A&E calls off "Duck Dynasty" hiatus

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This Duck Dynasty episode reminds me of a particular The Daily Show with Jon Stewart segment, from 2009, in which he points out that Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson, who consistently represents herself on air as a semi-literate idiot, is actually highly educated:
Gretchen Carlson Dumbs Down

There are two sides to this, both disturbing.

First, Fox’s anti-intellectualism and total disregard for the facts and for reason is clearly a deliberate, conscious, and cynical manipulation of their audience. This particular critique of Fox by Stewart is the single most damning critique of Fox I’ve seen on The Daily Show or elsewhere.

Second, I haven’t seen this point expanded upon, or even mentioned again, on The Daily Show. Instead, The Daily Show regularly goes for easy laughs by mocking the stupidity of comments on Fox News – without pointing out that there’s reason to believe that Fox News is intentionally saying stupid things to manipulate its audience. At which point, it’s worth pointing out that part of the audience of Fox News are liberals who watch it to mock it. At some point, by mocking the deliberate stupidity without ever getting at the real motivations behind it, I believe The Daily Show becomes an accomplice in Fox’s audience manipulation.

So, with Duck Dynasty, we have reason to believe that the show is a fiction, that the people appearing on it are actors playing fictional characters with their own names. And we’ve got a lot of liberals finger-wagging at the culture of poor conservative Southerners, which misses the fact that these are rich Southerners playing up a stereotype of poor Southerners.

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Its not a direct quote, but the second part is more or less covered in 1 Corinthians 5-6, and especially in 6:9-11:

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you. But ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

(I’m using the 21st century KJV; others may disagree with the translation of some words). It’s interesting that people don’t mention that drunkards, covetous and extortionate people are on a level with homosexuals here. I don’t agree with the Bible’s stance on homosexuality at all, but it’s important to point out that Paul is talking about the way people in that particular church had been acting (sleeping with their stepmothers, suing each other in public courts rather than resolving disagreements themselves etc.) Paul wants the church to break communion with people who do these things, but not to stay away from people who do these things who aren’t part of the church:

9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to keep company with fornicators—
10 yet not meaning altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters, for to do so ye would need to go out of the world.
11 But I now have written unto you not to keep company with any man who is called a brother if he is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. With such a one you are not even to eat.
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do not ye judge those who are within?

Romans 1 also talks about homosexuals and others (like covetous, proud and unmerciful people) who are worthy of death, but Romans 2 again makes it clear that the focus is on the church, not people outside of it:

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art who judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things.

Basically, my impression is that the Bible generally (and Paul specifically) has a pretty strict condemnation of homosexuality as a sin alongside sex outside of marriage (but with added “it’s just not logical, man”). People like Paul just weren’t surprised that people outside the church and the jewish faith would act like this and he didn’t have a lot of condemnation for them, but he did expect the church to be different; not just in sexuality (which is considered a sin against your own body, which is considered to be God’s temple) but also in a number of areas that aren’t condemned much in American Evangelicalism. Basically though, Paul agrees with most of the rest of us that this guy is the worst sort of person (although for slightly different reasons):

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Arguably, yes. Of course it’s a distorting medium. It’s distorting mediums all the way down. But that is the fundamental nature of TV. The mechanics of it require forming a story to be told. Those kinds of programs have a specific way of telling you stories. They might be stories of things that have happened in the world, or of Fascinating wildlife, but someone still makes it tell a story. Otherwise, it would just be hours of footage of some trees, and occasionally an animal would run past, being chased by another animal

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By removing him and then welcoming him back A&E is endorsing what this duckman said. Period. Please don’t force me to illustrate this point by suggesting a hypothetical show starring Adolph Hitler.

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Are the successful rednecks being held to higher standards than the kardashians, the ozbournes, and those loggers?

its commercial television, what do you expect? thats not a rhetorical question, what DO you expect from it?

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FYI. the Doctor is an actor, playing a fictional long lived time traveller.

Since its from a non-commercial network, the BBC, i want to be sure you knew that it’s still make believe.

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I suppose you’re now gonna tell me there’s no Santa Claus.

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I expect very little. Especially with “reality” TV. I hope for better.

With journalism I hope for fact-checking and retractions when they get something wrong. With dramatic fiction I would like things to be realistic when the show is presented as taking place in a world like ours and internal consistency when it takes place in a world with magic or advanced technology (with some wiggle room for dramatic license). With comedies I’d prefer to laugh with the characters instead of at them.

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FINALLY. I’ve been waiting for them to bring back that show about the Duck Dynasty for over 23 years!

duck_dynasty.jpg720×480 56.9 KB

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I haven’t watched this one but having watched so many other TLC shows with the stagey dialogue, it always amuses me to hear people discussing the antics as if they were real. Like, I watched a few episodes of Extreme Couponing and it took me a few seconds to spot the product placement and the faux drama (Will she be able to pull it off, buying 300 bottles of X brand water for just $2??? OMG she did it!!! ) so it is just surreal to me that anyone actually buys that these people are for realz.

It’s a shame because i do love me some reality show, but I like the ones like Project Runway and What Not To Wear where at least there is something actual happening that’s not totally cooked up - though I know they gin up some of the controversy for the cameras and edit for max drama - much more than the TLC shows where the non actors try to act.

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This BB article focuses on a major media corporation, A&E, welcoming back a guy who has expressed hatred for homosexuals, and in another incident which has come to light, suggested that adult males should marry teenage girls in order to have sex with them that is superior (“they’ll pick your ducks”) to sex that can be had with adult females.

Duckman is a backward man and symbol that A&E is endorsing by continuing his employment. Yet, all that some of you can discuss is the nature of reality TV shows.

Wake up, life is short.

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