I saw the episode where they try to be "Indians", speaking as if the many different groups all follow one, big, generalized culture and refering only to stereotypes. Imagine an episode where they go around trying to be "Black" or "Latino".
shareBah quit your whining. It was a funny episode, not racist. Hell, it was insulting towards white people, if something.
shareI wouldn't expect someone who finds this show "funny" to understand why this episode is offensive.
shareAnd I wouldn't expect someone who hates the show to be trolling the Dudesons' IMDb message board.
I was nothing more than an almost innocent bystander...-Jack Sparrow
Having an opinion =/= trolling, but I wouldn't expect someone who likes this show to know any better.
shareYeah, but if YOU don't like it, why watch it and then make comments on a board where the readers/posters will obviously favor the Dudesons?
And quite frankly, I'm just fed up with the Native American community saying the episode Cowboys and Findians was offensive. First, the episode was removed from MTV.com and MTV and the Dudesons have since issued an apology. Second, the episode was (at best) negative stereotyping... But then again, there is A LOT of negative stereotyping on television.... and not just specific to nationality or heritage. Let's count shall we? Religion, gender, and sexual orientation have all been subjected to some form of stereotyping that we've witnessed on our TV screens. By the way, there was only ONE episode that centered around the Native American community so lets not kid ourselves and say that they Dudesons ARE offensive; the premise of the show is not to mock the Native American community- the premise is to highlight the best of American history and pop culture (Native Americans, pioneers, amusement parks, famous cinematic moments, etc) and to put their own spin on them.
Lastly, cut the Dudesons some slack. I mean, think about it. They are four VERY WHITE guys from Finland. I'm sure that any stereotypes they portrayed on the show were based on what they learned in their own schools in Finland..... Maybe they just didn't know any better and were not informed as to how a real Native American community really is. Besides, they were not even trying to say that Native Americans were bad people. Several times during the episode they mentioned how brave the Native Americans were. So what if they showed it in their own way? The Dudesons are produced by Dickhouse Entertainment... the brains behind Jackass, Nitro Circus, Wildboyz, etc. What did you really expect? The Dudesons are known for really caring about their fans and would never have filmed the episode if they would have known how much trouble it would have caused and the anger it would have stirred up. And they're stuntmen.. and it's MTV! What did you think they were going to do? Sit around and highlight all of qualities that make up Native American history?
Oh and as to address this little zinger:
but I wouldn't expect someone who likes this show to know any better.
Actually, this was the first (and last) episode I've seen. It happened to come on after another piece of the mindless MTV drivel I love - I thought I'd post about it since clearly there's not much else about this show that people find worthy of commenting on.
And yeah, no *beep* there's a lot of steotyping on TV. I'm gay and Asperger's, I know that well enough. With Native Americans, though, it seems like they're entirely invisible unless it's a Western or some kind of history lesson. They're treated like a relic of the past that is interesting to put under a microscope but we rarely see Native Americans with complex, individual personalities beyond their background.
As far as cutting these guys some slack, how much creative control do you actually think they have? They probably didn't come up with the idea to do this episode, and supposing they did, MTV producers still had to give them the green light. Like most reality shows, it also undergoes a lot of editting before the finished project goes on the air. MTV, the network that has never had a Native American cast member on The Real World, Road Rules, or any of their other hit TV shows, ultimately decided to allow this of all venues to depict Native American people. That's pretty sad.
Finally, yes, that's great that you've figured out that we're allowed to like whatever we want to. The next step is the realize that we're also allowed to dislike and criticize whatever we want to as well.
It's ok that you only saw one episode. What I was saying was that you cannot make some assumption about them having something against the Native American culture by seeing only ONE episode. Also, the reason nobody has found anything else about this show "worthy of commenting on" is that they've all been leaving their comments on the Dudesons' facebook page (where the Dudesons regularly interact with their fans). For about a month after the airing of the episode, certain individuals would daily post derogatory comments on their profile and would harass ANYONE who posted anything positive about the Dudesons. Trust me, the Dudesons are sorry. :) Even though there aren't that many shows depicting Native Americans, there are many very well written book. Maybe the Native American community as a whole should start pushing for the creation of movie versions? AND keep up on the letters and emails to the folks over at MTV (I believe they can be reached through the website).
As for the creative control, a lot of stunts similar to the one's seen on this show are exact replicas (or at least very similar to) their Finnish show. In fact, the opener of every episode is a stunt taken from the Finnish series. In Finland, there are pretty much no rules as to what can and cannot be played on TV. MTV probably didn't think that fact through when they gave the Dudesons the thumbs up to go ahead with shooting the episode. [As a side note: if you believe that MTV played a part in the production of the show, why take it out on the Dudesons through their IMDb page?]
I'm sorry if I come off as sounding bitchy but I feel like even though the show may have offended a few people in the Native American community, it was an accident and it absolutely does not call for a retaliation in which the Dudesons are called anything similar to racist. It would really suck if people stopped liking them because they really are genuinely nice guys. Watching their shows helped me through a tough time in my life because they made me laugh so much.
As for allowing people to dislike and criticize something, I didn't have a problem with you saying that you didn't like it. What I had a problem with was that you say that they are offensive, and then whenever somebody would challenge you the only vague response you would equated to, "Well I wouldn't expect you to understand since you obviously like them." If you're going to go around and poke your finger in someone's face, at least bring a few valid arguments from the beginning and don't just dismiss someone else's point of view because it's different from your own.
The next step is the realize that we're also allowed to dislike and criticize whatever we want to as well.
My first post is probably not clear enough, but I'm not saying that the Dudesons or the show as a whole are racist. I've only seen this one episode and that is the only one I can judge. I'm sure this is the only episode of the show that explores Native Americans as a topic (not a criticism of the show in particular, but in our television culture as a whole that only seems to use Native Americans as temporary plot devices rather than as central components).
[As a side note: if you believe that MTV played a part in the production of the show, why take it out on the Dudesons through their IMDb page?]]
I'm a bit confused as to what you mean here - The episode in question was part of the "Dudesons in America", and this is the imdb board for that show. What imdb board would be more appropriate for me to post on?
[As a side note: if you believe that MTV played a part in the production of the show, why take it out on the Dudesons through their IMDb page?]