▼

Monday, February 14, 2011

American Indians and "Double Jeopardy!" (yeah, the game show)

The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) publishes a blog that is loaded with terrific information. In January, they uploaded a series of images and a video of an episode of Jeopardy. The reason? One of the categories was "National Museum of the American Indian."

The surprise (or maybe not a surprise) was that the contestants chose EVERY OTHER ITEM IN EVERY OTHER CATEGORY. Finally, they had no choice. They had to select an item in the "National Museum of the American Indian" category. Does that blow you away? Jeopardy contestants know a lot of stuff... But they avoided that category. Watch the video NMAI put together.



As you saw, the contestants did ok with the clues in the NMAI category. But they were definitely afraid to go there... 

Want to see more? Read "Double Jeopardy" at the NMAI site, and click around while there! You'll learn a lot.
at

5 comments:

  1. AnonymousMonday, February 14, 2011 at 12:58:00 PM CST

    I wonder if the response would have been different if the category was just "American Indians" or "Native Americans." I'm not surprised that the contestants feel ignorant about material culture or an institution they probably have never visited. I have been to NMAI and know a little about its institutional history but would still feel uncomfortable selecting it, or other museums,as a category on Jeopardy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMonday, February 14, 2011 at 1:57:00 PM CST

    I agree - the other categories are all far less specific. If I was given a choice of, say, "Film", "Music", "Sport" and "The Tate Liverpool", I'd pick the Tate last even though I love art.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beverly SlapinMonday, February 14, 2011 at 5:15:00 PM CST

    I may be misremembering, but it seems that every time "Jeopardy" has some kind of "Indian" category, the contestants save it for last. And I don't remember anyone getting the "final Jeopardy" questions in this category right, either.

    ReplyDelete
  4. DoretTuesday, February 15, 2011 at 9:18:00 PM CST

    To ingore a catergory until the end is ridiculous

    The people at NMAI wanted to draw some interest for the museum, and they know how much we don't learn abot American Indian history, so they weren't going to ask questions that were too difficult

    I can see selecting Movie Names and Rat Pack before NAMI but not Play Penners, since I have no idea what that is.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousSunday, April 3, 2011 at 8:36:00 AM CDT

    and people think 'denial is a powerful' when dealing with questions, not n.a. people, but even on the game show.....

    ReplyDelete


----UNSIGNED COMMENTS WILL NOT BE APPROVED.----

In our efforts to have meaningful conversations with people who read AICL and to reduce trolling, we are no longer accepting unsigned comments.

Please include your name (not a pseudonym) and the nature of your interest (like parent, teacher, professor, reviewer, librarian, etc.). If you prefer to withhold identifying information because it may result in backlash to you in your workplace or elsewhere, please write to us directly.