MEXICO CITY (AP) - An Australian production company has apologized to Mexico for a segment of a "Big Brother" reality program that showed people throwing water balloons at the Mexican flag. Wouldn't be so funny if Mexicans could swim the Pacific, now would it? Mexico's Foreign Relations Department on Wednesday sent protest letters to the program and the Australian government, saying the country's flag had been desecrated on the show that aired June 15.
"This terrible desecration has angered 125 million Mexicans, and that is just in Los Angeles."
"I apologize on behalf of the producers of `Big Brother' for any offense suffered and assure you this will never happen again," wrote Kris Noble, the managing director of entertainment company Endemol Southern Star, in a letter Thursday to the Mexican Embassy in Australia.
This buffoon would be getting an award if it had been a US flag.
"The segment was intended as a lighthearted tribute to Mexico and its vibrant cultural heritage, which we all admire and enjoy," the letter stated.
Mexican media observers have no doubt noticed how much mileage Muslims get out of seething and whining.
Mexico's protest letters said that the country's flag "has a long and proud history and it stands as a powerful symbol that identifies and unites Mexican citizens wherever they live.
"including Lubbock, Laredo, Perth, and Adelaide. Oh, you didn't know?"
Australia's government regulator of television broadcasters, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, was "considering a response", the agency's media manager, Donald Robertson, said Friday.
If anyone has some Oz rhyming slang for local perceptions of Mexico, we probably don't want to hear it.
Mexico's Televisa network repeatedly aired segments of the show, in which participants wearing oversized Mexican sombreros and droopy false mustaches hurled balloons at a Mexican flag.
Sombreros and droopy mustaches? They need to update their stereotypes.
In one segment, contestants were asked to name the country from which Mexico won its independence. The contestant who answered the United States was told that was the right answer. Mexico gained independence from Spain.
The offhand insertion of outrageous lies about the States is kind of an inside joke for the lefty contingent of the Oz media.
A couple of years ago, outlets all over Australia repeated as gospel an SMH typo reporting that the SETI program's new radio-telescope in California would cost 8 billion dollars. Some cited it as an example of heedless American prodigality and Bush Administration malfeasance. It would have been easy to discover that the actual figure was 8 million and the project was privately financed, but nobody bothered. Another whopper making the rounds down under (possibly in the reverse direction): the average American loo uses an incredible 20 liters per flush. Actually, this is limited by law to 1.6 gallons, about 6 liters. In the same vein, I am thinking about starting a blog just to keep track of this s**t.
Sydney-based Southern Star produces Big Brother under a joint venture with the Netherlands-based entertainment company Endemol NV.
Another example of imperialist media.