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NBC Pulls Plug on Comedy After Getting Backlash

Oct 3, 2016  •  Post A Comment

NBC has pulled the plug on a comedy just days after announcing that it was going to be developing the project.

The project is “Mail Order Family,” whose premise sparked an outcry among bloggers and commentators. The show was from Jackie Clarke, who’s behind the network’s sophomore series “Superstore,” and was to be loosely based on Clarke’s family.

The show would have focused on a widowed single father who orders a mail-order bride from the Philippines to help raise his two daughters.

Asian American bloggers and other commentators reportedly responded with harsh criticism of the show’s willingness to apparently make light of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

News of the project broke just last week, as we reported previously.

But NBC subsequently released a statement saying: “We purchased the pitch with the understanding that it would tell the creator’s real-life experience of being raised by a strong Filipina stepmother after the loss of her own mother. … The writer and producers have taken the sensitivity to the initial concept to heart and have chosen not to move forward with the project at this time.”

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2 Comments

  1. That’s so hypocritical on both the part of the network and the bloggers/activists. The reality is that “picture brides” are a historical fact and the practice was common among many Asian subgroups as well as some Europeans. Many who grew up along the West Coast, in Hawaii and in other large cities of the continental US, were aware of the practice and potentially also knew participants. Maybe that did not apply to most of the “white” audience but it did to Asians and Europeans (myself included). It was very common in those areas where immigrants were mostly men brought to the US to work in various industries like agriculture, construction, mining and so on. Yes, the topic needs to be handled with some sensitivity but given it was based on the writer’s family you would assume some level of that. These activists are the same people who bitch about lack of diversity on TV or stereotyping of ethnic characters. So, don’t make fun of them and don’t be historically truthful….what’s left?

  2. Comcast and Brian Roberts isn’t kidding anybody when they killed this show. They could care less about “sensitivity” and all that BS… or Roberts wouldn’t have approved the show in the first place. The reality is, with the huge backlash to Comcast/NBC about this show, they realized that selling advertising on this garbage show would have been very very tough. So they pulled the plug. Comcast/NBC is all about the money, period. Nothing more, and nothing to do with morals or anything constructive.

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