Normal People

The main cast is white Irish and British in a way that matches rural Sligo and Trinity Dublin. A few non-white students and a black therapist appear, but the show does not sell itself as diversity casting. No central character is race-swapped or gender-swapped.

College episodes include campus-left talk about free speech, no-platforming, money, feminism, and a “cis white male” line. That talk comes and goes. It is not constant preaching.

Class and gender power, consent, secrecy, and abuse shape the arcs more than race or queer identity. Sexual power and family violence matter a lot. The series still puts the romance first.

Wealth, elite campus life, hard rent, and controlling men are shown as harmful. The Ireland on screen is liberal and post-church, not anti-Christian. The critique feels social and personal, not a long attack on the West.

Most public fuss was about sex and nudity, not DEI. A little mockery of Rooney’s Marxism and campus politics exists. There was no big anti-woke campaign against the series as propaganda.

Rooney, Birch, Macdonald, and Abrahamson bring left literary, feminist, and social-theme histories at mid-range strength. The team is not a pure DEI shop. Politics in the show stay more ambient than headline.