There is nothing real about Reality TV. And Duck Dynasty is just another one of these shows. What makes it different is, they are conservative and they make no bones about it, and after an hour of lambasting each other they come together at the end of each show with a nice prayer at the dinner table.
That’s all fine, I’m glad they are conservatives, but I’m not giving up an hour each week of my life to watch it.
I agree. Much of what we think of as DD was created by A&E. I posted another thread "Before the Beards" showing the DD sons before they were TV stars. No beards, normal looking yuppie types, heck one even had highlighted his hair.
Conspiracy hat time:
I believe A&E found a true success story (no doubt about that) with people who had true Conservative, American values (no doubt about that) and tried to make a mockery of the Right out of them, having them grow their beards and act far more 'redneck' than they were in the past. They wanted to make a right-wing version of Jersey Shore.
What they didn't expect is that, instead of being a joke, the positive attributes of the family overshadowed the 'redneck' character. Heck, the 'redneck' character even turned into a positive because it started to reach the blue-collar types.
I don't believe the execs at Hearst (who owns A&E) expected this because they don't realize average blue-collar folks in fly-over country are real people with real purchasing power and are something to be looked up to, not laughed at. Average folks laughed because they related. Hurst didn't get the Jersey Shore mockery they wanted.
It was starting to relate to more and more people. When you started seeing DD merchandise being sold on NYC streets to tourists, not as a joke, but as an expression of blue-collar America, something had to be done.
Bread and Circuses.
The time had run out to make blue-collar right-wing Americans popular, time to tear them down. What better time than to help distract from Obamacare, our vets getting screwed, and scandal after scandal.
Remember, Hearst and her sister companies own all of the major media involved here. They knew exactly what their beliefs were from the start. They own the media that pushed this. They started the fire, fanned it, and pushed it to the barn while complaining it was DD's fire.
Now, it is everything, everyone is talking about.
Once again though, this mis-underestimated(sic) the public's reaction.