders axing Ben Mitchell is the right decision
There's no better example of a legacy character than Ben Mitchell. The son of EastEnders original character Kathy Beale and the iconic gangster Phil Mitchell, Ben is an integral part of two of Walford's most storied families.
He is also one of the show's most visible and popular LGBTQ+ characters, having come out as gay in 2011 and subsequently married Callum Highway a decade later. That pairing, known as "Ballum" to fans, has proven popular with many viewers, spawning legions of Twitter fan accounts, fan fiction and fan-made videos on sites like YouTube.
Unsurprisingly then, fans of Bowden, Ben and Ballum were gutted when news broke that the character is to be written off the show later this year. Certainly, we hate to see a legacy character leave almost as much as we hate to see a capable actor like Bowden lose his job.
In truth, though, this most recent iteration of Ben has never quite rung authentically, undoing much of the character's growth and ignoring much of his foundation in favour of creating a pound-shop version of a Kray Twin. Axing Ben Mitchell could be just what EastEnders needs to improve the accuracy and variety of its LGBTQ+ stories.
Ben Mitchell is a complex, complicated, and controversial character. Raised primarily by his mum until he was 10 years old, Ben was a camp child who enjoyed dancing and musicals when he returned to Walford in 2006.
Nearly two decades later, though, and you would never know it. The Ben Mitchell on our screens today – brooding, hardened, violent – is a far cry from the gentle, sensitive boy who moved in with Phil after Kathy's supposed death in South Africa.
Sure, he has his reasons: from being abused by his dad's fiancée as a child, to enduring a stint in prison for killing Heather Trott, to the murder of his partner Paul Coker in a homophobic attack and being assaulted by his next partner Luke Browning. There is plenty in Ben's backstory to warrant this complete change in character.
Indeed, since returning in 2019, writers have continued to dump trauma after trauma on Ben. He's been shot by Hunter Owen, raped by Lewis Butler, been the victim of yet another homophobic assault, lost his friend and the mother of his daughter, Lola Pearce-Brown, and most recently developed an eating disorder.
The problem is this complex pathos has never been truly explored by the writers. We never discuss how the trauma Ben endured affected him. Viewers were never treated to a storyline focusing on Ben becoming a paragon of toxic masculinity to compensate for the homophobia he faced at home and on the streets.
Instead, Ben simply doubled down on being a baddie and fans were meant to accept it because he is Phil Mitchell's son. Kate Oates, the then-executive producer who hired Bowden, said as much. "I just want to take the character in a different direction," she told Digital Spy in 2019.
That she did. Ben was never an outright malicious or villainous character before Oates.
Yet from bullying Callum Highway into coming out and then beginning an affair with him, to blackmailing Martin Fowler and attempting to arrange the murder of Keanu Taylor (years before Linda Carter finished the job) to trafficking his own sister Louise, and violently attacking Peter Beale during his vigilante reign as the Walford Attacker, Ben has caused as much misery as he has endured. He has become one of Albert Square's premier antagonists.
Nothing is inherently wrong with a gay character or a formerly good character becoming a villain (or, to be generous, an anti-hero). When that transformation is contrived to generate plot, however, rather than addressed as character-driven development as it has been with Ben, it rings hollow.
This is especially true given that Ben went from a believably gay child dancing around to Kylie to essentially being "straightened out" with any hint of femininity or campness erased from his personality. What was set up to be a groundbreaking character and dynamic in the ‘00s became, essentially, Phil Mitchell if he slept with men.
The problem is compounded when dealing with one of the show's most important legacy characters – and arguably its most important LGBTQ+ character, given that most of the other LGBTQ+ characters are little more than window dressing.
Characters like Bernie Taylor and Felix Baker are, at best, supporting characters who pop up either with a quippy one-liner working behind a counter, or to serve the storyline of another character. Bernie has never had a serious girlfriend and Felix appears so infrequently and in such a limited capacity that he may as well be an extra.
Neither has seen their character deeply explored or had anywhere near the screen time Ben Mitchell has enjoyed. While that may be justified because of Ben's status as the son of two legendary characters, it also amplifies the glaring problems with his characterisation.
Many fans clung to Ben and Callum because they are the show's only real representation of an LGBTQ+ couple. Yes, there is Suki and Eve, who we have high hopes for in 2024. But for most of the past two years, their relationship has been clandestine and tortured when they've even been together.
Again, that is not a problem in and of itself. Arguably, Suki and Eve are the most compelling couple currently on EastEnders, and it is great to see fans rooting for same-sex love to triumph.
But when the only examples of same-sex love involve a closeted woman married to a man, and a perpetually traumatised and traumatising thug – and that is what Ben has become in this latest iteration – the show has a massive issue with LGBTQ+ representation.
Ben's marriage to Callum has been a social media success, but we do not see them kissing and showing affection the way other characters, including Suki and Eve, do; the most we're treated to is the occasional forehead kiss. Barry and Janine had a more believable romance, and she pushed him off a cliff.
Ben's popularity is not an indication that the show was getting him right so much as it is an indication that the show is getting all its LGBTQ+ characters wrong. Ben was simply the only one who has really been visible these last few years.
In truth, EastEnders has never really figured out what to do with its LGBTQ+ characters. Despite its groundbreaking history with Colin and Barry in the 1980s, and again with Tony and Simon in the 1990s, the truth is that when it comes to long-term LGBTQ+ characters – like Ben – the show has struggled.
Sonia Fowler's bisexuality is often treated as an afterthought; Tina Carter was largely sexless unless sleeping with men despite being a lesbian, and then was murdered; Kyle Slater – the show's first and to date only regular transgender character – lasted only a year. Iqra Ahmed barely registered.
When LGBTQ+ stories are told, they often involve the drama and struggle of coming out. Certainly, that is a cornerstone of the queer experience, but it is not the only queer experience.
Suki's struggle to come to terms with her sexuality mirrors Callum's from a few years before. Johnny Carter, who is soon to return to the Square, similarly had a difficult time coming out to mum Linda. One of the show's most successful same-sex pairing, Christian Clarke and Syed Masood, similarly focused on the latter's struggle to come out to himself and his family.
There's more to the gay experience than coming out, though. Let characters like Bernie, Felix, and Johnny rise to prominence in the show, getting meaty storylines that reflect an accurate LGBTQ+ experience mixed with plenty of sudsy drama.
EastEnders needs to invest in its queer characters, delivering stories which resonate and are grounded in reality rather than writing gay characters as essentially straight in all but name or simply using them as window dressing.
It would be wonderful to see EastEnders explore that with a same-sex couple in a healthy relationship. That is not going to happen with Ben Mitchell. He is too far gone. The show is right to give the character a much-needed rest.
EastEnders airs on Mondays - Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.
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