Desperate Housewives on Pinoy MDs

There’s buzz going around of a boycott — or at least a proposal for a boycott — of the newest season of the TV show Desperate Housewives, where character Teri Hatcher makes this remark: “Okay, before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? ‘Coz I would just like to make sure they are not from some med school in the Philippines.”

 

Pinoy doctors in the States are now coming up with a petition seeking a public apology from ABC, the show’s home network: http://www.petition online.com/ FilABC/ The petition mentions that the group finds the remark “derogatory… discriminatory and hurtful.” The text also cites the “overwhelming presence of Filipinos and Filipino Americans in the medical field… (and) to belittle the education, experience, or value of Filipino Americans in health care is extremely disrespectful and plain and simply ignorant.” (Words in parentheses are mine).

I am neither a fan of the show nor of intolerance in a globalized, multicultural, world… but understanding the issue at hand begs the question: was it really that bad?

First, let’s look at the contextualization of the supposed nasty remark. Teri Hatcher’s character was obviously distraught; her doctor brings up the topic of menopause, and in a show that documents the sexual adventures of middle-aged women, it’s not unthinkable for her character to go ballistic. For the show’s scriptwriters, the task is to portray the character as near-maniacal: in the scene, she moves around, panics, assumes a defensive stance, and she also utters “the remark.” I’m somehow reminded of prominent Pinoy politician Miriam Defensor Santiago’s comment about the Chinese (in the Senate investigation of the ZTE deal, no less, where she says that the Chinese ”invented corruption”), and her subsequent explanation (it was a “spur of the moment” thing), and more importantly, the reaction from China (nothing).

Did the producers intend to destroy the image of Filipinos working as MDs in the States? I don’t think so. Did they intend to devalue and discriminate against Pinoy MDs? Surely that was not the intent of the scene. The script called for a spur-of-the-moment reaction to a really important turning point in the show, and the scriptwriters delivered what they thought was the most realistic line they could think of. It appears to be as simple as that.

Which brings me to the next point. How realistic is this situation? I think the answer can be found in the petition itself. The Philippines is the largest exporter of health care workers (doctors, nurses, med techs) to the United States. “Many of the hospitals in major metropolitan areas of the US (and the world) would not be able to operate without its Filipino and Filipino American staff members,” the petition writes. If people in the Philippines talk about the diaspora of health workers to greener pastures abroad, then certainly, locals/natives in the areas where Pinoys have migrated to talk about it as well. It is this reality that is portrayed in the fated episode, and it is this reality that Pinoys in the States have to face.

Immigration and discrimination as issues have always touched raw nerves in American society… portraying them on TV does not make these issues any more contentious. If at all, television is a product of reality; and if we want TV to be an honest picture of what’s happening in real life, we surely wouldn’t want it to be politically correct. Television shows MUST comment about daily life, and it must do so in the most unbiased manner possible, as honestly as possible. It is thus inevitable to touch on racial discrimination and other issues that other people, choosing to be ignorant, would rather keep under the rug. Otherwise, we’d have TV that is bland, unrealistic, and socially irrelevant (not to mention un-entertaining).

The petition calls for an apology from the producers. My question is, how far does this apology go? Will it be able to correct the grassroots-level discrimination against Pinoy MDs in the States, obviously the source and inspiration for the storyboard? If the producers do apologize, how does this confront the issue of discrimination and immigration? Will it make the situation any better?

All this noise in the wrong direction is drowning out the most important question of all: why are these Pinoy MDs in the US anyway?