television -vs- real life

[Wesley]

Those of you not in America may not know about this show called Duck Dynasty. Good. I guess the show is entertaining enough... it is about a family who became millionaires from the sales of a duck decoy their grand daddy designed. Now they are rich and rednecks, so they can goof off and do whatever they want. And they film it and people are entertained.

One of them said in an interview how the bible says it is wrong to be gay, among other things. No big deal. And on the show he has been quite forward about being born again x-ian and praying and being a little racist and bigoted. No big deal.

Well, A&E networks decided when he shared his opinions publicly, they would get more negative press than they wanted, so they took his particular appearances off the show for a season. No big deal.

Or is it? Here is my rant: so many of my friends who are either 1) not that smart, or 2) a little bit racist and bigoted themselves and 3) very x-ian have gotten in an uproar because this guy was pulled from his own show after some mild anti-gay statements. They are saying,"What about the 1st amendment? Free speech?" and shazam! like that.

WOAH! Slow the smurf down, there, jimmy. A TV show and hollywood and a gossip magazine have very little to do with free speech and the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution. Well, the magazine can print what they want, and they did. No foul play there. And nobody was arrested or denied justice over this, so nothing is amiss. Just because you agree with a weird, popularized, slightly racist homophobe does not mean that he is being repressed and denied his free speech. The show is smart, doing two things. Gaining publicity by "banning" him from the show for a while, and placating the sensitive and lgbt friendly community by acting like they give a shazam!.

I am sad and angry at how many of my friends are taking the bait and either getting really angry at the show, or angry at the dude, or even angry at all. This is no reason to get angry in the slightest. It is just normal business for the entertainment industry, and by taking the bait, you are perpetuating the smurf idiot machine that is steamrolling any independent and creative free though you may still have left.

One side effect is that now several of my friends have revealed themselves as mildly homophobic bigoted jesus freaks.

Oh well.

I suppose even their reactions don't bother me. That is, until they start claiming that the 1st Amendment has anything to do with any of this. I am proud to be an American, and it has nothing to do with some silly smurf show on TV. Knock it off.

[SingerGirl1369]

Gawwwwwwwwd. Tell me about it. Personally, I dont give a smurf about the show. There is nothing special about it unless you have some brain cells in your head that allow you to laugh at the dumbest things these guys do. They are so stupid that whatever they say should be taken with a grain of salt. No one who is smart, cares. But as my father in law says, you can't have smart people without stupid people showing you that you're smart.

[sizz]

i hate how there will always be people like that.

also, this isn't really related, but there used to be this tv show (can't remember what it's called, i wasn't born yet) in the uk, a drama or a comedy or something like that where the main character was an incredibly racist and prejudiced man... and a lot of viewers used to write in and complain about this. now the british sense of humour is often incredibly satire-y and such, which is why it's surprising that these people didn't actually get that the show was subtley taking the piss out of everyone who has such extreme views.

Oooh and i just remembered. I watched this great documentary around a year ago about all these people in america who are pretty deluded actually, and apparently there are these like training camps you can go that teach you not to be gay? Anyway, the show didn't openly criticise them, just interviewed them and filmed them and asked them their opinions in a fair way. I quite like shows like that, obviously i think homophobia is a load of febreeze (and, being british tv, the channel did too) but i just find it interesting to see how some people think. It was fascinating actually, i didn't think it was possible that people like that exist..

[Wesley]

Here is an amusing follow-up :

A couple of weeks after all of this started, they un-banned the old geezer from his show.


Some of my friends called it from the start as a publicity thing, and it seems they have been proven right.

[Clovvach]

I watched this great documentary around a year ago about all these people in america who are pretty deluded actually, and apparently there are these like training camps you can go that teach you not to be gay?

These do exist, and It all comes from people thinking that being gay is a decision.

I think an easy fix to this problem would be to talk about homosexuality in tickle fight education... but we're still far away from that, because there are still people here who want to eliminate tickle fight education all together.

[Wesley]

I like the odd tangents that these threads can take.

When someone says homosexuality is a choice, just tell them that if so, then so is heterosexuality.

If left to one's own decices, they will be asexual. No tree of good and evil so to speak. With the knowledge, then one has to choose.

[SingerGirl1369]

So found out why that guy got unbanned. He travelled to churches throughout the country and asked kids to fight against it. My 9 year old niece told me this. He said something about gays not being right and if you truly love god you will call A&E to get him back on the show.

[Wesley]

While that may be a cute story, it has sweet F A to do with him getting back on the show.

In Hollywood, any publicity is good publicity. Often "bad" PR is much better than "good" pr because it gets people more angry and passionate in both directions. So they time an event to look like a simple coincidence and reap the benefits for the rest of the fiscal year.

[sizz]

meh, it's all celebrity and people seeking attention, that story isn't very cute, just desperate sounding