Filipinos irked with "Desperate Housewives" racial slur
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Popular primetime TV show Desperate Housewives raised a lot of eyebrows in the Filipino community with the show's September 30 episode in the U.S.
In one scene of the said episode, a doctor confronts Susan Mayer (played by actress Teri Hatcher) with the news about Susan experiencing menopause. During the doctor's explanation, the uptight Susan cuts him short with an apparent racist slur against Filipino medical schools.
The following is an excerpt from the controversial episode:
Dr. Mayfair: "I know for a lot of women, the word ‘menopause' has negative connotations. The heart ageing, brittle bones, loss of sexual desire...."
Susan Meyer: "Before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? ‘Coz I would just like to make sure that they're not from some med school in the Philippines."
That dialogue proved too much for a lot people as they criticized the show's creators and the actress through blogging and online forums. One Filipino in particular, Dr. Siegfried Perez from Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, emailed his sentiments to GMANews.TV.
"I have communicated with fellow members of the health care profession, both Filipinos and other nationalities alike. We have all come to the conclusion that this kind of racial slur is a very irresponsible act ...[which] should NEVER be tolerated in any society, whether in a first world or a third world country," said Dr. Siegfried Perez. The Filipino doctor added that they would demand the immediate public apology of the show's producers, writers and actors.
As most people blame the show's writers, others have turned their eye on actress Teri Hatcher.
"The actress, Teri Hatcher, should insist not to deliver such dialogs as she just became the face of this insult to a country that was once a territory of the US," posted by an online user from the blogsite, Coffee With Aimee.
Teri Hatcher is best remembered as Lois Lane in the now defunct TV series Lois and Clark.
Desperate Housewives is a multi-award winning comedy series which premiered in October 2003 and is aired weekly in the U.S. by ABC Network. It is locally shown on Studio 23. It follows the story of five sexually "desperate" sub-urban housewives living along Wisteria Lane in the fictional American town of Fairview. Aside from Hatcher, the show stars Felicity Huffman (as Lynette Scavo), Marcia Cross (Bree Van De Kamp), Nicollette Sheridan(Edie Britt), and Eva Longoria (Gabrielle Solis).
A sample video is just a click away in youtube.com.
Source: Elyas Isabelo Salanga - PEP
Additional Information:
An on-line petition for a public apology by ABC and Desperate Housewives is being disseminated already for the episode be edited and remove the ignorant and racist remarks. To all the PINOYS out there, let us support this appeal so all these MORONS will know that we don't deserve such stupidity!
Here's the link:
http://www.petitiononline.com/FilABC/petition.html
posted by dipdip at 5:16 AM
3 Comments:
Yeah this is very insult among us. Mga bastos gyud!
agree!!
I agree that the comment is an insult to Filipinos but I think it is also a wakeup call to people in the Fil-Am community that Filipinos will always be second class citizens in America, no matter how successful we are. America needs Filipino expertise and Americans possibly look on us as fit menial laborers to take on jobs they cannot fill, but we will always be patronized in one way or another. If Filipinos accept this status and do not come together to fight the situation on a continuing basis; if Filipinos in America continue to display divisiveness in their community affairs; if Fil-Ams do not come to the table with a more positive self image of themselves as a cultural community based on an acceptance of who they are and where they come from, then this is the part we will continue to play in America.
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