A New York Post story claimed British comic playwrights are planning an opera based on The Jerry Springer Show. The story explains that “Springer enjoys immense popularity in England, where he was born to parents who survived the Holocaust.” Not only is his US show exported there, but he flies to London every other week to host a late-night variety show.

This may explain the particularities of the Springer show’s cast of freaks (real Americans with assorted “relationship issues,” who are chosen by the producers for their weirdness and coached to exaggerate outrageous behaviors onstage).

The Springer show, it’s now obvious, is a show made for export. It’s clearly devised to serve up a British/Euro vision of white Americans as uncouth louts, ignorant trailer trash bereft of either common sense or dignity–but mightily entertaining.

Not far from some white Americans’ vision of black Americans.