I am a regular viewer of the Amazing Race, the only “reality” show I can handle which isn’t cooking-related. I am aware that the show is not exactly what it seems, as I am aware that it is edited and that the crew manipulate the results. I don’t care. I enjoy the “race” aspect of it, much like I once enjoyed It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World, and I enjoy seeing different parts of the world from my couch, as we can’t really afford to travel to most of these places.

My girlfriend and I watched last Sunday’s episode (March 17th’s episode) set in Vietnam and enjoyed it, much like we enjoy any episode. We found this episode to be fairly typical and we didn’t find it offensive. However, according to this Fox News article [since removed], it was incredibly offensive to American veterans. Why?

The episode featured participants having to guess the Vietnamese lyrics to a propaganda song in order to move forward. Then, the contents raced towards a memorial that commemorated shooting down American B-52s. Both of these things should never have been shown on American TV, apparently, and CBS has since apologized.

I’m not sure the song-task itself would have wrought so much controversy. Certainly this is not the first time in the show’s innumerable seasons when contestants have had to learn something about a culture that some idiot in the US interprets as “un-American.” It was clear to both my girlfriend and I – both university educated viewers, I guess I should note – that this was a propaganda song. It sounded “Russian” to my ears. “Soviet” rather. I’m not sure that it succeeded in brainwashing the contestants – as it was in Vietnamese and they couldn’t see the subtitles added in post-production – or to the viewers – it wasn’t very catchy. So I’m not so sure what was offensive about it, aside from the fact that it used evil words such as “communism.” (Children, cover your eyes! Don’t read those subtitles!)

The trigger was more likely the B-52 memorial, which prompts a relatively innocent question: “If this had been Hiroshima or Nagasaki, would American veterans have been offended had the contestants visited memorials commemorating the destruction of either atomic bomb?” I ask this because I’m pretty sure the Amazing Race actually visited one of these sites in a previous season. I don’t remember any outrage. What makes Vietnam’s commemoration any different?

“Anti-Americanism” – or treason of thought – is in the eye of the beholder. Like “obscenity,” “respect,” “pornography,” “swearing,” and so many other things that people get outraged about, “anti-Americanism” only exists where it is created in our minds. If nobody had written letters about this TV episode, the rest of us would never have noticed the supposed treasonous quality of the episode.

I say ‘supposed’ because there was nothing offensive about American TV show participants briefly stopping at a memorial to a war that ended nearly 40 years ago. Yes, plenty of Americans died in the Vietnam War. Many more Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians died in that same war. So did many French. I’m sure I’m omitting numerous other countries that contributed a few deaths. War memorials commemorate death, usually. That’s why they’re war memorials. And, when they are located in a country that was invaded by another, they tend to side with the victor, in this case the country that repelled the invader.

Why the US invaded Vietnam – and if you don’t think the US invaded Vietnam, you really should read up on the subject – is incidental to this. What matters is whether or not it is offensive for an American show to briefly acknowledge that a country that the US invaded 50 years ago has commemorated its victory over the US.

If it is offensive, then clearly the Amazing Race should also avoid visiting any such memorials in Germany, Japan – oops – Mexico and a number of other Latin American countries, North Korea – not that they’re ever going to film anything in North Korea – and especially Iraq and Afghanistan – again, unlikely that they travel there. And they should avoid doing this because otherwise they will hurt the feelings of “850,000” Americans. It’s certainly more important to do everything one can to anticipate unreasonable outrage in advance and then do everything to avoid triggering that outrage than it is to portray a country as it is on a travel show. The important thing is to remain in ignorance of history and keep our feelings justified.

But it’s not offensive; certainly it’s not offensive to me, and my father served during – I did not say ‘in’ – the Vietnam War. I am 98% sure that if I showed my father this episode, he would not notice the offense if he was not instructed to look for it prior to viewing the episode. And that is because the offense doesn’t exist in the episode. It only exists in the minds of some viewers who are looking for signs that the “mainstream media” – note: Fox is part of that media, despite what it claims to the contrary – are out to attack “American values” and, in this case “veterans.”

If you are looking for obscenity, you will find it somewhere. If you are looking for disrespect, you will likely find it all over the place. In the same way, if you are looking for signs that your country is being betrayed by a person, a company or an institution, you will find those signs sooner or later.

The people who were offended by this episode of the Amazing Race want to be offended. This is what they do with their spare time. (And, in the case of Fox, making Americans take offense is how they make their money.) They are not offended because there was anything intrinsically offensive in the episode, they were offended because they are looking for proof that the “liberal media” is out to get them. And they found it.

Of course they found it. That’s how this works: people look for evidence that confirms their beliefs, not evidence that refutes those beliefs. No matter how flimsy the ‘evidence’, they will hold it up as proof they are correct. Just go on some message boards: everywhere there is crowing about how this was “intentional.” (This is called the Law of Infinite Cornucopia: people believe what they believe, and take everything around them that confirms their beliefs – and even some facts that disprove their beliefs – to be proof of those beliefs.)

Showing the memorial was certainly intentional. Causing such levels of outrage probably didn’t even cross the minds of the people involved because, who could possibly anticipate such an absurd reaction?

PS

Dear American Veterans of the Vietnam War who still believe that there was some reason beyond imperialism to invade Vietnam and who were offended by this episode,

You bombed the shit out of Vietnam and the surrounding countries for years. You invaded the country, killed numerous people, turned villages into armed camps, slept with women, left the babies, and then ran away when it didn’t work out. And you are offended that a US television program showed one tiny example of how these people try to remember this destruction? Shame on you. You are horrible human beings. It is because of people like you, and the children you raise, that the US is still invading countries and running away when it doesn’t work out. You, and your self-righteous indignation are the problem, not the Amazing Race.