Desperate Houswives vs Those Wily Filipinos
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:26 pm by TinyElvisIt seems that ABC and the Desperate Housewives have offended our Filipino friends in a recent episode. Apparently Teri Hatcher’s character (Susan Mayer) wants nothing to do with Filipino medical care:
The officials cited a recent episode where actress Teri Hatcher, who plays Susan Mayer, asked whether the person attending to her during a medical consultation “can I check those diplomas because I want to make sure that they’re not from some med school in the Philippines.”
To find out how real Filipinos felt, I asked my beautiful and brilliant college-professor wife (who happens to be Filipino from her mother’s side) if she was offended by the controversial episode:
The Philippines is really big on producing quality medical professionals. That’s their thing. In fact, Filipinos are often teased about ONLY going into the medical profession and not any other professional fields. The joke would have been more appropriate had they picked a country that doesn’t focus so much attention on producing quality doctors and nurses. Although the Philippines is on the brink of being a third world country, the medical training there certainly is not. It’s one thing that they do really well. I see how people would get pissed. Whether or not an apology is needed — come on, it’s just a TV show. If anything, it’s a nice vehicle to get the word out that this country is on par with American medical practices, despite its economic issues.
Now get back to work!
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:56 pm
WHAT! I am totally outraged and offended! You know what…I am going to protest! I am going to boycott Desperate Housewives, ABC, all the sponsors and I am going to go find Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and any other
race baitingdefender of peoples of color I can find.(Heh. Not really.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Personal Branding…
Or as a nation or race, we either receive preferential treatment or slur like the one made at Desperate Housewives.
Popularity: unranked [?]……
October 4th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
EW… whatever… I saw that episode, and honestly people, get over it. Leave poor Marc Cherry, Terri Hatcher and ABC alone… go after Britney, that white trash hillbilly baby abandoner
October 5th, 2007 at 12:46 am
I am a filipino doctor who lives here in the Philippines.I just wanted to say that Filipino doctors are not desperate doctors–This show obviously have no idea how hard it is for a filipino/immigrant doctor to go to the US. 3 tests costing around at least P40,000 each—just for a chance to have a residency training abroad. There is an extra test if you want to practice there.Filipino Doctors do this in an effort to provide better for their families. And to hear such racial slur from a bunch of people who don’t know the amount of work, time and effort that these people do is insensitive. And for this show to belittle my fellow Filipino doctors effort is insulting.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hey Ryan,
Get over it. It was a joke. A bad one. Don’t be a victim. The best thing you can do in “protest” is to not watch that crappy show.
October 5th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Her character is supposed to be a neurotic bitch, right? I’ve never seen the show so I don’t know. But a character can’t be offensive without pissing someone off. That’s the point. So many times we can just say har-dee-har-har and get on with our lives.
October 6th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Its sad cause I’ve been looking forward to this season. I’ve been a fan of the show since it started. I watch the show to be entertained not to be insulted. There was only one word I said and that was ouch! I managed to finish the whole episode but was bothered by it. After at least 5 years of hard training as Nurse in the Philippines and 8 years of the profession here, that was of course offensive but life must go on. Nigel’s right, the best protest is to do it silently by not watching the show.