So I finally managed to watch Parts Unknown season five finale on Beirut (via torrent download) and was quite disappointed.
The show is actually about food and travel, so I was expecting Bourdain to explore some of Beirut’s hidden gems but instead he went to Burj Al Barajneh refugee camp in the first part of the episode to learn more about the Palestinians living conditions here in the country. He then made several people speak about religious diversity and how the different sects coexist happily in Lebanon (especially Sunni and Shia these days!), and he later visited some Hezbollah supporter in Dahieh all while portraying the party as a mighty beast.
Moreover, he never failed during the episode to stress about the threat coming from the east, that is the Islamic state. So it was basically more about politics than anything else. I believe he could have simply aired some recent report about the political situation in Lebanon and spared himself a trip here.
I spent some time wading through all the negative comments inundating the Facebook page of “Parts Unknown.” The Lebanese living abroad were clearly very miffed with his production, which doesn’t surprise me–we were all expecting him to portray the beauty and majesty that is Lebanon, particularly after his first enamoring visit here in 2006. Funny that he chose to slough off his foodie stance in favor of becoming a socioeconomic analyst. I wonder if he’ll post a counterpoint to folks’ disappointed reactions.
well the most surprising of all is that how people don’t know it yet that it is CNN which is the most liberal leftist fake news that interviewed him! anything broadcasted by CNN cannot be good for Lebanese or anyone for that matter