So, the Duck Dynasty guy is a homophobe. Yes, I aware that there's more than one person on the show. But I don't watch it personally, and it hasn't reached the Jersey Shore level where the individuals become famous. So for me, he's just that guy from Duck Dynasty.
No, this isn't going to be another of my rants about how people assume everyone is watching a popular show. Duck Dynasty is like Jersey Shore in that it's well known that lots of people pointedly avoid watching. So I've never felt left-out by talk of the show.
But just as everyone in America had finished jumping on to the Duck Dynasty bandwagon, they have to get back off it again. Even the Android word stroke recognizer is distancing itself - it keeps trying to interpret "duck" as "sick". But I feel most sorry for Chia. They must have spent their profits for the last ten years on the rights to the Duck Dynasty beard chia pets, now what are they going to do with them?
(Weirdly, the word recognizer had no trouble with "chia.")
Rather than get angry at him, we should treat this as a lesson on where we look for our media heroes and role models. The incident underlines the difference between reality and fiction television. In our reality TV era, we've tended to treat its subjects as characters, idolizing or demonizing them as such. But they are in the end, actual people, with all the frailties and disappointments that come with being human. When you buy that Duck Dynasty shirt at Walmart, it's not like buying a Sheldon shirt at Target: you'll have an actual person on your chest. A person you don't actually know that well, and one who doesn't have a team of writers and producers ensuring they stay appealing and non-threatening.
No comments:
Post a Comment