http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=797855
With all due respect to Vietnam veterans everywhere, that’s just stupid. All that happened was the contestants picked up a clue at the site. No political statement one way or the other was made or implied as far as I could tell. I, for one, had never heard of this place so I considered myself educated by the show for filming a brief segment there.
I think CBS overreacted to the overreaction by apologizing at the top of this Sunday’s show.
Eh, the apology didn’t bother me. The plane was shot down within living memory, and two American servicemen died in the crash. If I was a Vietnam vet, I might be pissed about it showing up in a game show too. Sure, the N. Vietnamese won the war and get to show it off as a war trophy, but there must have been 8000 other interesting places in Hanoi to use as a location in the Race.
I have to say that it did occur to me during the episode that the choice for the clue box was a bit…odd. It was the wreckage of a presumably U.S. bomber that was presumably shot down by the Vietnamese. Then again, it was a bomber, not, say, a food and supplies delivery plane. So plenty of murkiness to go around.
I don’t think an apology was absolutely necessary, but I agree with muldoonthief that a less charged clue point should probably have been chosen.
You mean other than the entire segment where contestants had to sit and watch a Communist propaganda show until they memorized the message written in Vietnamese? Sure, it was a cheesy, tongue-in-cheek production, but I can absolutely see where Vietnam veterans would be a little pissed off.
I was very disappointed with the apology. Complaints like that are reflective of just how very small Americans can be, and just how much we can struggle with issues that are remotely complicated and nuanced.
For one thing, the site was not at all presenting the B52 as a “trophy.” It appeared to be a downed bomber retained in situ. There was nothing triumphant about it, at least in terms of what we were shown in the show. It is the kind of thing that at once reminds you of the people who were in the bomber when it was shot down and who were underneath the bomber as it was dropping bombs and crashing. It is a poignant reminder of the conflict that we and they have to cope with as we grow to normalize our relationship.
Check out Akira Kurosawa’s Rhapsody in August for a treatment of a similar theme, albeit arguably an order of magnitude more complicated and emotionally challenging.
For another thing, this is supposed to be a show that depicts Americans in foreign settings and cultures. It shouldn’t be a race around the world constructed so as to cater to American beliefs and comforts. If people want to be exposed to Tea Party approved concepts, they ought to have The Less than Amazing Race through the Deep South. “Your eating challenge: pulled pork barbeque!”
Wait, a show that attempts to show at least a little bit of the culture of other countries around the world showed that the country is socialist and had a war with the United States?
I’m shocked at the insensitivity. It is a minimal requirement that only the American experience of history and the world be shown.
Remember when they did a task in the trenches of WWI France, even having to dress up like a soldier and then half the show was spent showing U.S. soldiers who were killed and their grieving families? Neither do I.
The show didn’t endorse the messages. It didn’t say “gee, isn’t it awesome that they shot down this B-52.” I don’t care that they apologized, it cost them nothing to do so. It is stupid that one was asked for.
Yeah, I agree the apology was unnecessary. I understand memories of the war being painful, but I don’t think TAR did anything disrespectful by acknowledging the memorial or showing the patriotic song. It’s a foreign culture and the show is not supposed to be “Ugly Americans Abroad.”
Where do I sign up? Just the eating part, I can go through the South on my own just fine.
I had no idea what the hell the apology was for when I saw it. I think it deserves an eye roll too.
I didn’t see the show but the impression I get from Koutz’ letter is that he’s hyper-sensitive to signs of disrespect and finds it where it doesn’t exist.
Koutz actually called the show “communist propaganda”
That has to be in connection with the song that the racers had to listen to as well. I would say the song was very much propaganda, but it was so outrageously over the top that there is no way anyone could have been moved to support communism as a result. The song suffered from Poe’s Law - you would think it was a parody or a joke if not for the apparent earnestness with which it was delivered.
Again, one really has to be capable of being exposed to things like that, to have the fortitude to know that other people might think different things than you do. Otherwise, you’re just a mindless lemming who is one song or one video clip away from being like the Manchurian Candidate.
I don’t like that they apologized for something like this. In my opinion, Vietnam vets tend to be hypersensitive, hyper-patriotic, and quite right wing. There are, of course, exceptions, that’s just the trend I see. If any of you have ever had emails forwarded that originate from the Yahoo group vietnamvetsonlyii, you know what I mean. The war’s over. Give it a rest.
So the anthem that sang about socialism is now communist? Koutz is an idiot.
Er… Vietnam is a communist country.
He’s a high-level officer in the American Legion.
What do you expect?
They’re marginally less hyperbolic than the VFW.
It’s lead by the communist party but considers itself socialist.
I guess it could be argued to be communist too,
Er… the Soviet Union also classified itself as “Socialist” hence the name “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. Similarly, my room mate from Bulgaria grew up being taught he lived in a socialist republic as well.
Communists consider themselves to be socialists because communism is a form of socialism. Of course not all people who are socialists are communists.
As the saying goes, “All poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles.”
Remember that Viet Cong(VC) meant “Vietnamese Communists”, though they preferred to call themselves the NLF(National Liberation Front).
That’s pretty much what The Song Says. Mentions the Communist Party, but says Socialism is lighting the way.
I get more of a kick out of hearing the Vietnamese sing the praises of Socialism to a group of people of which two will be given $1 million. I mentioned it back in the original TAR thread
“Socialism lights the way, but give me a million bucks any day!”
Right, heroic carpet bombers.
When did the North finally get SAMs, was it 1972?
re: socialism/communism - you’re all wrong.
According to Marxist theory, communism refers to the end stage of history, the final goal of a classless society, a workers’ paradise, in which the state has withered away. Communist parties are communist parties because they seek to achieve this goal. At the same time, soviet-style communist parties (bolsheviks) acknowledged that it had not yet attained that goal, and described the phase that they found themselves in as ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, or socialism. This is why a variety of countries led by communist parties were known as socialist - eg. the Soviet Union, or Czechoslovakia.
As a sidenote, I’ll mention that this story is further complicated by the fact that many in the social democratic tradition do not acknowledge this difference or the need for revolutionary change generally, and are happy to refer to themselves as socialist (eg the French Parti Socialiste) without accepting any of the ideological baggage that Marxism-Leninism attaches to it. It’s also complicated by the fact that in North American political parlance, both communism and socialism are commonly used to refer to Obama :smack:.