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.
Gene! You ignorant slut!
“Every comedy needs a straight man; on “Duck Dynasty” it’s the women.”
So is he saying that feminist types who don’t wear makeup are like gay men?
Gene Lyons: a mediocre writer not only destined to fade into obscurity but already faded into it.
Lying Gene Lyons as we call him in Arkansas. If his mouth is moving he’s a lyon!
” I’ve seen no black faces on the program.”
*********
Willie and Korie have a son named Will....who is adopted and Black. Not “black”, you moron. And you get published? LOL
The author does look like a “fluffer”
Bttt
lyons is all over the map and bouncing off the walls on this.
ooo no blacks in the show....OOO OOO proof of white privlege!
“Hey! Look at me everybody! I write for the Arkansas Times! My opinion is important!!!”
Sincerely,
Gene Lyons
Robertson didn't say anything about "gay marriage" or for that matter "equated" it to bestiality.
He was talking about sin. Did Lyons even READ the GQ article? Phil had something to say about promiscuity, drunkenness, theft and swindling, too.
I guess that Lyons thinks THOSE are just peachy.
Lyons is just spewing the EXACT SAME WORDS as every other liberal out there about "gays and bestiality".
Like a good robotic liberal, know nothing about the topic, make up a strawman, and come to some conclusion about "stupid rednecks".
Gene, YOU are the real hater. Not everyone who lives in rural America is a toothless hick.
It's an ugly stereotype, and you revealed your OWN bigotry by calling black people "darkies".
As if that word has been commonly used in oh, about 90 years.
My second one the same a year and a half later I was deployed. I cut it between deployments for a three month time frame because I was assigned fire department duties on the ship. Since 1980 my face has been beardless only 15 months total LOL. Twelve months beardless was for the Army NG and three months was for a highly visible to the public job at the 1982 Worlds Fair and I needed that job.
With my hair now at my shoulders and gray turning mainly white some kids at the store call me Santa LOL. I don't mind and find it amusing.
Since Phil and sons are avid outdoorsmen a beard is functional and practical. It's a decent sun screen, it naturally hides much of the face thus less camo needed, and their wives like mine might prefer them with a beard although my wife has only seen pictures of me without a beard.
“I ain’t askin’ nobody for nothin’,
If I can’t get it on my own.
You don’t like the way I’m livin’,
You just leave this long-haired country boy alone.”
-—Charlie Daniels
If I remember correctly, this is the same clown who covered for Slick Willie during the 8 years Slick was in the Oval Office. He must be checking in for his SECOND "15 minutes" just in case Slick Willie's wife is elected El Presidente.
Gene used to live in the best section of Little Rock, when and why did he move.
Proving that he's lying about having watched the show.
There are several episodes that include Phils bi-racial adopted grandson
Ummm, I don’t think Phil gives a $h!t, he’s said the show will end.
The preacher man says it’s the end of time
And the Mississippi River, she’s a going dry
The interest is up and the stock markets down
And you only get mugged if you go downtown
I live back in the woods, you see
My woman and the kids and the dogs and me
I got a shotgun and a rifle and a four wheel drive
And a countryboy can survive, country folks can survive
I can plow a field all day long, I can catch catfish from dusk ‘til dawn
Make our own whiskey and our own smoke too
Ain’t too many things these boys can’t do
We grow good old tomatoes and homemade wine
And countryboy can survive, country folk can survive
Because you can’t stomp us out and you can’t make us run
‘Cause we’re them ol’ boys raised on shotguns
We say grace and we say ma’am
And if you ain’t into that, we don’t give a damn
We came from the West Virginia coal mines
And the Rocky Mountains and the Western skies
And we can skin a buck, we can run a trout line
And a countryboy can survive, country folks can survive
I had a good friend in New York City
He never called me by my name just hillbilly
My Grandpa taught me how to live off the land
And his taught him to be a business man
He used to send me pictures of the Broadway Nights
And I would send him some homemade wine
But he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife
For forty three dollars, my friend lost his life
I’d love to spit some beechnut in that dudes eyes
And shoot him with my ol’ forty-five
‘Cause a countryboy can survive
Country folks can survive
‘Cause you can’t stomp us out and you can’t make us run
And we’re them ol’ boys raised on shotgun
We say grace, we say ma’am
If you ain’t into that, we don’t give a damn
We’re from North California and South Alabama
And little towns all around this land
We can skin a buck and run a trot line
And a countryboy can survive, country folks can survive
Countryboy can survive, country folks can survive
Hank Williams Jr. - A Countryboy Can Survive
Now that is funny!
Lyons is an oxygen pirate....
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