A popular late-night talk show issued a public apology for a segment in which it intentionally edited a Chinese guest to make it sound like she said Chinese people regularly eat crows. The segment is drawing criticism from the show’s fans in Japan, who say it’s both racist and a gross violation of television standards.
Monday Late Show apologizes
The NTV program Monday Late Show (月曜から夜更かし; Getsuyou Kara Yofukashi), which airs Mondays at 11:58pm, is one of many starring larger-than-life Japanese TV personality Matsuko Deluxe. Running since 2012 and co-hosted by Matsuko Deluxe and Murakami Shingo (of SUPER EIGHT), it’s a staple of Japanese late-night TV and has produced its fair share of laugh-out-loud viral segments.
The show’s trademark is a series of segments that ask people on the street questions, such as the latest news in their lives. It’s known for finding people with extremely quirky personalities, some of whom – like the constantly-mumbling Fefu Nee-san – become recurring characters.
Unfortunately, one segment recently went wrong when producers tried to invent “comedy” that wasn’t there.
The production posted an apology to its website for its March 24th segment, “Where We Asked People’s Advice on Coming to Tokyo in The Spring,” in which it interviewed a Chinese woman. (The clip is currently available in this post on X.) The woman, speaking in Japanese, talks about how crows were numerous in Tokyo and how she doesn’t even hang her laundry out to dry anymore because they steal her hangers. She commented, “You don’t see many crows flying about in China.”
After she makes this comment, the clip skips, indicating an edit. The next thing she says is, “There aren’t many because everyone eats them. They simmer ’em and eat ’em, end of story.” The track then cuts to Matsuko and Murakami laughing raucously.
However, the show admits it edited the content deceptively. “She absolutely did not try to get across that ‘People in China eat crows’; the production staff intentionally edited parts of a different conversation to make her statement radically different from her main point.”
In addition to the above statement, the episode appears to have been pulled from Hulu, where the show streams. While it shows up in Google search results, clicking on the link produces a 404 page.
The pressure to make an interesting story
“This is something TV as a medium should never do,” the show wrote in the statement, published in both Japanese and Chinese. “We apologize to the woman who agreed to appear on the show as well as all of our viewers. Furthermore, we are changing our production process to prevent this from happening in the future.”
The reaction to the revelation has been overwhelmingly negative on forums such as Yahoo! News JP. Ito Kazuko, a lawyer for Human Rights Now in Japan, wrote, “It’s outrageous that a program would abet discrimination, hatred, and prejudice based on someone’s nationality or birthplace. There should be a thorough accounting of how this came about and why no one stopped it from going on air.”
Other commenters expressed disappointment in the show and wondered how many of the show’s other natural-seeming segments were put-ons. Some blamed the show’s format itself, which they say puts pressure on the production team. “Viewers don’t want the truth about people,” one wrote, “they want an interesting story.”
This isn’t the first time a TV station in Japan has gotten in trouble for discriminatory content. A TV Asahi Hodo Station commercial drew fire for referring to gender equality as “outdated.” In 2021, TV morning program Sukkiri! featured a comedian who equated Japan’s indigenous Ainu people to dogs.
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