In retrospect, the babipangang riot that Ruud de Wild got involved in turned out to be purely intended to make money, says TV critic Victor Vlam. “Claiming victimhood pays off.”
Ruud de Wild recently ended up in a striking racism discussion after a radio interview about the documentary More than Babi Pangang went slightly off the rails. What started with lame jokes and stereotypical comments about Chinese food resulted in official complaints, enormous fuss and even threats against the radio maker.
Babi pangang
Tina Nijkamp in particular, who adopted two children from China, went very hard, but she was quickly reprimanded by her colleagues from Today Inside. Steven Brunswijk also decided to take his revenge, because some member of his family was once allegedly treated with racism by the radio maker.
Anyway: according to TV critic Victor Vlam, the whole riot was intended to sell the documentary More than Babi Pangang. By creating such a riot, the makers managed to put themselves in the spotlight, he says.
Victimhood
Victor is annoyed by it. “Would ZWART have purchased this documentary if the maker had not accused Ruud de Wild of racism in a major riot? No. So you see. Claiming victimhood pays off,” he writes. X.
One Arjan calls that nonsense. “Come on, the deal with the NPO was really closed before the recordings started. About 110 documentaries are broadcast per year on NPO2. For many documentary makers, that is the main component of the budget.”
Fuss
According to Victor, he is indeed right. “According to the official STER schedules of the NPO, the documentary More than Babi Pangang was only finally added to the programming in the last two weeks. So it was really only purchased after the fuss. The riot with Ruud de Wild was therefore intended to make money.”
Arjan objects: “Programming is different from financing. A documentary plan is sent to the NPO. Usually a broadcaster is already involved. On this basis, a budget can be made available that can be up to three times larger than a regular budget for a program.”