{"id":60695,"date":"2013-12-22T15:09:58","date_gmt":"2013-12-22T20:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=60695"},"modified":"2015-09-01T21:19:32","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T02:19:32","slug":"classism-in-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-duck-dynasty-patriarch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/12\/22\/classism-in-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-duck-dynasty-patriarch\/","title":{"rendered":"Classism in the Rise and Fall of the Duck Dynasty Patriarch"},"content":{"rendered":"

This\u00a0Duck Dynasty<\/em> thing seems to have everyone\u2019s undies in a culture war bunch with lots of hand wringing about free speech (find out why this is ridiculous\u00a0here<\/a>), the persecution of Christians, and the\u00a0racism, sexism, and homophobia of poor, rural, Southern whites<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is, however, an underlying class story here that is going unsaid.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Phil Robertson is under fire for making heterosexist comments and trivializing racism in the south in GQ<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0While I wholeheartedly and vociferously disagree with Robertson, I am also uncomfortable with how he is made to embody the \u201credneck.\u201d \u00a0He represents the rural, poor, white redneck from the south that is racist, sexist, and homophobic.<\/p>\n

This isn’t just <\/em>who he is<\/em>; we\u2019re getting a narrative told by the producers of Duck Dynasty<\/em> and editors at GQ<\/em>\u2014extremely privileged people in key positions of power making decisions about what images are proliferated in the mainstream media.\u00a0 When we watch the show or read the interview, we are not viewing the everyday lives of Phil Robertson or the other characters.\u00a0 We are getting a carefully crafted\u00a0representation\u00a0of the rural, white, Southern, manly man, regardless of whether or not the man, Phil Robertson, is a bigot (which, it seems,\u00a0he is<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The stars of Duck Dynasty<\/em> eight years ago (left) and today (right):<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This representation has traction with the American viewing audience.\u00a0 Duck Dynasty<\/em> is the most popular show on A&E.\u00a0 Folks love their Duck Dynasty<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There are probably many reasons why the show is so popular.\u00a0 Might I suggest that one could be that the \u201credneck\u201d as stereotyped culture-war icon is pleasurable because he simultaneously makes us feel superior, while saying what many of us kinda think but don\u2019t dare say?<\/p>\n

Jackson Katz<\/a>\u00a0talks about how suburban white boys love violent and misogynistic Gangsta Rap in particular (not all rap music is sexist and violent, but the most popular among white audiences tends to be this kind). Katz suggests that \u201cslumming\u201d in the music of urban, African American men allows white men to feel their privilege as white and as men.\u00a0 They can symbolically exercise and express sexism and a sense of masculine power when other forms of sexism are no longer tolerated.\u00a0 Meanwhile, everybody points to the rapper as the problem; no one questions the white kid with purchasing power.<\/p>\n

Might some of the audience of Duck Dynasty<\/em> be \u201cslumming\u201d with the bigot to feel their difference and superiority while also getting their own bigot on?\u00a0 The popularity of the show clearly has something to do with the characters’ religiosity and rural life, but I\u2019m guessing it also has something to do with the \u201credneck\u201d spectacle, allowing others to see their own \u201cbackwoods\u201d attitudes reinforced (I\u2019m talking about racism, sexism, and homophobia, not Christianity).<\/p>\n

He is a representation of a particular masculinity that makes him compelling to some and abhorrent to others, which also makes him the perfect pawn in the culture wars.\u00a0 Meanwhile, we are all distracted from social structure and those who benefit from media representations of the rural, white, southern bigot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sociologists\u00a0Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Michael Messner<\/a>\u00a0suggest<\/a> that pointing the finger at the racist and homophobic attitudes of rural, poor whites — or the sexist and homophobic beliefs of brown and black men, like in criticism of rap and hip hop — draws our attention away from structures of inequality that systematically serve the interests of wealthy, white, straight, and urban men who ultimately are the main benefactors.\u00a0 As long as we keep our concerns on the ideological bigotry expressed by one type of loser in the system, no one notices the corporate or government policies and practices that are the real problem.<\/p>\n

While all eyes are on the poor, rural, white, Southern bigot, we fail to see the owners of media corporations sitting comfortably in their mansions making decisions about which hilarious down-trodden stereotype to trot out next.\u00a0 Sexist, homophobic, and racist ideology gets a voice, while those who really benefit laugh all the way to the bank.<\/p>\n

Mimi Schippers, PhD is an Associate Professor of Sociology at\u00a0Tulane University<\/a>. \u00a0She is working on a book on the radical gender potential of polyamory. \u00a0Her first book was\u00a0<\/em>Rockin\u2019 Out of the Box: Gender Maneuvering in Alternative Hard Rock<\/a>. \u00a0You can follow her at\u00a0Marx in Drag<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post<\/a>\u00a0and Marx in Drag<\/a>. \u00a0Photos from the Internet Movie Database<\/a>\u00a0and Today<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This\u00a0Duck Dynasty thing seems to have everyone\u2019s undies in a culture war bunch with lots of hand wringing about free speech (find out why this is ridiculous\u00a0here), the persecution of Christians, and the\u00a0racism, sexism, and homophobia of poor, rural, Southern whites. There is, however, an underlying class story here that is going unsaid. Phil Robertson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":60698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,23642,55,253,778,23694,129,343,8118,868,283,285,20063,1757,341,54,23643,37,3504],"class_list":["post-60695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-class-prejudicediscrimination","tag-gender","tag-history","tag-intersectionality","tag-intersectionality-gender-x-class","tag-media","tag-tvmovies","tag-organizationsinstitutions","tag-power","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-ruralurban","tag-sexual-orientation","tag-sexual-orientation-prejudicediscrimination","tag-social-psychology","tag-social-structure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/12\/2-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60695"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62911,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60695\/revisions\/62911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}