27 Oct Review: watching Dutch Television shows in SF

Watching Dutch  Television in San Francisco: 2 stars

Dutch television is not known as quality television. Dutch people are known for being stingy, and in combination with the imagination of, among others, John de Mol, this resulted in the Dutch inventing – some years after Orwell wrote 1984 – “Big Brother”. Almost all television has had more or less interesting real life elements since, never troubled by depicting its subject wrong or moral restrictions of other kinds. In the overly politically correct environment of the San Francisco Women&Genderstudies department, the good ol’ “Boer zoekt vrouw” (Farmer looking for wife) is a  great relief. Stereotypes, ableism, gender binaries, patriotism, nationalism and heteronormative families are put on a pedestal as if it were the cure to cancer. A blonde presenter jump excitedly around using denigrating language and in the end everybody has to pretend to be happy. Such a relief after a harsh day of studying and seeing homeless people in the street in San Francisco to know that in the Netherlands people are still enjoying what we’ve always enjoyed. Although watching Dutch television is a less shitty experience while abroad, it’s still not near as enjoyable as drinking hipster coffee: 2 stars.