Channel Seven plays the race card

I’ve often thought it would be fascinating to have a series of Big Brother with an Australian, New Zealander, Brit, German, Chinese, Italian, French, Indian, South African, Brazilian and various ethnicities.

….a kind of United Nations microcosm that would allow us to see just who embraces differences and who is divided by them.

But part of my brain tells me that no, this would be irresponsible television. In a hothouse such as Big Brother where perspective is easily lost, it could descend into World War 3 very quickly.

None of this appears to have crossed the minds of the producers of My Kitchen Rules.

While some shows embrace differences, others use it as a wedge. And that’s what’s going on here.

Producers should never have allowed a second team of Asian-Australians to be portrayed as villains, having already wrung every last bitchy comment from Jessie and Biswa, the ‘Spice Girls’ with Indian and Bangladeshi heritage.

Where is the balance, please?

All three Gatecrasher teams have entered the contest with audacious -even spiteful- comments about the resident teams. It’s clear they have been worded up to play hard, given they have been fast-tracked into the competition.

But only one team is going to be remembered. One team will attract the attention in social media: friends Ashlee Pham and Sophia Pou from Cabramatta.

True, this is a contest about heroes and villains, but why was it necessary to cast two more Asians as villains, when Seven attracted fantastic ratings for the wonderful Anh Does Vietnam last year?

MasterChef has shown us how the genre can deliver such positive messages in multicultural casting: Poh, Amina, Adam Liaw, Akuc. It even has people who can genuinely cook.

My Kitchen Rules panders to our ugly side and condones it with ratings instead of a moral conscience.