- Maui residents object to island's portrayal in new MTV reality show, Maui Fever
- India to finally see Deepa Mehta's Water…7 years late
- Playwright Hwang to launch Stanford Univ.-NY Public Theater partnership series
- Ang Lee calls Tony Leung Chiu-wai 'dream' actor in his new movie
- Contract issue hangs over Mariners, Ichiro
But is that what the controvery is really about?
As the article observes, Maui County is 31 percent Asian, 10 percent Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 22 percent mixed race. Caucasians account for 33 percent of the county, including the small islands of Lanai and Molokai.
The all-haole casting has some locals ... not quite up in arms ... but annoyed, in the same sort of way that makes them charge mainlanders higher prices for pretty much everything. (AAV's editors Stewart Ikeda and Frances Wang have both been spending a lot of time in Hawai'i lately.)
The bigger sore spot is that the contestants on the show all seem to be on Maui for the main purpose of getting lucky -- frequently and on-camera.
"The first episode highlights a group of men who target tourists for fast, easy, and noncommittal hookups," the article says, which left some residents disgruntled, such as Nathan Ugale, 16, of Lahaina.
The article quotes Ugale from the Maui News: “I don't want (tourists) to come to Maui and think that people are going to come up to their daughters, so 'I better keep them away.' It's good for TV but not when it's happening in the town that you live in, that you've been a part of your whole life.”
[BY THE WAY: Also from Maui News: Click to see Matthew Thayer's photo of what must surely be the world's largest spam musubi ever -- 60 feet! We can't link to it b/c it gives a server error, but see the homepage today or maybe Google "SIXTY FEET OF SPAM MUSUBI" laterand see what happens.]
Anyway, stop in and check out the weekend edition of the Village news, and let us know what you think of the show.
