The series was centered around “helping” women portrayed as society’s “have-nots”-including a recent mainland Chinese immigrant-and was heavily criticized for being discriminatory and downright distasteful.
In 2014, the broadcaster’s reality TV show, “Nowhere Girls,” was the subject of dozens of complaints filed to the Communications Authority.
Read more: VIDEO: TVB reality show criticized for being really, really mean to unfortunate women On Twitter, users called it “ humiliating” and “ totally unnecessary sexist crap.”Ĭoconuts HK has reached out to TVB, Kong, and Kitty Siu-a celebrity chef on the show-for comment.Īmid a cultural reckoning that is seeing many companies around the world undo branding that latches on to stereotypes that are sexist, racist or otherwise inappropriate, TVB’s new series is being condemned as wildly out of touch.Īnd it’s not the first time TVB has come under controversy for airing sexist TV shows. All but one of the 18 comments were positive-the sole user who offered critique said it would be “better if the show was called “100 dishes everyone should learn.” On TVB’s Facebook pages, however, posts about the series did not attract any negative comments, or many comments at all-possibly explained by the fact that the broadcaster’s audience are overwhelmingly older and likely to be more conservative.Įlena Kong, one of the celebrities featured in the show, shared a trailer for the series on Facebook.
“This simply belittles the standing of women in our current day society and is completely patriarchal in thinking,” another user said. A cooking show only targeting a female audience-am I living in the 1920s?” One comment read: “My jaw dropped when I saw the show’s advertisement on TV. The bulk of the criticism on Facebook were responses to a post sharing a Stand News reader-submitted opinion piece titled “100 dishes women should learn. Since the series premiered on Monday, some netizens have called the show out for perpetuating problematic stereotypes that push domestic duties like cooking and cleaning to women, while not enforcing any such expectation on men. The season consists of 25 episodes, according to the show’s website. The hour-long episodes air every weeknight, each featuring demonstrations of four local-style recipes.