Bizarre indeed
Travel Channel host Andrew Zimmern made a name for himself by traveling the world and eating bull penises and drinking donkey milk (among other assorted repulsive items) on his show Bizarre Foods. Now he has a new show titled "Bizarre World," where he travels the world looking for the most bizarre places to entertain an audience that prefers to stay home and watch his shenanigans.
His destination on last night's show happened to be Cuba and when you think about it, the island holds plenty of potential for strangeness since it is hard to get more bizarre than the upside-down world Cubans must survive in where every day is a challenge to find food and shelter while avoiding arrest by the totalitarian regime's enforcers. But Zimmern apparently missed this fine opportunity to chronicle the daily struggle of Cubans in this surreal 21st century slave plantation and instead decided to take the official island tour provided by the slave masters, complete with salsa music, antique cars, and Santeria rituals.
One thing that makes this episode truly bizarre, however, is when the New York Times television critic, Mike Hale, takes Zimmern to task for his obvious avoidance of the reality of life in Cuba.
What’s truly bizarre about Mr. Zimmern’s presentation of Cuba — which is, it should be said, quite nicely shot and nearly always interesting to look at — is its failure, or refusal, to connect any dots between politics and the life he sees around him. Why is Cuba one of the few places where the tree rat is hunted for food? Why don’t you see anyone using cellphones? Why are the streets full of ancient American automobiles?
A one-hour cable travelogue doesn’t need to get into an analysis of whether Cuban poverty is a result of the American trade embargo or the policies of the Castro regime (both of which Mr. Zimmern acknowledges). But the show ought to be able to say that the citizens are poor and that they lack freedom, rather than saying that the Cubans are “a people who’ve learned to enjoy life’s simple pleasures without the frills.”
This don’t-offend-the-host approach reaches a surreal pitch when Mr. Zimmern maintains that boating and fishing in Cuba are “unspoiled” because “with rare exceptions, Cubans are not allowed on boats” — without indicating why that might be so. A British expat chimes in, “It’s part of the pleasure of sailing around Cuba.”
It might seem churlish to pick on Mr. Zimmern, who’s enthusiastic and friendly and full of praise and good feeling for the places he visits. But there’s also a residue of condescension; it shows up in the arched brow and the pat on the head (the Cubans are, in the final analysis, “friendly, inventive and engaging”), and it’s encoded in the whole notion of “bizarre.” It’s only bizarre if you’ve never left your couch.
You know you have entered the Twilight Zone when even the New York Times thinks you were not tough enough on the Cuban dictatorship.
Author's note: My original post incorrectly stated the host's last name as Zimmerman when it is actually Zimmern. The post has been corrected.
Oh, no no no, please don't acske quextions like why Cubans hunt rats and drive sixty year old cars. That's so mean spirited and 'disrespectful of the dignity of the revolution' plus it might suggest the TV viewer has a functioning brain - and the goal of the communist ratbag media is to stupify people, enact laws which require them to be strapped to their sofas, drooling in front of their TV sets so as to make the slaughter easier.
Cubans hunt rats 'cause they like to.
'n plus they drive those neat old cars because 'the government lets them', as another NYSlimes reporter recently quacked.
Paul Vincent Zecchino
Manasoviet Key, Florida
02 September, 2009
Without doubt, Zimmerman like all others reporting out of Cuba docilely agreed to the rules set by the tyrannical regime whereby reporters cannot report on anything objectionable to the regime [i.e. human rights violations, dictatorship, dissidents, screwed up Marxist economy, tourist apartheid, 3rd class citizenry for Cubans, etc..]less he be kicked out of Cuba and his film confiscated.
Zimmerman like all before him have no principles.
On the other hand, perhaps Zimmerman is showing that this country is a dictatorship and he had to abide by their rules to make his travel program.
Especially if he showed how the regime and travelers get to live it up, this might be a subversive expose.
Is it possible? Even if Zimmerman didn't intend it, it could work out that way. On this program did he show how the, I can't say other half, I have to say other one thousandth, live as well?
I agree with Honey, everything looked staged, the food, the serving sizes and the people happily singing about Che, you can see the sadness and the suffering in the people and if nothing else it really would turn off a lot to be travellers because the country looks like a shithole not the paradise that some people have in their mind
I've been trying to make my case over at the Travel Channel's blogsite for Andrew Zimmern but it is an uphill battle and some of those people there are DENSE.
Bizarre-Blog
Will they be replaying this show, I'd like to see it?
Can anyone imagine a Zimmern -type show shot in South Africa, circa 1986 or Chile circa 1976, painstakingly skirting political topics??!!
NO JODAN!!
[...] are treated as second-class citizens. Unlike Food Channel horde Andrew Zimmern, who in 2009 filmed a uncover in Cuba where he ate grilled tree rats but ever mentioning because Cubans are reduced to eating rats, [...]