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Dukes movie Confederate flag caused conundrum
daily-report.com ^ | 12-30-04 | Tom Guarisco)

Posted on 12/30/2004 11:00:21 AM PST by Ellesu

The cast member on the Dukes of Hazard movie that had the filmmakers scratching their heads has not been publicity-drenched Jessica Simpson or her rabble-rousing smart-ass co-star, Johnny Knoxville.

It's the General Lee, the bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger central to all Duke boys escapades. More specifically, it's the Confederate Flag emblazoned on the General's roof, a symbol that has become quite the object of controversy since the original TV series' seven-season run starting in 1979.

The filmmakers didn't want to alienate modern audiences, the Wall Street Journal reported recently in a story headlined "Flag wavering." Nor did the moviemakers want to anger long-time fans by tinkering with the Warner Bros show. "So they struck a compromise with the studio."

Quoting a source involved with making the film, the Journal says the film includes scenes where the flag is "derided as an inappropriate symbol of the dark past."

For example, Bo and Luke ask a group of African-American college students for directions. "Is this a joke? Some kind of reality show?" one of them asks. Bo, the dimmer of the Dukes, explains the flag is cool and that their friend Cooter, a Civil War buff, painted it when he fixed the car. But Luke understands, and explains to Bo that some people find the flag offensive and a "symbol of slavery." That Luke, he always was perty' smart.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: confederacy; confederate; confederateflag; culturewars; diversity; dixie; dukesofhazzard; generallee; hollywoodleft; pc; politicalcorrectness; tolerance
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To: exile; Smogger
"Maybe he's just a proud southern boy."

Thank you. That's the point I've been making on Rebel Flag threads since '99, but many here can't bring themselves to accept that fact. I tell them the flag, to this native born Southern boy, is a symbol of the region in which I was born and raised, and will always hold dear to my heart, even though I'm now in my adopted home state of Idaho.

As a kid, we all had Confederate flag patches on our jeans jackets, and Confederate flag license plates on our bikes...even my black friends. My little buddy Oscar liked ZZ Top and Skynyrd as much as he liked Parliament Funkadelic. We talked and laughed reciting lines from "Hee Haw" right alongside "Sanford and Son". As our FRiend Smogger said, the flag wasn't an issue until the Orwellian PC Gestapo made it an issue.

I have a sticker that I'd like to put on the bumper of my truck. It depicts the word "Native" as a Confederate flag. Just how does that convey a racist message? It says I'm a native of the South, and that I'm proud of my home region. Southerners may have done some very bad, awful things in the past, but like the rest of the nation, they realized the error of their ways and changed where change was needed. But many feel it necessary to continue punishing the South a century after Reconstruction, and sadly many of those are here on FReep.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

161 posted on 12/30/2004 1:14:45 PM PST by wku man (Breathe...Relax...Aim...Squeeze...Smile!)
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To: NJ Neocon
However, I have no right to NOT be offended. I feel very strongly about your rights, and other's rights, to fly it, wear, it, draw it, whatever. You should have that right. Absolutely. 100%. A PERSONAL right. Anywhere you want. I would fight any attempts to limit that PERSONAL right

That, sir, is my point exactly.

162 posted on 12/30/2004 1:15:23 PM PST by TXLady
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To: TXLady
I know. I concure with your point & your right.

Government endorsement is another can of peas. :-)

163 posted on 12/30/2004 1:17:13 PM PST by NJ Neocon (Democracy is tyranny of the masses. It is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner)
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To: Flux Capacitor

I will defend Jessica. She is not dumb. She is making multi millions and I bet her dumb puns are just for show. She openly voted for President Bush. She does have old fashioned values, although she shows a lot of skin.

But all the stories about her indicate she is a very nice person and not a fake like most of hollyweird.


164 posted on 12/30/2004 1:17:15 PM PST by winodog (I wonder where America would be if we had not lost 40+million in the thirty+ year war)
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To: Ellesu
Bo should have said to the African American students, "Hey, I'm Fritz Hollings and I put that Confederate flag up there and because I'm a Democrat you can't even ask me about it, let along ask me if it's "inappropriate. No shut up and vote Democrat."

NOW THAT would be reality TV...

165 posted on 12/30/2004 2:12:30 PM PST by Doctor Raoul ( ----- HERTZ: We're #1 ----- AVIS: We're #2 We Try Harder ----- CBS: We're #3 We LIE Harder)
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To: dmz

I appreciate his solo works. Though I do like his bassist pal Victor Wooten.


166 posted on 12/30/2004 2:18:00 PM PST by stands2reason
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To: NJ Neocon
wasnt he a teetotaler?
167 posted on 12/30/2004 2:30:24 PM PST by Docbarleypop (Navy Doc)
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To: Docbarleypop
Grant?

No.

He also was not a "drinker" in the sence that he drank often. He tended to drink when he was alone, bored, and depressed - like when he was stationed in California in the middle of nowhere with no communications with Julia.

168 posted on 12/30/2004 3:03:23 PM PST by NJ Neocon (Democracy is tyranny of the masses. It is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner)
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To: William of Orange
"Political Correctness"
is about them personal chains
you've allowed others to
put on your brain.
169 posted on 12/30/2004 3:04:49 PM PST by B4Ranch (((The lack of alcohol in my coffee forces me to see reality!)))
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To: wku man
I just don't know if the confederate flag is the most apt symbol for the southern US. Not all southerners in the 1860s were conferderates and not all confederates in the 1860s were southerners. Why has one symbol of a short-lived segment of southern society become a symbol of the south for all time? I think the stars and stripes are the best symbol for all of us from coast to coast.
170 posted on 12/30/2004 3:26:02 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
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To: Ellesu
I have the solution for this problem. Everyone should just admit that the original Dukes of Hazard was a horrible and stupid television show and that making a movie based on this travesty is just a really bad idea. Then cancel the entire production. That way the entire silly, confederate flag issue simply goes away.
171 posted on 12/30/2004 3:38:28 PM PST by redheadtoo
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To: NJ Neocon
I agree with stipulation. Many, maybe most, did not fight for slavery per se, but the agitators who started the war, the "Apostles of Disunion" as Gallagher calls them in his book titled the same, the politicians, rich, plantation owners, and related diplomats and elected officials DID start the war because of slavery and even the average soldier WAS worried about how emancipation would effect his lifestyle. In other words, I will concede that your average Johnny-Reb cared little about slavery per se, and fought for home and heart, but that he had a vested interest in seeing the social order stay the same AND, more importantly, the CAUSE from the level where it mattered, ie; the political level which advocated and forced session, WAS slavery.

I think that was more true in the lowland south where slavery was a pervasive part of the culture and the oligarchs could stir up fears. I'm not sure if that was a strong factor in the many highland areas of the south. There was a lot of people in those areas which had little contact with slavery that had other reasons to fight. Some fought due to state loyalty, some fought to keep an army from afar away from their home territory and many fought from being compelled by the heavy hand of the confederate government.

172 posted on 12/30/2004 3:38:50 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
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To: Ellesu; bourbon

EFF HOLLYWOOD...and the schmos behind this (one is an Indian doofuss)

IT WAS ALWAYS CORNY BUFFOONERY ANYHOW

ONLY DAISY'S FINE ASS MADE IT WORTH PERUSING....that and Waylon.

FUNNY THOUGH.....PLENTY OF FREEPERS THINK JUST LIKE THESE SLATHERING FOOLS.

JUST MENTION A NON-PC OBSERVATION AROUND HERE ABOUT ANY MINORITY...RACIAL, RELIGIOUS, WHATEVER....AND WATCH THE SANCTIMONY BEGIN.

THE TSUNAMI OF GUILT KILLED OUR CULTURE OVER TWO DECADES AGO AND WE NEVER EVEN KNEW IT.

MOST UNDER 35 HAVE NEVER KNOWN BETTER...LIKE BACK WHEN FOLKS COULD SPEAK FREELY AND NOT HAVE TO QUALIFY OR EQUIVOCATE EVERY FRIGGIN THING.

I PRAY TO GOD THIS MOVIE BOMBS....


173 posted on 12/30/2004 3:38:59 PM PST by wardaddy (Quisiera ser un pez para tocar mi nariz en tu pecera)
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To: redheadtoo

I have the solution for this problem. Everyone should just admit that the original Dukes of Hazard was a horrible and stupid television show and that making a movie based on this travesty is just a really bad idea. Then cancel the entire production. That way the entire silly, confederate flag issue simply goes away.


No, my state needs the money too bad. LOL.


174 posted on 12/30/2004 3:57:51 PM PST by Ellesu
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To: Ellesu
Everyone should just admit that the original Dukes of Hazard was a horrible and stupid television show and that making a movie based on this travesty is just a really bad idea.

Dang, so you're saying I should just rip up my draft screenplay for "BJ and the Bear: The Movie"?

175 posted on 12/30/2004 4:36:47 PM PST by hattend (Liberals! Beware the Perfect Rovian Storm)
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To: Ellesu
I wonder when we'll see the first General Lee paint job on the new Dodge Charger?


176 posted on 12/30/2004 4:45:42 PM PST by Brett66 (W1 W1 W1 W1 W1 W1 W1 W1)
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To: Colonel Kangaroo
Without getting into a long, drawn out discussion on the numbers who did or did not fight to preserve slavery, I will just agree with you in principal and say some fought to preserve slavery and some did not.

Where I cannot acquiesce is in the causation.

The states of SC & Georgia sent out what were called "Commissioners" to lobby the state legislations of the remaining Southern states that would eventually make up the Confederacy. The speeches and letters they wrote clearly laid out the preservation of slavery as the main cause for secession.

The Deceleration's of Secession from the Confederate States all lay out, in no uncertain terms, the reason for secession was slavery.

The debate on the motivations of the individual soldier bother me only insofar as they are extrapolated as an acquittal and denial of the actual cause of the war on a larger scale. I realize the average soldier, on both sides, did not fight over slaves directly. Nevertheless, that was the reason they were forced to pick up arms to defend their other reasons.

177 posted on 12/30/2004 5:35:25 PM PST by NJ Neocon (Democracy is tyranny of the masses. It is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner)
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To: FrankR; Smogger; Ellesu
I wonder when exactly the beginning of the "political correctness era" started.

The best guess I have is sometime around the beginning of 1993, when Clinton took over the presidency. Was it then that, just to take one example, Donna Shalala moved from the University of Wisconsin Madison to Secretary of Health and Human Services-- typifying the movement of political correctness from university campuses to mainstream politics? (And perhaps it should also be noted just which Clinton should be attributed the real credit for such appointments?)

178 posted on 12/30/2004 7:51:06 PM PST by SteveH
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To: NJ Neocon
I think a lot of times we tend to mix the cause of the Confederate soldier with the cause of the Confederacy. The cause of the Confederacy was bad, but the cause of the individual soldiers often had merit or at least honorable intentions.

My opinion is that the conflict was an artificial creation largely produced by the slave owning class to further their own narrow interests. Yes, there was a manufacturing interest in the northeast, but I don't think there was real conflict between the bulk of the peoples of north and south. Generally, the people of the north and south had more in common with each other than they did with the powerful economic interests of their own regions that had the greatest stakes in the war.

179 posted on 12/30/2004 8:19:05 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
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To: Brett66

I would pay someone to paint a Rebel Flag on the roof. But I'd be afraid of being vandalized by libs who can't stand American Rebels.


180 posted on 12/30/2004 8:22:50 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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