The effort to ban MTV’s reality show, “Growing Up Greek”, is continuing with Greeks outraged with the mockery of Greek symbols and misuse on the show. The first episode of the scripted reality program portrayed Greeks as incestuous, violent and superstitious. Members of the local Tarpon Springs community have shunned those involved in the show.
One blogger, known as Ned, writes “They are delinquents who do their heritage and our legacy a great disservice by portraying us as such savages, intermingled with all the necessaray ‘HURR DRAMA’ that’s come to be a stable of any ‘reality’ show. Greek culture is much more than this, it is beautiful and unique. Please take the time you would use to watch this disgraceful show and learn about who we actually are, our history, our dances, our customs, our religion.” (CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL POST)
The number of supporters on the Boycott Growing UP Greek on Facebook are nearing 3,500 and there are well over 7,000 signatures on the petition that is being collected to either cancel the show or change its name or to clarify that the depictions are “Greek”. The site Fans of Growing Up Greek, created prior to the show, has closed down on Facebook.
The MTV show cannot be seen online in Greece due to geography restrictions, however the show can be viewed in full from the Boycott Growing UP Greece Facebook page.
Some characteristic moments:
The show makes a mockery of the Easter tradition where family members get together and enjoy lamb on a spit by creating this tradition as an ordinary Greek meal and throwing in some octopus for an added dose of ‘Greekness’ –
Another characteristic moment shows one of the characters, Demi, exercising with rollers in her hair before her mother calls her over for a type of religious ceremony. “Before any big event my mom blesses me just to make sure that, like, God’s blood is on me and he is watching me and taking care of me and nothing bad is going to happen to me…” she says. The mother then proceeds to burn incense around the girl and prays that Demi has a beautiful birthday and all her friends behave well.
Greeks immediately reacted to this party ritual, that castmembers maintain is an authentic tradition from Kalymnos.
The cast claims to be religious and yet it allows the sacrilege of Greek religious symbols.
The entire show is filled with bad behavior and misrepresentations aimed at showing a deep and rich cultural heritage as a shallow one. Not only, does the show trivialize Greek culture it also breeds racial malice and hatred.
What can you do to stop the show?
Call Viacom 212-258-8000 (from Greece call 001-212-258-8000) and ask for the operator to link you to MTV. Once put through tell them that the show is promoting racial stereotyping and mocking religion by taking a sacred icon and defacing it and mocking religion. Demand for the show to be canceled.
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