Fox News - They’re rich. They’re spoiled. They’re Persian. Which means Bravo’s latest reality endeavor, “The Shahs of Sunset,” has Iranian-Americans up in arms over the stereotypes they claim it perpetuates. So much so, in fact, that petitions are circulating in Iranian communities to have the show yanked off the air. The program, which premiered on Sunday night, follows a group of six Persian-American socialites in Los Angeles as they navigate love and life with what seems like bottomless checking accounts. The show is produced by Ryan Seacrest, who is also the executive producer of “Keeping up with the Kardashians,” and the various spin-offs of that venerable series...The show’s focus does seem to be on the characters' frivolous sides. Golnesa 'GG' Gharachedaghi, who is being heralded as the next Kim Kardashian, is a 30-year-old trust fund baby who uses her father’s credit card to buy designer clothing and vehemently argues on the first episode that she does not like “ugly people.”..Another, which has collected 500 signatures on Change.org, argues that the show promotes racial stereotypes. One signer of that petition, Shepard Jacobson, commented: “The show wants to present caricatures of Iranian-Americans. This is not entertaining. Rather, it is racist and only encourages others who do not know Persians in our American society to feed into the worst kind of stereotype, rather than showing a new generation of ambitious yet hardworking Iranian-Americans.”
Hold up...Racist? Can something really be racist when it's portraying one particular extended family's wealth and extravagant lifestyle, am I getting that right? So portraying a bunch of filthy rich Persians as your typical Hollywood Hills celebutants, basically as obnoxious an American subset as you can find, is racist? I would have thought that was the most welcoming sign possible for Iranians. Like, "hey, you can act like the white spoiled brats out here and we'll make you famous too!" No? I would have thought racist would be filming the father of this clan involved in money laundering schemes in some dark basement with possible terrorists or something, not following the day to day drama of his daughter and filming her presumably many Mani-Pedi dish sessions. That line about "worst kind of stereotype" is an absolute joke. The worst kind of stereotype would involve the show insinuating that the family is funneling money back to Iran to fund their Nuclear Weapons research...but as far as I can tell that's not going on here.
It's not racist people. If anything we were being more racist before this show. I mean there wasn't one degrading show about Persians on American television prior to this, that was a travesty. Whites had The Real World, The Challenge, The various Kardashian franchises, The Jersey Shore, the Teen Mom franchise, Real House Wives of New York and LA, the list goes on. Blacks had the Bad Girls Club (on Oxygen, I'm sure you've never heard of it), Real Housewives of Atlanta, and Basketball Wives. It's about time the Persians got into the mix.
Plus, its on Bravo, which is basically E!-light these days. People aren't exactly watching these shows for intellectual curiosity reasons. We're not trying to glean some societal insight into the every day life of real Persians. We're watching junk television and trying to feel better about ourselves because even though these reality people have more money than most of us can ever dream of, they also tend to be dead inside, and that makes us feel good.
So spare me the racist petitions, the claims of injustice, and any other bullshit PC complaint you have. This show is as American as Apple Pie and white trash, and Persians should be proud.
