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My friend, Racialicious blogger (and past TAP contributor) Latoya Peterson is quoted along with Feministing blogger Miriam Peres in this week's Newsweek commenting on a new MTV reality show, Exiled. The show takes the wealthy daughters of families from a previous MTV series, "My Super Sweet 16," and sends them on trips to villages in developing countries where they are supposed to learn how to "appreciate" their privilege.
Several posters noted that the host families on the show seem like props. “The show falls into the theme of using other countries and cultures as teaching tools for people in the U.S.” says feministing.com blogger Miriam Peres. “These people are being used as a teaching tool for mostly white, privileged girls. Why was this girl honored? Because she stopped crying after a few days? She was offensive. She wasn’t appreciative.”Latoya Peterson, blogger for Racialicious.com, has a similar objection. “They’re taking these extremely spoiled kids and going, ‘OK, what’s the worst thing we can do to them? Send them to Africa!” she says. “That’s a terrible mind-set to have. It’s the First World balking at the Third World.” But Peterson is encouraged by the kind of comments the show is generating. “For every comment that was like, ‘Aha! They got what they deserved,’ there are a lot of others from people who are hungering for a real, deep conversation.”I think the idea is that the spoiled main characters are supposed to be getting "what they deserve," but the punishments on the show are as extravagant as a normal person's vacation. The understanding that "primitive" people are here to help Westerners find redemption is not new. There is a strong undercurrent of it in film, like say, Dr. Yinsen in Iron Man. But it's kind of frustrating to see that such a tired trope in American entertainment is still so prevalent. There are many reasons to travel abroad and learn about the world, and the idea that doing so is some kind of punishment is not only bizarre, but says a great deal about how some Americans see people of color and the world beyond our shores.--A. Serwer
