Archbishop Desmond Tutu protests NBC reality series ‘Stars Earn Stripes’

[LynneSin]

Archbishop Desmond Tutu protests NBC reality series ‘Stars Earn Stripes’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/archbishop-desmond-tutu-protests-nbc-reality-series-stars-earn-stripes/2012/08/13/9a215620-e569-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_blog.html

Nine Nobel Peace Laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have demanded NBC scrub its new reality series “Stars Earn Stripes” because, “war isn’t entertainment.”

“This program pays homage to no one anywhere and continues and expands on an inglorious tradition of glorifying war and armed violence,” the Laureates wrote to NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt, producer Mark Burnett, and to General Wesley Clark, the former presidential candidate who’s hosting the competition series.

The show is, in fact, they said, “a massive disservice to those who live and die in armed conflict and suffer its consequences long after the guns of war fall silent.”

“Trying to somehow sanitize war by likening it to an athletic competition further calls into question the morality and ethics of linking the military anywhere with the entertainment industry in barely veiled efforts to make war and its multitudinous costs more palatable to the public,” the nine continued.

“Stars Earn Stripes,” which debuts Monday, and which NBC plugged relentlessly during its coverage of the London Summer Games, “pairs minor celebrities with US military personnel and puts them through simulated military training, including some live fire drills and helicopter drops,” the nine described.

It's disgusting what they call reality TV. BTW Sarah Palin's hubby is one of the minor celebrities. Go figure!

[panader0]

1. Don't mess with Desmond Tutu!

That was a song right? -------kidding
I think he's completely correct and wish Wes Clark hadn't gotten involved.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Agreed. We're not watching it here.

[bullwinkle428]

3. Yeah, the very concept of the show gave me kind of queasy feeling as I

watched those promos during the Olympics. The show was playing on one of the TV screens at the YMCA when I was working out after work, so I was watching a bit of it while on the treadmill with a morbid curiosity, but it still really bothered me that were turning something like that into entertainment.

[Justice wanted]

4. ONLY in America would such a show be produced.

I just vented that Who Do You Think You Are? -- a show that traced a celebrity family history got cancelled here in the U.S. BUT in England that show is going strong.

Not to condone the show but look at the various reality shows and are you really surprise they come up with this crap.

[Initech]

5. Fuck that show.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

6. Yukon Barbie's attack rebuttal will be forthcoming, once she figures out...

who Archbishop Desmond Tutu is.

Anything for the almighty dollar.