Stars Earn Stripes: Should war be entertainment?

In NBC's controversial new reality competition show, D-list celebs pair up with former soldiers to simulate war games in the name of charity

Todd Palin
(Image credit: Tyler Golden/NBC)

When Archbishop Desmond Tutu and eight of his fellow Nobel Peace laureates take the time to chew someone out, something must be amiss. Tutu and company penned an open letter to NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt, demanding that the network cancel its new reality TV series, Stars Earn Stripes. The competition show, which premiered on Monday to mediocre ratings, pairs extremely minor celebrities — including Todd Palin and actor Dean Cain — with former members of the U.S. armed forces to undergo intense, simulated military training. Though the series' faux combat missions are intended to "honor" America's troops, and the winner gets $100,000 to donate to a military-related charity, the laureates say the show whitewashes the brutal realities of combat and merely furthers an "inglorious tradition of glorifying war and armed violence." Has NBC crossed a line?

Not only is Stars Earn Stripes a bad idea, it's tedious: NBC is shamelessly attempting "to exploit positive feelings about the military and widely held respect for the people in it," says Linda Holmes at NPR. But even if you can accept that "offensive concept," there's no escaping the fact that Stars Earn Stripes is "stultifyingly boring as television and badly designed as a reality-competition show." To say that you can grasp "what it's like to be in the military by shooting a gun and swimming with heavy gear is like saying you can understand what it's like to have cancer by shaving your head." Also, it's "surprisingly hard" to build suspense and tension in a reality competition that's for charity.

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