For me the show had very little to offer. It seemed like a bunch of lily white cartoon characters driving around real fast being asinine. But I don’t give stupidity a pass.
Culturally the confederacy never died when Sweet Home Alabama was the response to Neil Young’s Southern Man. So despite all the protests that it was just “fun” to wave the Stars and Bars of Southern Pride, the undercurrent of FU to the Union was embolded by that stupid car.
Given that the 70’s was full of impactful programming like All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, etc. Sammy Davis Jr. kissing Archie Bunker on the cheek was legendary.
But “Dukes of Hazard”? throw it on the dung heap of bad television.
Excuse me if I read a little snark in your post. Perhaps you truly are a big fan of Sargeant’s guest star spots on DoH, but the cynic in me supposes you are referencing Dick Sargeant’s replacing Dick York on Bewitched to draw a parallel with the appearance of Coy and Vance on DoH.
I take offense, sir!
Coy and Vance were completely original characters with their own rich backstory and personalities and motivations! They were absent from the first seasons because they were caring for a sick relative!!! Then, continuing this path of selfless dedication to family, they moved in to help Uncle Jesse and Daisy while Bo and Luke were chasing their ridiculous selfish dream of racing NASCAR!
Coy and Vance were their own original character! #CousinsNotClones
The historical way that “casual racism” in famous works of literature was handled was to still make those works of literature available, to even teach them in school, but to address said casual racism directly. Now, there’s a world of difference between a show like Dukes, which was never high quality in its time, and important works of literature. But the point about this retroactive purge of anything “bad” is very much Soviet, and itself a far worse thing. There’s good reason to keep all this stuff out front and center. Hiding it makes it worse, in my opinion.
Again, go buy the DVDs if you want. There’s no Soviet style government purge here and people sound ridiculous comparing the two. There’s absolutely no onus to keep a show on a commercial television station.
And, if the show was slated for rotation out anyway, you can make a lot of pop hay by saying it was anti-racist solidarity on your part.
(Kind of like the endless parade of LTTEs from people leaving our state, because it just sucks so damn hard with high taxes yadda yadda… from retirees moving to suckhole states to sit in the sun. May as well make some hay with your decision.)
Planes carrying the USA flag dropped incendiary bombs killing hundreds of thousands of human beings in Japan and Germany. Sounds like terrorist tactics to me. :dubious:
Eh, nothing in syndication is “shown as it was meant to be shown”. They’re all snipped up and have play speeds messed with to cram in more commercials. Removing the flag off the car would probably be the most minor change in a televised episode.
To wrap an enormous argument into one sentence: Not every form of “lots of heavily armed men duking it out with other heavily armed men” fits into one category. I’m pretty sure even Gandhi and the Dalai Lama would agree.
Bombing cities isnt ‘lots of heavily armed men duking it out with other heavily armed men’,
Lots of lazy recreational outrage here…mostly from white liberals. Its so 20th century. Where is the discussion of modern racism? Racism that is one (American) minority against another? This is a much more difficult and uncomfortable discussion.
