Rarely do I get my knickers in a twist over stuff like this, and maybe it doesn’t help that I’m PMSing at the moment, but this really ticked me off:
So I wrote CBS a letter 
Dear CBS:
I have enjoyed your programming all my life. However, I am dismayed to hear about your latest project: “Real Beverly Hillbillies.”
I am sure that your motives are not malicious, however I’m wondering if you realize how offensive this idea is. The fish out of water thing is a good idea … however why am I not surprised that you chose to use southerners for your project?
Imagine the outrage if you took, say, a wealthy family of Jews from New York City and moved them to a small, impoverished town in Tennessee.
But no, you would never do that, because to do that would be suicide in the Nielsens, and rightfully so.
But it’s okay to make fun of people from the south?
Sure, you claim you’re not making fun of them … but consider the name of the show alone. I’d love to see you try to do the same show using a black family and calling it the Beverly you-know-whats … or use a Muslim family and call the show the Beverly Al-Qaida Terrorists, etc.
Never in a million years would you do a show like that, but somehow to poke fun at southerners is acceptable.
Why “hillbillies?” Why not “Real Beverly Toothless Hicks” or “Real Beverly Inbred Morons.” You might as well call it something like that, because those are precisely the images the word “hillbilly” brings to mind.
I will not be watching this show, nor will I patronize the companies that sponsor it.
Southerners are people too, and regardless of what you might think, we have money. You’d be smart in the future to remember this and come up with programming that doesn’t go out of its way to offend a good portion of the country.
Sincerely,
WV_Woman
So there!
