Uh, Gene, here's an article from 2005, well before the television show was ever thought of. He sure looks pretty much the same as today, doesn't he?
Posted on 01/01/2014 7:42:20 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Now that I’ve actually seen a few episodes, “Duck Dynasty” is relatively harmless entertainment. Whatever “reality TV” means, it’s definitely not that. It’s a semi-scripted sitcom, basically cornball self-parody. Think “Hee Haw” without the music. I find it utterly inane, but then I don’t watch TV with children.
The “tell” is the show’s women, cute Southern sorority girls turned mommies. In real life, no way would those women tolerate their “menfolk” running around looking like a truckload of ZZ-Top impersonators. They’re also not going on TV with hay in their hair like some Hollywood director’s idea of a country girl. Every comedy needs a straight man; on “Duck Dynasty” it’s the women.
But realism? Please. The beards, hair and overalls are costumes every bit as theatrical as the outfits the Rolling Stones wear onstage. In the rural Arkansas county where I live, you could hang around the feed store for a month without seeing anybody like “Duck Dynasty” “patriarch” (and head bigot) Phil Robertson. And if you did, his wife wouldn’t have any teeth.
The Robertsons are country-clubbers posing as rednecks. Duck hunting itself — requiring, as it does, quite a bit of expensive gear and pricey leases — is mainly a rich man’s pastime in the South. Deer hunting makes economic sense; duck hunting’s a luxury. It’s what doctors, lawyers and bankers do when the weather’s too lousy for golf. Bill Clinton used to go duck hunting once a year to prove he loved guns.
How long, I wonder, before the “Duck Dynasty” boys endorse the “Bad Boy” brand of riding mowers? Currently represented by a half-clothed model urging guys to “Get a Bad Boy, Baby!”, these machines have the magical capacity to convert a tax accountant mowing a suburban half-acre under his wife’s supervision to a daredevil NASCAR racer. Yee Haw!
But the laughter ended abruptly when “Duck Commander” Phil Robertson inserted himself into the nation’s vituperative culture wars. The whole thing looked like a publicity stunt gone wrong — possibly successful in the short run, but almost certain to prove destructive in the end.
Concerning which, a few thoughts:
First, Sarah Palin and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal notwithstanding, nobody has a First Amendment right to appear on TV. Make controversial public pronouncements deeply offensive to your employers, and you’d better have a backup plan.
The creator and producer of “Duck Dynasty” is one Scott Gurney, who once appeared in a gay-themed film called “The Fluffer.” (Don’t ask.)
The guy helps make you rich and famous, and you denounce gays as evil? That’s appalling.
Second, it has nothing to do with Christianity. Robertson didn’t just say he’s against gay marriage, nor even that God is. He spoke in the coarsest possible terms about homosexuality, equating it with bestiality.
He’s also characterized gay men and women as “full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant, god-haters, they are heartless, they are faithless, they are senseless, they are ruthless, they invent ways of doing evil.”
Third, 10 years ago, many of the same people portraying Robertson as a martyr burned Dixie Chicks CDs and cheered their banishment from country radio stations for the terrible crime of saying they were embarrassed by George W. Bush before everybody was.
And those girls have genuine talent.
Fourth, as for the happy, singing darkies of Robertson’s Louisiana childhood, where are they on “Duck Dynasty”? Know what the African-American population of Monroe/West Monroe is? It’s roughly 60 percent. I’ve seen no black faces on the program.
Another prominent American from West Monroe is Boston Celtics great Bill Russell — a black man who’s been known to have strong opinions about race. Maybe Robertson ought to talk with him, although it wouldn’t be easy.
“Duck Dynasty” may be this month’s right wing cause celebre. Longer term, however, unapologetic bigots always fade into obscurity, basically because they embarrass people.
Uh, Gene, here's an article from 2005, well before the television show was ever thought of. He sure looks pretty much the same as today, doesn't he?
oh yeah?
well what about the Democratic millionaires who go around with a ponytail yech
Unlike the world renowned Gene Loins....er Lyons.
I think someone needs to check Gene's loafers.
Phil Robertson’s passion is NOT “Duck Dynasty.” At a guess I’d say his passions are Jesus, Miss Kay,his family and ducks. The tv show is duck gravy.
More facial profiling from an unabashed facist.
You are right on the money
btw... who is Gene Lyons? and why would we care what he or she or it has to say?
I guess its easy to fade into obscurity when you’re already there, eh Gene? I’ve never heard of you. Face it, this was a humiliation for the homo lobby.
And your shock as homosexuals being compared to zoophiles reveals your own ‘bigotry’. Welcome to the club.
The woman who wrote this will be fired when it is demonstrated she did absolutely no research whatsoever before she penned this garbage. If the paper wasn’t anything but a democratic godless communist rag.
The author
Exactly.
I have never watched Duck Dynasty but who the hell is this Gene jackass?
Shut up and sit down Gene.
What's appalling is the perverted practices of feces-obsessed homosexuals.
The DD family was rich well before A&E had ever heard of them.
" Robertson didn’t just say he’s against gay marriage, nor even that God is. He spoke in the coarsest possible terms about homosexuality, equating it with bestiality."
Sickening perversion should be described in accurate terms, which unfortunately necessitates a degree of "coarseness." Besides, are you going to try and pretend to faint at the use of "vagina?" What about those feminuts and their Vagina Monologue? Were you yapping at them about coarseness?
"Fourth, as for the happy, singing darkies of Robertson’s Louisiana childhood, where are they on “Duck Dynasty”? Know what the African-American population of Monroe/West Monroe is? It’s roughly 60 percent. I’ve seen no black faces on the program. "
Who cares? Whites are (still) a majority in the nation, but how many of them do you see on BET?
Is his middle name Mary?
Another southern liberal sh**head in the mold of James Carville.
I think the gist of this hit piece is guys like this one (the writer) and his ilk are flat out scared of the Duck Dynasty folks. And what they represent...
Thus the bravado
Gene Lyons is an idiot, always has been, always will be.
He has no clue about what the women in Duck Dynasty would tolerate.
Gene lives in Arkansas and acts like he doesn’t know who these people are. What a liar! They were famous before A & E and will be after A & E. Their public appearances are book for years (the whole family). They all have their own bookings. They have restaurants, dress shops, albums, cookbooks, etc. besides all the duck merchandise. I doubt they’ll disappear any time soon as much as the brainiac Gene Lyons wishes they would.
“Gene who?”
Nut job...and Clinton *ss kisser...
Gene Lyons is a liberal political columnist and co-author with Joe Conason of The Hunting of the President: The 10 Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, a documentary book published in 2000, with a supporting film. The book outlines a purported right wing campaign waged against President of the United States Bill Clinton leading eventually to the president’s impeachment because he lied under oath about having extramarital sexual relations with a White House intern. It extends the discussion in Lyons’ 1996 book Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater
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