Who Exactly is Uneducated?

The brutalization of Filipinos by Hollywood and its personalities is actually nothing new, from our depiction as cute little savages in Return of the Jedi, to Tom Selleck's cook's Tagalog monologue in Her Alibi to Claire Danes' brutal comments about Manila while filming Brokedown Palace to just about any Rob Schneider movie you can think of. Even Tina Fey recently took a jab at President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's fashion sense in an episode of 30 Rock.

I think what makes the comments of Teri Hatcher's character in Desperate Housewives truly despicable and even more racist than any of the aforementioned jabs is how
they essentially belittle our professionals, who constitute, at the moment, our most prized export. I know people who break their backs here just to get their medical degrees and pass their board, whose achievements have just been belittled by an aging borderline has-been and the smart-alecky, creatively-challenged writer whose dialogue she regurgitated. I mean, what kind of asshole resorts to racism for laughs these days, after what happened with Michael Richards?

It seems clear to me that there was a directive among the writers to come up with a third world country for that "clever little line." I can just imagine them thinking of what third world country would be least likely to kick up a fuss with the remark. "Why not the Philippines?" I can just imagine someone saying or thinking. "The people there worship us anyway."

As far as I'm concerned, though, that we were the object of yet another dig from those pricks at Hollywood is only half of what's objectionable; my problem is that Hollywood, and America, in general, should really stop taking cracks at the intelligence quotient of other cultures, considering their own track record in the last several years.

For one thing, this is the country that elected George W. Bush their President twice in a row. If people will bellyache that he cheated, well, they were still stupid enough to let it slide because he's approaching the last year of his term in office and there hasn't even been so much as an impeachment case filed against him.

In relation to that, these complete and utter morons let Bush and his cronies trick them into believing in a war that is without any justification, and, which, unbelievably, some of them still support to this day.

Moving on from their politics, let's look at Hollywood itself. In any given year, the highest grossing movies churned out by Hollywood are sequels, remakes, sequels to remakes, or the latest member of the species, "reboots." Most of the dreck polluting movie screens these days aren't even the products of screenwriters' original ideas anymore, they're derived from everything to books, comic books, TV shows, toylines, and now video games, the single most creatively bankrupt form of storytelling imaginable, especially considering that most video games rip off their plots from movies!

And let's not forget TV, where the offensive utterance occurred. American TV is now dominated by "reality" shows which seem to get progressively worse with each new show launched.

Finally, there is the Americans' fascination with rich, stupid people like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears, all of whom they've managed to make rich in one way or another.

Come to think of it, Americans are some of the stupidest people on the face of the earth, when one weighs the sum total of everything they've done in the last ten years alone and as such I don't think they're in any position to cast aspersions on the quality of education in anyone else's country. You people are supposed to be smart, right? How is it a chimpanzee has been running your country for nearly eight years now?

I don't actually watch Desperate Housewives, and am now glad I don't, but I seriously hope the writers, producers and cast of that piece of primetime garbage have, at the very least, to endure a whole world of grief for that little indiscretion, which was completely uncalled for and unabashedly racist.
I wouldn't even mind if the show got cancelled, so Teri Hatcher can go back to being a has-been, except now she can be a racist has-been. She and Michael Richards can form a club.