Duck Disaster: Jindal Wades into the Blind
Posted: December 19, 2013 Filed under: religious extremists, The Right Wing 52 Comments
I’ve spent some time in Monroe, Louisiana. About ten years ago, I had to teach all over the state. I am just glad I spent some time in some other cities before getting sent to the Monroe area or I’d have never left the confines of Orleans parish again. Monroe is a place I’d rather not visit again. My first thought on wandering around was “Where are all the black people hiding?” Then, I wondered why they were obviously not around their white neighbors. That was before I read and found out that the KKK are live and kicking in that region of the state. I also begin hearing personal experiences like this one. A coworker and office mate of mine at the time–a young black woman of about 25–had gone to university up there. She told me that she learned that she couldn’t walk through the white frat section of the campus because she kept getting spit on. This was like the year 2000 so, we’re not talking way back in the day.
When I learned Duck Dynasty was being filmed in Monroe, I figured that you weren’t going to see a lot of black people in the show and that it was going to be yet another one of those reality shows where the rest of the world gets to learn about the backwater cultures of the South. These Hollywood reality shows like to entertain their city friends with the likes of our backwater rubes. They make them cute, fuzzy, eccentric, and gosh darn lovable. I’m not sure if you watched Swamp people or Axe Man or any number of other shows where they trot out our old white guys that hang in the woods, but it’s pretty formulaic. The problem is that the shows are pretty well edited and controlled. You can see, however, that whenever these Duck Dynasty guys go to the country club, the backwoods, or the kids’ schools, there are really no black people in the picture. Again, that’s my take away from every visit to Monroe. They are freaking insular up there. But then, just like no one noticed the tales of “happy darkies in the cotton fields” told by Phil Robertson until later today, no one has noticed the distinct lack of diversity or reality in the show. Well, maybe their core audience has and that’s why they like it. I guess it all was okay until Phill opened his big fat mouth and pointed out–like a bayou version of snowflake snookie–that gawd made women’s vaginas for men and gay men must be crazy and sinful to not take advantage of that.
Like all reality shows, Duck Dynasty is probably heavily edited. But, it’s a big old media world out there. The Duck Dynasty Paw Paw got interviewed sans handlers by GQ. His Monroe roots are now exposed. His Southern Baptist tirades don’t look so homespun any more. He’s not just a cuddly, curmudgeon who has a thing for killing what ever moves like Ned outta South Park. Phil Robertson is outta the closet now alot like Paula Dean got outted a while back. Wither the cash cow er duck?
There’s several things that have kind’ve intrigued me about this ever unfolding story. The first is that the response to the homophobic
comments are being played out a lot more than his appalling racist and sexist comments. Women are vaginas. All the black folk he grew up with were straight out of that old southern stereotype of the happy Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemima brand. Ah, they were so happy and singing during them Jim Crow Days. Robertson had no apparent realization black folks were rightfully scared for their lives back then so they just put on that damn smile to protect themselves. They also are hard to find among white folks in Monroe today so I’m thinking there’s still some of that going on up there and they know it.
As is clear in the profile in GQ, A&E has tried to walk a fine line between portraying the Robertsons as religious Christians without spotlighting the parts of their beliefs that have the potential to cause precisely the kind of firestorm that resulted yesterday. “There are more things Phil would like to say—’controversial’ things, as he puts it to me—that don’t make the cut,” Magary writes. This dilemma of wanting part of a reality television cast member’s personality, but only the parts that will make you money, is one that faced CBS’s Big Brother this year, too, after discovering that the ways in which a number of their controversial and colorful cast members were controversial and colorful was that they were enormously ignorant racists.
I absolutely understand the desire to make money off of either evangelical Christianity or American backwardness, which has increasingly been one of the staples of reality television. There is clearly a market for an underserved audience of religious Christians who would like to see themselves reflected in popular media more frequently. And there is clearly a market for being horrified by other people’s behavior. But it is exceptionally difficult, in a reality television context, to separate out and wall off the part of someone’s personality that is attractive and media-friendly from the parts that are less palatable to a mass audience. If you’re writing fiction for television, those attributes can get shaved off by the collective process of the writers’ room. But if you are, yourself, a reality television product, especially if you feel like you’re being suppressed or misrepresented, those parts of your personality and beliefs will inevitably out. Sometimes, the surprises are pleasant, as was the case on Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, where a family offered up as backwards and repellent proved to be tolerant, loving, and charming. But that is not often the case.
For the most part, reality television producers and the networks that air their work, have decided that these outbursts are worth the risk of continuing to sell highly specific personalities, precisely because the cycle of suspension, response, and temporary profit loss are so well-established at this point that it can probably be worked into a budget. I can’t imagine anyone at A&E is surprised that someone like Phil Robertson, who bills himself as a Bible-believing evangelical, believes that you can “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” or that he would say something like “It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.” The question was probably when, not if.
And when that when arrived, A&E had a well road-tested formula to use in its response, provided by the folks at GLAAD. GLAAD is the most effective media advocacy organization that I know of, on two levels: first, its ability to swiftly identify and condemn anti-LGBT speech and to get results, and second, in its deep, comprehensive, and intersectional research on the depiction of LGBT characters and figures in media. When Robertson’s remarks broke, Wilson Cruz of GLAAD responded quickly with a statement that hit on an incredible number of ideas in a clear, efficient way.
“Phil and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil’s lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe,” he said. “He clearly knows nothing about gay people or the majority of Louisianans — and Americans — who support legal recognition for loving and committed gay and lesbian couples. Phil’s decision to push vile and extreme stereotypes is a stain on A&E and his sponsors, who now need to re-examine their ties to someone with such public disdain for LGBT people and families.” It was a condemnation that positioned GLAAD as a more sophisticated and compassionate arbiter of Christian values than Robertson, drew a connection between culture and legal protection, and offered a reminder that GLAAD has plenty of experience influencing media sponsors.
And A&E knew immediately what it had to do to respond to GLAAD: Robertson was suspended for an indefinite period of time, a punishment that doesn’t just promise long-running financial losses to him, but because it has no end point, can’t be immediately decried as too short or too long. It’s action that effectively ends the news cycle, as far as A&E’s need to take action and appear responsive are concerned.
It’s also worth noting that because of GLAAD’s swift intervention, much of the media coverage has focused more on Robertson’s anti-gay remarks than his comments about African Americans and the Civil Rights movement, which weren’t worked into the narrative of the profile, but appeared as a pull quote in the online version of the piece. While Robertson’s views on homosexuality are presented as consistent with his religious beliefs, his remarks about African-Americans are actually more politically extreme, aimed at undermining the validity of the safety net.
“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field,” Robertson said. “They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”
That’s a vision of the American South and American racial history that’s in keeping with Paula Deen’s alleged plantation nostalgia. It’s an attempt to substitute Robertson’s own memories of his interactions with African American laborers, whose behavior around him may well have been influenced by his relative privilege as a white man, even a poor one, for the larger history of organizing against and resistance to the economically and racially ruinous consequences of the Jim Crow system. It’s a kind of narrative that’s aimed at retroactively manufacturing black consent for policies aimed at maintaining white supremacy.
The other equally appalling thing is that the right wing is playing this as some kind of first amendment rights issue. Since when do Republicans think employees get to ignore the wishes of their corporate overlords? Where was the outrage over Alec Baldwin or Martin Brashear? Robertson is now the right wing martyr for oppressed christians who are just expressing their traditional values and have a first amendment right to do so that we all just have to respect. WTF?
I woke to reading that my asshole governor had jumped in on that. My guess is he’s trying to get on the radar of the Republican base again for his endless wetdreams of being President. Did he actually read what this guy said about black people or was he just thinking the homophobic remarks would be the place he could pander those Iowan evangelical votes?
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Thursday criticized the “politically correct crowd” following the suspension of “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson over comments he made about homosexuality and religion in a recent interview with GQ magazine.
“Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana. The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with,” Jindal said in a statement released by his office. “I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views.”
A&E, which airs “Duck Dynasty,” put Robertson on indefinite suspension from the show on Wednesday because of a controversial interview with GQ, in which, he commented on his inability to comprehend homosexuality or societies “without Jesus.”
“That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical,” Robertson told Drew Magery in GQ.
When Magery asked him to define “sin,” Robertson responded, “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”
In another part of the interview, Robertson equated Shintoism and Islam with Nazism.
So, see? There’s a little bit more out there than just the horrid comments about homosexuality. There’s the comments on blacks, women, and nonchristians. It’s a smorgasbord of bigotry! And, my governor is defending his right to say all of it as an employee of a corporation that probably wants viewership from black people, women, and folks that are not christian. Why wouldn’t they fire his redneck ass? He probably is going to cost them as much money as he brought in over the last year if not more.
But, the bigger questions is what’s going to happen with all that Duck Dynasty merchandise that’s all over the place now? Are there enough bigoted rednecks in the country to keep the franchise going? Maybe the franchise should just consider moving to a slot before the Huckabee show and advertise on the likes of Hannity and Rush.
Well, there probably is enough of them in Northern Louisiana and Texas. Here’s the latest bit of ring wing furor or is that fuhrer?
Other conservatives are now weighing in as well, including the Family Research Council and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)
Here’s Cruz’s comment: “If you believe in free speech or religious liberty, you should be deeply dismayed over the treatment of Phil Robertson. Phil expressed his personal views and his own religious faith; for that, he was suspended from his job. In a free society, anyone is free to disagree with him, but the mainstream media should not behave as the thought police censoring the views with which they disagree.”
Update 3:47 p.m.: The National Organization for Marriage has launched a petitiondemanding that A&E reinstate Robertson and apologize for suspending him.
Let me just remind you that the Family Research Council is a bona fide hate group.
So, I thought I could just let this entire thing pass with comments down thread, but I couldn’t. I would just like you to know that almost every one I know south of the I-12–that would be the creole/cajun part of Louisiana–is talking about seceding from the state again.
Oh, look, it’s a photo of two blowhards!
I am just hoping we get rid of those Hollywood tax credits and that the reality show folks will go pick on some one else’s backwards hicks for awhile.
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Phil Robertson Publicly Bashed Gays for Years — A&E Knew All About It
Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2013/12/19/phil-robertson-2010-sermon-homosexuality-gays-homophobia-a-and-e/#ixzz2nyCL2U3Z
Duckbat, Princess Dumbass, Jindall, and Cruz; birds of a feather and all some kind of victim. Just watch the creeps, they’re idiots.
Yeah … they’re victims because we call out their bigotry.
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/211619/enough-rope-why-suspending-duck-dynasty-star-phil-robertson-over-homophobic-remarks-wasnt-the-answer/
Dead right! Wish I had thought of it that way.
I guess I’ve been out of the loop so long that I’m completely cut off from what’s happening on TV. I have never watched any of these reality shows, and I can’t understand why people want to watch them. I guess the networks make a lot of money from them, because they’re so much cheaper to produce than say, a half-hour situation comedy. I’m not trying to be a snob; I just don’t get the attraction of watching a bunch of ugly hillbillies (I saw Phil’s picture on-line).
If A&E really knew Phil was a vicious racist, misogynist, and homophobe, it’s just plain disgusting that they put him on the air. I’m very glad now that I pretty much gave up TV back in 2008.
As for Jindal, he’s a complete asshole. I hope the media rakes him over the coals for this. Disgusting.
You make a very interesting point about the outrage of the anti-gay remarks and not over the racist and misogynist ones. I’m not as surprised that the anti-female stuff is accepted, but the racism? What’s up with that?
Maybe this is the explanation (from the Death and Taxes link)
Chris Hayes is taking the racism and sexism up early in his show tonight. Now he’s on how scary private companies are with our “private” data.
I put the quotes about the blacks singing in the cotton fields last night on Dissenting Justice’s thread on his Face Book. I got a response this morning. I don’t think folks took the time to read the parts of the interview put out there for awhile while the GLBT activists did. They’re just starting to talk about it now. I asked Bob Mann earlier to day and he put the quote up. Again, it seems like no one really noticed them because it’s true that the GLBT activists really have their act together!!!
Didn’t you put it on our thread too? I read about those remarks yesterday.
Yes … I saw them immediately and the rant saying nonchristians were always starting wars … comparing Shinto and Islam to the Nazis
Interesting they have to rewrite history so that the Nazis weren’t Christians. Guess the truth is a little too inconvenient.
Crusades? Inquisition? Lots of killing has been done in the name of the christ.
Yeah, the fact that the racist stuff about Jim Crow went unnoticed pissed me off big time. Maybe that was why it bothered me more than the anti gay shit Phil was spewing?
Well, they know their customers:
http://duckcommander.com/news/robertson-family-offical-statement
Riiiiiight. Full of love they are, uh-huh.
Never watched the show and will not miss it. TV could do without another show whitewashing white racists and homophobes. And I think I understand why Robertson’s supporters are confusing a constitutional issue of free speech with labor laws – it’s probably becausw they think that corporations should running the country.
OT but a good story…
The Right Wing talking heads are pitching full speed hysteria on this one, citing, of course, the First Amendment and this dimwit’s right to say and uphold his beliefs. The fact that he may have offended women, gays, and African Americans with his “Christian beliefs” while quoting the bible apparently means he should be given a pass. After all, he is on t.v.
This lunkhead was offered a forum to express his views. Some of his “fans” believe the same way. Ignorance is tolerated in that demographic and better still when covered in “Christian” platitudes.
And having that public forum apparently offers him the opportunity to dust off and march out his insanity as Russia aims to rid their nation of gays and so many kids today are finding their only way out of this persecution is to kill themselves for being “different”.
The Right shows once again their total ignorance, lack of compassion, and wholesale prejudice in “defending” this backward moron who they claim as another “victim”.
Call yourself a “Christian” today and all bets are off. Too bad so many worship this hateful style of religion that brings so much suffering to their fellow man.
The First Amendment applies only to government. No one has a first amendment right to a damn TV show. Why don’t the constitutional conservatives understand the constitution?
Exactly. How could the governor of a state not know that? Don’t they call carry pocket U.S. Constitutions around?
Yeah, my 16 year old son understands this…made the same point about it on his own too.
Discordant to see these virulently anti-union blathering wingnuts suddenly rant about an employee’s right to freely mouth off.
Hah!
Dakinikat pointed out to me that I knew who Paul Walker was, and she had no clue. Yes, I admit I watched The Fast and the Furious years ago. I didn’t remember Walker’s name but I remembered his face from the movie. I’m no culture snob. I just don’t like reality shows.
I don’t either. It’s nice to know I’m not the only person who has never watched an episode of Survivor.
Me neither and glad of it.
I haven’t … haven’t watch any of those dancing or singing shows either.
I hate reality shitty shows…if that makes me a culture snob…then snob I am. 😉
These country cracker sheriffs are crazy: Ga. sheriff cuts ties with A&E over Robertson flap | AccessNorthGa
No mention on his religious feelings of happy singing oppressed black people…
Me too, never watch it……..
Even that is overly kind.
and how is the story about the happy black people singing songs in the cotton fields before welfare and civil rights fit into this narrative? The Old testament was down with slavery?
I found phil’s statement about blacks in the pre-civil rights south more infuriating than the comment about homophobes or his objectification of women. His statement that black were “happy” , “singing” before “entitlement” and “food stamps” is so racist and ignorant .
Phil is near my age, I grew up in the Jim Crow South, anyone who lived in the Jim Crow south who says they “never saw” black people treated badly, is a damned LIAR. Did he ever drink from a public fountain in the south next to a black person, did he eat at a lunch counter with a black person, go to school or church with black people. Did he NOTICE that black people were separated from whites in every environment in the south. Did he notice that blacks rode on the back of buses, couldn’t use the bathroom in a dept. store and in much of the south blacks could not even go to town or be in public after dark. This closet bigot prefaced his comment about interaction with blacks in the cotton field by stating he was working with them because he was poor “white trash”, because to his mind nothing else explains him doing something so lowly as hoeing cotton with black people.
Phil is a big, huge ooops. There is racism, homophobia and sexism sprinkled throughout the article, Attributing his attitudes to “faith”, “Christianity” in order to save his sorry ass from his own words is bullshit. The meme that homosexuality is a “choice” by framing it as a choice between “vagina” and “anus” is absurd and insulting. Attempting to paint a picture of blacks as “happy” and “singing” before civil rights and “entitlements” is fully monty racism. I suppose since he was talking to GQ he thought he could say sexually and racially provocative things without being held accountable. Now there are petitions to save him, but I can find no petitions to get rid of him.
You’re right. I couldn’t find a petition to get the show off the air or keep him off. I can’t believe how many of these people are out there.
You are safe in Boston. I have spent my days in the deep red middle of the country and these folks are every where.
Here’s what the HRC/LGBTQ community did in response to Robertson. No petition, no call for his firing, only a personal appeal to Mr. Robertson to think about the language he uses and the platform he has. I signed the letter yesterday. I have provided the link below if anyone else would like to sign it.
Letter:
Being Gay Isn’t a Sin Or a Choice
Dear Mr. Robertson,
I was extremely disappointed by remarks you made in your recent GQ interview. Not only was I put off by your inaccurate and harmful comparison of being gay to bestiality and promiscuity, but I was also offended by the crude and thoughtless language you used to describe entire communities of people.
Every leading American medical and scientific organization has concluded that being gay is not a choice — no more than being straight is a choice. To suggest otherwise is not only inaccurate, it’s tremendously harmful.
I can tell your faith is important to you, and I commend that. I believe people of faith should always treat others with the dignity and respect that they themselves would wish to receive. I know you wouldn’t appreciate being referred to in the same way you talked about gay people.
LGBT Americans are a part of every community and every family across our country — and undoubtedly there are LGBT people tuning into your show. As a role model, you have a responsibility to do better — both by your viewers and by the young people you set an example for.
Your words were undoubtedly most hurtful to young LGBT people struggling to come to terms with who they are. Moving forward, I hope you are mindful of the Golden Rule and always treat others the way you’d wish to be treated. Most importantly, I hope you never forget the power of your platform and that your words can have very real impacts on people all across the country.
https://secure3.convio.net/hrc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1767#__utma=149406063.240394211.1387482475.1387482475.1387547646.2&__utmb=149406063.10.9.1387548742623&__utmc=149406063&__utmx=-&__utmz=149406063.1387547646.2.2.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=(not%20provided)&__utmv=-&__utmk=25473725
FYI
Abbe Raven, CEO A & E (212-210-9007) I called yesterday, left message, and Abbe.Raven@aetn.com or email: aefeedback@aenetwork.com
Oh thank you Mouse, I love you!
Ooops!
Black Louisianans beginning to check in and Jindal admitted he hadn’t read the entire interview.
http://theadvocate.com/home/7889023-125/jindal-defends-robertsons-free-speech
Princess Dumbass should wash the car 😉
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2013/12/wow.html
Wow. That message needed Google spellcheck.
All evidence would suggest A & E edited Robertson’s persona for mass appeal. He went rogue on them and exercised his freedom of speech, including expression of his religious beliefs regarding sexuality and his personal fantasy about the old south. He had every right to do so and A & E had every right to fire him for it – I guess his contract didn’t prohibit public comments inconsistent with his television image.
Governor Jindal and Ted Cruz are fighting over the scraps at the far right so it makes sense they would jump into the fray.
This whole thing is offensive on many levels, but if freedom of speech and religion were based on offensiveness, we might have neither. Freedom of speech on a large scale is based on commerce. I have seen plenty of offensive things on “reality” television when I wasn’t quick enough to hit the “off” button and am offended most times I am unfortunate enough to catch snippets of commercial talk radio. But unless a group large enough to affect commerce finds these same things offensive, they will continue.
Had Robertson’s comments been spun originally they way Jindal and Cruz are now trying to [a courageous, Godly man speaks his mind and sees the past the way he would like to believe it was], or simply ignored and dismissed as the rants of a delusional eccentric, he might still have been fired, but we wouldn’t all have to deal with this truly disgusting situation.
It didn’t occur to me that A&E would or should fire him and I certainly don’t care one way or the other. I watched the show one time at the behest of a family member and recognized what I saw. I’ve spent nearly 70 years in the south and it’s easy to spot the “retrogrades” when you see and hear them. They can edit all they want, but they can’t edit between the lines.
Thought I’d post this You Tube in this thread too.
Phil the spectacle
Yup.
Thank you Dak, your picture of Louisiana and Phil Robertson is smack on topic. His comments have bothered me, and has made me go back to the day. The day I lived in New Orleans, and witness a young black boy on a bike thrown up against a brick wall by a gang of white teens, who lived in the my neighborhood, the St. Thomas Projects. I saw the blood, and knew the teens, and was silent. My eyes, watched, as a mixed couple at market in New Orleans walked around hand in hand, and listed to those who preached it as being criminal. When a white male, walked up to the black man, and pulled his gun, and shot him in the head. Then watched as all the white people, including me ran. St. Thomas was a hell of slum back in it’s day, and I my first degree on hate and in that city, in that slum. Not to worry, we had St. Mary’s bar on one corner, St. Andrew bar on the other, and down the road were the catholic churches, and mid city Baptist church. Phil Robertson jolted my memory, not just of his homosexual remarks, but of all poor women, and how they were made into sexual objects, and how the (n word) were kept out of the Irish slum. I know exactly where Monroe, La. is located, and have relatives all over, in Pineville, Alexandria………..see most of my relations moved from Ms. into La. working as loggers, they remain there to this day. They hate to this day, they are the picture of extreme wingnuts. They are the relations of Neshoba County Ms. of Jones Co. Ms., of Forrest Co. Ms. Most of them cannot read/write, they represent the white welfare people of United States, and they are culturally deprived. They think they are better than blacks, women, and gays, and they are made to think they are gaining ground.
I am going to be frank………they are a defective people, with prejudices that run deep, deep, and will take the chance to “stoke” the hate. That is why they never opened schools, neighborhoods, and churches to people of color, or creed. It’s so plain to see when you read what Phil Robertson, Pat Robertson, and the religious rightwing community out supporting each other for political gain. They take no pride that Jesus is about love, especially this time of year. Instead they have become instrument for the republican party. It really weighs on my soul.
Wow. That’s quite a story. I spent time in Alexandria too. Most of those places are still very segregated. I didn’t see what you saw but I sure felt the vibe.