Look, if you’re a TV producer with a significant budget, it’s not that hard to dedicate a wee portion of money for actual research into the geographical, societal and cultural landscape of your show’s setting.
It is, however, understandable that said budget is significantly diminished for spin-offs of popular series. But geez, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, you could have at least used Google to get your facts about Singapore right, instead of perpetuating a downright salah image of the Little Red Dot.
Some context first. Geek Culture recently sat through the latest episode of the police procedural that featured FBI’s fictional International Response Team cracking a case involving American citizens on Singaporean soil. Two American flight attendants went missing in Singapore, and it was up to Gary Sinise and co. to find out what happened in the Singapore-themed show.
But the only crime here was the level of misrepresentation of Singapore — which, contrary to popular belief, is not an island whose only source of light is red lanterns.
We’d love to break down the cringeworthy amount of inaccuracies, stereotypes and plain awfulness of the dialogue and acting, but Geek Culture already has it locked down solid.
Another great takedown of the Criminal Minds: Beyond Stupid Borders episode has been provided by none other than the great blog father mrbrown, whose Kim Huat persona gets absolutely triggered by the shitty portrayal of Singapore. Feel free to cringe in full while watching the episode here, and check out what mrbrown has to say about it below:
UPDATE: Here’s the second part of his rant that we all need
Reader Interactions