The Dark Side Of America’s Redneck Reality TV Obsession

[jillboston]

I thought the Duck Dynasty guys were preppy frat boys who grew beards? They aren't poor - just assholes it seems to me

[Vespasia]

Are "hillbilly" reality stars really worse than the trashy rich ones? Or are they just perceived as such? I don't really watch reality tv so I I don't know which is true but I suspect it is the latter.

[elleblue]

Not sure if I agree with everything stated in the article, but it's definitely food for thought. 

I think reality shows in general serve to make people feel better about themselves; reality tv is all about the chaos, not reality. So you have programming that shows that rich/young/smart/beautiful/whatever people can't get it together and who have to deal with a whole host of problems. Sort of a - look at these people who have what you envy - their life sucks too. Wouldn't you rather have your (comparatively) minor problems instead of having to deal with theirs? 

[stephm0188]

I'm really against paying people who behave like idiots and calling it entertainment, whether they're rich or poor.

[josieposy]

I'm just kinda hating all reality tv these days. Except for cooking shows. I loves me some MasterChef!

[pinkdutchtulips]

Oct 28, 2014 11:49:43 GMT -5 josieposy said:

I'm just kinda hating all reality tv these days. Except for cooking shows. I loves me some MasterChef!

i'll watch Duck Dynasty occasionally but I usually shun reality tv bc of the sheer stupidity of it. rich/poor it's all an 'in your face freakshow' ... except cooking shows ... MC and Chopped !

 I have a bit more insight as to how these shows are put together after auditioning for MC this past September. it was very interesting going through the preliminary process and seeing how casting and culinary reconcile who gets to go on in the process vs who goes home.

[cattledogkisses]

The Duck Dynasty family is definitely not poor, lol. All of them except for the family patriarch live in giant mansions, and he doesn't because he doesn't want to move, not because he doesn't have money.

[sparrowsong]

I'm guessing the light side is $$$ for tv executives. Good ol' 'murica, always exploiting the poor to make money for the rich.

With the exception of nuggetsister, I don't usually enjoy watching people behave foolishly so my reality tv experience is mostly project runway and top chef. This kind of reality tv evokes far too much... What's that German word for feeling shame for other people? I always forget.

[elleblue]

sparrowsong - fremdschamen 

I always remember because it sounds a bit like friend* shame.

*even though fremd is German for stranger/foreign - so it would actually translate to other (person's) shame

[msmerymac]

Oct 28, 2014 11:31:38 GMT -5 Lucy Honeychurch said:

Oct 28, 2014 11:13:00 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

the comments are actually ............ interesting.

They are.  This one is particularly astute: 


"sadly, the point of the article seems to be that poor southern folk are stupid and it's their own fault for letting us watch."

Yeah, the logical conclusion in this article is that poor people/rednecks always do something to fuck up, whether it be going and getting themselves killed, committing a crime, or conveying their admittedly unpopular opinions to the audience they have been given. Hmm. Well, can't let them near the media, it seems!  ^o)

[ChillyMcFreeze]

I've always been uncomfortable with the commentary on Here Comes Honey Boo Boo because the ENTIRE point of the show is that these hillbilly folks are a spectacle to be laughed at or disgusted by. With Toddler & Tiaras you have some action moving the show forward. The pageants are interesting. With Real Housewives you have the glamour of extreme wealth. But this is just a family not unlike a whole lot of lower class families in America. Sitting around. Watching TV. Cleaning the house. Prior to this shitshow with June's boyfriend, they really did seem like a loving family, getting by as well as they could, doing what's normal in their peer group. And yet when our local news (because they are local to me) ran a story today about "What happens to Alana now that the cameras are gone and she's living with a child molester?" the comments were all disgusting. No one cares what happens to this redneck child because she's nothing but a spectacle to them.

[mominatrix]

Oct 28, 2014 11:12:38 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/how-hillbilly-reality-tv-got-way-too-real

When TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo — a spin-off featuring the family of Alana Thompson, one of the breakout stars of Toddlers & Tiaras — premiered in 2012, critics called it repellent and disturbing, which was not a completely unfair assessment: The family’s favorite meal is a mix of butter and ketchup that Honey Boo Boo’s mother, who is known as Mama June, microwaves into a red slime and pours on to spaghetti for the girls. They call it “sketti.”

the good Italian girl in me can't.get.past.this




I feel like this, a lot of the time:


it's The Sopranos, so NSFW language, obviously.

[stealthmom]

Oct 28, 2014 13:19:52 GMT -5 elleblue said:

sparrowsong - fremdschamen 

I always remember because it sounds a bit like friend* shame.

*even though fremd is German for stranger/foreign - so it would actually translate to other (person's) shame

interesting. I didn't know that term existed. I always called it embarassitis- being embarassed for someone else.

[elleblue]

Oct 28, 2014 15:46:39 GMT -5 stealthmom said:

Oct 28, 2014 13:19:52 GMT -5 elleblue said:

sparrowsong - fremdschamen 

I always remember because it sounds a bit like friend* shame.

*even though fremd is German for stranger/foreign - so it would actually translate to other (person's) shame

interesting. I didn't know that term existed. I always called it embarassitis- being embarassed for someone else.

Germans seem to have a word for everything, don't they? And I'm on a mission to get fremdschamen into popular vernacular. If schadenfreude is a word people know, why not fremdschamen? 

[statlerwaldorf]

I think the writer is off base with putting Duck Dynasty under the same category as the rest of them. I come from a big family of hillbillies that love that show. They can relate to the family or at least the way they portray themselves. They feel good supporting a show that has a family praying around a table because the liberal media's agenda to take Christianity out of television. I would imagine many of them agree with the anti-gay remarks.

[mcsangel2]

Oct 28, 2014 11:38:44 GMT -5 Vespasia said:

Are "hillbilly" reality stars really worse than the trashy rich ones? Or are they just perceived as such? I don't really watch reality tv so I I don't know which is true but I suspect it is the latter.

Your comment instantly makes me think of Teresa Giudice. So the answer to question #1 would be no.