Posted on 08/05/2005 4:28:23 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Some actors who used to be in "The Dukes of Hazzard" think it was a family TV show. John "Bo Duke" Schneider once called it "a great way to be able to help raise your kids." My Southern grandma would have told him he's out of his cotton-pickin' mind.
Bo and his cousin Luke ran moonshine in their hot rod car for their Uncle Jesse so Jesse could pay the mortgage on his Georgia farm. They fought the law, because the corrupt sheriff and the local boss entered schemes with criminals who would shoot at the Dukes.
And their barmaid cousin Daisy Duke wore her shorts so tight they've been retired to the Smithsonian for the effect they had on young boys' eyes and onanism.
"The Dukes of Hazzard" was a lot of things. It was a comic book-styled comedy. It was titillating TV when it premiered in 1979. But if it was an ideal for families everywhere, we'd all be driving outlaw cars through barn walls and swilling white lightning out of jars.
The guy who played Cooter, Ben Jones, posted a statement on his Web site calling for his show's fans to boycott the new "Dukes" movie. He laments that it's based on a "profanity-laced script with blatant sexual situations that mocks the good clean family values of our series."
I've got news for Cooter. Yeah, maybe there's some cussing and innuendos in the movie. But Jessica Simpson refused to wear her daisyduke shorts up her butt, whereas in one old "Dukes" episode, titled "Double Sting," there's an upskirt shot during which viewers score an extended glance up the Daisy Duke stunt person's bunched-up cheeks.
If I sound a little impatient with the "Dukes," it's because I had to watch too much of it when I was a kid. The show gave me the willies. My best friend, Jamal, loved it, though, so I'd suffer through it. We grew up in Athens, Ga., which at the time was crawling with "Dukes"-like characters driving pickup trucks decorated with shotgun racks and Rebel flags.
Not just Rebel flags. Bumper stickers flashed a little Confederate general holding Confederate flags and being quoted saying, "Forget? Hell!" That meant: Forget the Civil War? No way, Yankee scum.
Back then, they called this "The New South."
To this day, some people still claim the Confederate flag represents not the slave system of the South but its heritage. But the heritage of the flag is it was flown for the seceded South in its failed attempt to let white people keep their slaves. The flag was resurrected by racists in the 1950s to show rebellion against the civil rights movement. That is awful.
And where is that Confederate flag now? It's painted on top of the Dukes' Dodge Charger, which is named the General Lee. Its horn blows the tune from "Dixie." In the TV show, the all-white characters were once held captive by a mean, black fugitive from prison.
The movie, at least, recognizes there are black and white people who don't take the flag so kindly. Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) are unaware the flag's on the car roof. They get stuck in Atlanta traffic, and they get greeted with multiracial screams of "You're late for your Klan meeting" and "Nice roof, redneck, join us for the 21st century."
I'm sure some people think I'm taking the flag and "Dukes" -- which, by the way, was a predictable take on slapstick -- too personally. These people perhaps have never been called "Jewboy" -- and I wasn't even a practicing Jew -- while hanging out with friends of non-white ancestry who bore much worse. And in our classrooms, hateful stupidheads were validated by the Confederate Stars and Bars flapping on the state flag.
And then, every week, that flag came "Dixie"-ing down the road on top of the "Dukes" car. Puke. Personally, I'm waiting for a good movie version of a less reckless family show, "Speed Racer," which starred the supercool Mach 5 car, Speed Racer, his monkey, and his hot sister Trixie. Ah, Trixie. Now she was one hot bowl of dumplings. She wore pants, though.
I agree. The R word should be as unacceptable as the N word. I don't like either one of them.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
To be sure there was racism against blacks, but my dad wouldn't tolerate it in his house. I learned that in Seattle the racism was much deeper and ranged over quite a few more ethnicities than I was used to.
With the incompetent Jimmy Carter as president, it was exactly the comic relief we needed. More than a few of us saw parallels between Boss Hogg and his henchmen and Jimmy Carter and the corrupt Georgia Mafia.
As good as the show was, I don't recall that it lasted very far into the Reagan administration-- two years at best, if I recall, because the buffoonery of Carter took about that long to erase from our memories. Unfortunately, the Carter legacy is still alive and well in Islamofacism (which he encouraged to take root in Iran) and Latin America Marxist revisionism (precipitated by the Panama Canal giveaway).
Somebody needs to tell this dork that his brand of PC is dead.
Remember the episode where Cooter steals Carter's limo?
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
Why doesn't this geek call a joint press conference with John Kerry and Howard Dean to complain. Alienating the millions of voters who grew up watching the Dukes seems like a good way kick off the '06 campaign season.
He is mesiah, he can use any word he wants.
Anybody who likes Speed Racer more than the Dukes of Hazzard obviously spent alot of time getting their lunch money stolen as a kid.
Sorry, But I never 'got' the show.
Still don't understand the draw for two ex-cons, their moonshine making grandpa & an under dressed bar maid.
It always seemed to me to glorify criminal behavior. Reckless driving, evading the police, using arrows to blow things up.
The show never seemed to show the duly elected civil authorities in a positive light. The world turned up side down, the cops always were depicted as the bad guys, corrupt or inept.
I know the story line was that the mayor was corrupt. So why didn't they organize the town to vote him out? Or call in the feds? (Oh, yeah, they would have shut down the still).
Wasn't the voice over Willi Nelson or some other convict?
Just imagine the outrage on FR & elsewhere if a new show was done about two inner city youth getting out of the slammer, going back home to their grandpas meth lab and use a sooped up car to evade the police who were always on the take.
Or does 'singing' country music instead of rap make it ok?
Not looking for flames here, just curious to know why DoH was a 'positive' show.
I've news for Mr. Elfman. He could have grown up is the most Jewish neighborhood in the world and he still would have been the low kid on the totem pole. He just has that whiney tone that universally calls for a wedgie.
Just stopped by this thread, thot Jessica might be here...
If this was the Rush Limbaugh show I'd consider yours to be a seminar post, but I can't imagine who would be issuing the memo on this one.
I keep getting Mallard Fillmore's reporter when I try and visualize you writing this.
Thanks for reading,
Beleg
Daisy was sexy as hell without being a slut.
Dukes weren't keen on Revenuers. Niether are most Freepers.
Jesse Duke explained that the Dukes had to run 'shine to survive and they'd been doing it long before the Federal Government was cool.
It's a need antidote to the hyper-PC whining that accompanied the Clinton years.
Driving fast in a car with welded doors is cool.
Exploding arrows are cool.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.