Nine Nobel Peace laureates know warmongering when they see it, so they sent a letter to NBC this week, urging it to cancel its new reality series “Stars Earn Stripes,” which it says “sanitize[s] war by likening it to an athletic competition.”
And, said the letter to NBC, “preparing for war is neither amusing nor entertaining.”
The letter, signed by Bishop Desmond Tutu as well as anti-landmines campaigner Jody Williams, former East Timor President Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta, Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams of Northern Ireland, Argentine artist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Iranian lawyer Dr. Shirin Ebadi and Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Guatamala went on to say:
It is our belief that this program pays homage to no one anywhere and continues and expands on an inglorious tradition of glorifying war and armed violence.
Real war is down in the dirt deadly. People — military and civilians — die in ways that are anything but entertaining.
Of course, “Stars earn Stripes,” which features Dean Cain, Terry Crews, Todd Palin and Picabo Street, among others, paired with special forces to go on military exercises, isn’t very entertaining either.
It only attracted 5.1 million viewers despite incessant Olympic promotion, compared to another network reality premiere, “Hotel Hell” that got slightly more viewers, 5.2 million.
NBC denied it was glorifying war.