NBC drops plans for Filipino mail-order bride sitcom amid protests
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this Nov. 17, 2009 photo, a marquis advertises the Rainbow Room, the Observation Deck, and NBC Studios in New York.
LOS ANGELES >> NBC says it has dropped plans for a sitcom about a widower who orders a mail-order bride from the Philippines.
Protests had greeted the network’s decision last week to develop “Mail Order Family,” with an online petition drawing more than 12,000 signers as of Saturday.
In a statement, NBCUniversal said it bought the comedy pitch with the understanding it would tell creator Jackie Clarke’s real-life experience of being raised by a “strong Filipina stepmother.”
The writers and producers have “taken the sensitivity to the initial concept to heart” and won’t move forward with the project, the network said.
Gabriela USA, a women’s rights group, circulated the anti-show petition on Moveon.org. The group said the mail-order bride industry exploits and traffics in poor women and condemns NBC for “making light” of the issue.
12 responses to “NBC drops plans for Filipino mail-order bride sitcom amid protests”
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John Mizuno leading the charge? Must strike pretty close to home.
Hollywood is tiresome.
NBC …sensitive? LOL
What about all the real-life long-distance brides from the Philippines or elsewhere? Not to mention online dating brides? Are they saying those marriages are not legit? Or that those people are bad???
I know people who have married Filipina brides and are quite happy. Whats wrong with that?
Yup. Ask John Mizuno. He’s been married for a while. I’m sure he’ll have an opinion.
I agree also…six of my friends have met and married women from the Philippines and have been quite happy also…..these women are loyal and devoted wives and not to mention quite pretty……lucky guys….
The elite Filipino snobs consider those people to be subclass people. That’s the difference the Filipinas that want to use the approach and the goody two-shoes Catholic Filipinas who consider it an affront to their religion and good name.
I don’t think it’s any more inappropriate than ABC’s “Fresh off the Boat”. Too bad, sounds like it could have been really funny.
I can’t fathom how anyone could possibly think this was a worthy subject for a “sitcom”. More than anything else, it illustrates the aridity of talent at the top of these fossilized relics of TV’s ’50s heyday. Just think, they needed a public outcry to alert them to something that was blatantly obvious to everyone else. Where’s Duterte when we need him for a colorful Tagalog phrase or three?
Don’t get Duterte involved. He will execute all mail-order brides and their husbands/boyfriend.
How many actors from the Philippines do we have on US mainstream TV right now? About none. This TV show was a chance for some to get a break. Whomever they hired to play the bride was certainly going to have subplots with her relatives from back home. Opportunities lost. Lots of people complains about the lack of diversity on TV, but if everyone continues to be so sensitive about everything, we will continued to have white bread Ozzie and Harriet TV shows, and no work for actors from the Philippines.
Agree with you, we have become sensitive to what is politically correct that it stifflle frank discussion of a problem if it is that. It is better to discuss the pros and cons of mail-order-bride issues in contemporary times. My mother never met my father back in the late 1800’s when she came from Japan as a photo-bride. Have 6 other brothers and a sister. Two served in WW II and 2 during the Korean War. Mail-order-bride and other social issue is best discussed to enlighten the masses about these issues. Like anything else bring out in the open so that proper discourse ensue.