Average Joe Turned On Its Head

So am I the only one who noticed on the "Average Joe - Hawaii" NBC situation-reality show that their map of the Hawaiian Islands is UPSIDE-DOWN?!

On last night's "episode," a bunch of muscled hunks approaches the island of Hawaii on a yacht. They progress up the island chain, according to their map, from Kauai in the south to the Big Island in the north.

I'm sure the show's writers and producers think us a bunch of stupid "pineapples," but their use of the Hawaiian map upside down with Hawaii at the top of the chain, with South Point facing north, was just too much. I wonder if they know how stupid they look?

Comments

Uh...ZZ, I don't want to let the wind out of your bemusement, but did the map actually have a north-pointer, indicating that north was toward the Big Island? Because you know, "up" is not necessarily "north" on a map. :)

I didn't see it, so I'm typing this in complete ignorance, but as a nit-picker, I'm going to give the producers the benefit of the doubt if there was neither a windrose or a north-pointer on the map.

No, no windrose; no north pointer. But the orientation of the islands was rotated 180° with South Point on the Big Island pointing due north and the north shores of all the islands pointing south.

That's pretty bad, even by "uninformed mainlander" standards. Pretty much any map you pick up shows which way the island chain arcs.

I can't figure it. Kauai to Hawaii is not a northward jaunt - was there anything in the narrative at all that could have explained the mistake? Did someone say "we're going up to the Big Island" and the infographic guy just took it literally?

As long as we're talking Hawaii and national TV, I can't resist mentioning the appearance (and subsequent destruction) of a Hawaiian Airlines jet in a recent episode of "Mythbusters."

Okay, look. I'm still nursing wounds from that whole Loveline thing, but here I go again.

If there's nothing on the map saying which way is "north," or whatever, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the map, and by "wrong" I do not, for a change, mean ethically or morally. I mean factually.

If you're looking at your TV screen and Kaua`i is at the bottom, as long as the other islands are in their correct geographic locations and orientations relative to each other, the map is correct. Sure, it's not the way we usually see it, but north is not "up." See?

So the show's producers are not stupid--at least not because of this. On a map, north can be "up," "left," "right," or any other direction on a Cartesian plane, and there can be any number or reasons for deciding on any given layout. The map of my school's campus, for example, positions the main entrance at the center of the bottom of the map; this way, visitors (the people most likely to be looking at the map) have an easy time figuring out how to get to the office of library or restrooms or whatever. A north-pointer on this map would point right, but the people who made it don't think the entrance is on the south end of the campus.

I can't for the life of me think of a very good reason for flipping the map "upside-down," relative to its usual orientation, but I can only think of one good reason not to, which is that it's not how we usually see it.

A science teacher at my school has a photograph of the Hawaiian Islands, taken from the space shuttle. The picture hangs upside-down, meaning the captions and other text are all bottom-side up, because the photograph shows the Big Island at the top, just as you describe. Perhaps the show's graphics guy modeled his map after the space-shuttle photo.

This all reminds me of a placemat I saw at Panda's Kitchen in Kaneohe last year. It was one of those placemats they put in the trays, and it had games and puzzles and stuff to keep kids occupied, and at the bottom of the placemat was a row of drawings of Earth, globe-style (Western Hempisphere facing viewer). These two-dimensional representations of the globe were rotated different ways, and the instructions said, "circle the globe that's right-side-up."

OK, I'll bite. Here's what I saw on Average Joe: Click

I offer this image in support of my personal opinion that the show's producers are idiots: Click

'Nuff said?

Okay. I'm totally fine with that. Honestly. In fact, in some ways, looking at the continental US this way makes more sense for Americans, who read things from left to right. Now the sun comes up on the left and moves across the page to the right. Now the New Year is ushered in from left to right, ending with Hawaii and Alaska. The planet is a three-dimensional sphere with neither top nor bottom (I just know someone out there is thinking, "it's not a sphere," so I'll change that to "sphere-like object") exhisting in space, which also has neither top nor bottom. The north-is-up idea is a strictly Western-European idea, and I'm fine with it as long as we don't start thinking it has to be that way.

Sheesh, Mitchell, I should have studied Devil's Advocacy where you got your degree!

Yes, north doesn't have to be up. Boy, it sure would be neat if we turned all our maps around so (for Westerners) the sun moved from left to right. Why do Americans not yet use the metric system? Why do people still say "starfish" when they're not fish?

I'm all for thinking different, for not being eurocentric. But this is network TV! This is a NBC reality show about romance and sex! There's no way that map of Hawaii was flipped from the "traditional" orientation to make a political statement against the status quo. If National Geographic did it, I'd wonder. In this case, it's a goof, no question.

I can't remember what season of "The West Wing" this was but one of the characters (it was CJ the press seceratry) was listening to a group of map makers who proposed of selling maps of the Earth where the top of the map was the south pole.

Which might be a possibilty since once in a great while the magentic poles flip it's polarity.

I can't imagine such an event happening in our lifetime but if it did I suspect it might cause some grief.

Definitely a compliment, Ryan. Did you study ANYTHING where I got my degree? :)

But just so you (and everyone else here) know, I was playing devil's advocate not one iota either in this thread or the Loveline thread. Seriously. At least, not for sake of playing devil's advocate.

I seriously DO think it's okay to orient a map with any direction facing up.

The map being upside down was done intentionally in order to portray the new guys' voyage as right-to-left. Since the majority of the shows's audience is on the mainland the target audience would expect (if only subliminally) that "new guys" would be arriving from the direction of the mainland and not Oahu (Hawai'i is Hawai'i right?) and to show them moving left to right simply would not "feel" right whether the audience realized it or not.

so what, the maps up down left or right, i love average joe, dont nik pick but enjoy the programme

Who is FABIO???!!!!

Please tell us who Fabio was .We don't have a clue.Is there anybody who knows an answer?

What is with you guys and the Fabio posts? We're not talking about Fabio on this thread. Nobody here cares about Fabio. We're talking about what a stupid show "Average Joe" was.

All right, for the challenged among you, here is Fabio. For goodness sakes, enjoy.

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