Fox show ‘Daddy’ draws ire

The Fox network, which drew complaints earlier this year for reality shows about gay impostors and a dwarf looking for his bride, has provoked an organized campaign against its newest reality-show creation, “Who’s Your Daddy?”

Angered over a reality show they say trivializes the complex feelings surrounding adoption, a loose coalition of adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents has launched a nationwide effort to force Fox to cancel the show’s Jan. 3 broadcast.

In the show, an adult woman adopted as an infant has a chance to win $100,000 if she can correctly choose her biological father from among eight men, including seven impostors. If she chooses a fake, he will win the money. Five other father-and-child reunions have been taped but not scheduled.

Critics have deluged the network with e-mails and have requested a sit-down meeting with Fox executives. They say they are contacting advertisers and the show’s producers, Hallock & Healy Productions.

A San Francisco adoptee, Ron Morgan, also is organizing a Jan. 2 protest -- “Honk if You’re My Daddy” -- outside Fox Television Studios in Century City.

“This is a new low for the Fox network,” said David Youtz, president of Families With Children From China, in a letter sent to Fox president Peter Chernin on Tuesday. “It’s hard to imagine a more callous kind of exploitation than the treatment of this most private moment as a crude entertainment.”

Youtz said the “circus-like atmosphere” of televised reunions “can only be painful for the many adopted persons searching or considering searching for birth parents,” as well as birth parents and adoptive parents.

Without having seen the show, most protesters lashed out against the title, the use of the phrase “real dad” in a Fox news release (implying, they say, an adoptive father is not real) and the concept of rewarding adoptees with large amounts of cash for selecting the correct birth parent.

“It takes a deeply intimate, important personal experience and trivializes it, turning it into a money-grubbing game show,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a New York research, policy and education organization, which first alerted media and other groups about the show last week.

As of Tuesday, an estimated 5,000 e-mails had been sent to the cable network, most using a formatted protest letter provided by As Simple As That, an adoption advocacy group.

One adoptive mother in Northern California, who asked not to be identified, said in an interview, “We just want to get the damn show off the air. We will stop at nothing less than that.”

She said she did not want her school-age daughter exposed to the idea that their family was not a normal family.

Fox executives in Los Angeles on Tuesday issued a statement:

“It is not the producers’ or network’s intention to offend anyone, but clearly the title of this special is attention-grabbing -- possibly contributing to controversy. It is not indicative, however, of the special’s actual content. The willing and informed participants are some of the tens of millions of adopted Americans unable to reunite with their biological parent(s). They seized the opportunity to participate, and the result is compelling.

“It is also important to note that this special, in no way, detracts from the relationship between adoptive parents and their children. In fact, most participants clearly state that they consider their adoptive par- ent(s) to be their ‘real parents,’ but they are curious about their family of origin.”

Fox executives declined to say whether they would be willing to meet with representatives of the adoptive community, or reconsider the scheduled Jan. 3 airing of “Who’s Your Daddy?”

Earlier this year, gay and lesbian activists protested two Fox reality shows, “Playing It Straight” -- in which contestants were offered $1 million if they picked a straight man or straight woman from among gay and straight suitors -- and “Seriously Dude, I’m Gay,” in which two straight men competed for $50,000 by trying to pass as homosexuals.

According to a Fox spokesman, the first was canceled due to poor ratings, while the second never aired as a result of “creative concerns.”

The two-part special, “The Littlest Groom,” aired despite complaints earlier this year.

Fox isn’t alone in drawing complaints about programming themes. Nearly two years ago CBS stirred up controversy among people in the South, particularly those living in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky, with a reality-based remake of “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Critics complained that the network intended to humiliate people simply because they were poor and uneducated by moving them into a Beverly Hills mansion, and then filming them trying to adapt. CBS executives decided to indefinitely delay production.

Also this year, a birth parents group demonstrated against an ABC Barbara Walters’ Special, “Be My Baby,” which aired April 30. A pregnant teenager chose her child’s adoptive parents from among several hopeful couples.

The teenager “wanted to keep her baby. Not a single adult stepped up to the plate to help her,” said Barbara Shaw, media coordinator for Concerned United Birthparents. “People found that repugnant.”

Television has produced many positive informative programs about adoption, including the 1995 TV movie, “The Other Mother,” which told the story of a birth mother who had given up her baby, Shaw said. But she acknowledged there’s also an audience for more melodramatic treatments, judging by the long-running segment on daytime’s “Maury Povich Show” in which men undergo DNA testing to determine which one fathered a woman’s baby.

“It saddens me to see this issue isn’t taken seriously enough,” said Shaw. She has located but not reunited with the son she gave up for adoption 37 years ago. “There’s terrible grief and loss that lasts a lifetime.”

The irony in protesting a new show is that an uproar may only increase viewer interest. “But it’s important for us to take a stand on things we care deeply about,” Shaw said.

Times staff writer Martha Groves contributed to this report.