WHAT’S THE old classic? No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public? Who said that first, P.T. Barnum? We read that on the internet, so it’s got to be true. Or maybe it was Mark Twain, according to another site. Maybe it was Moe, Larry and Curly. In harmony. (Hello, hello, hello . . . .) On the internet, anything is possible.
Thankfully, there’s ol’ reliable Bartlett’s. And it’s still in print, kids. Here’s the closest thing in that reference book to the old stand-by:
“No one in this world, so far as I know . . . has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”-Henry Louis Mencken (Chicago Tribune, “Notes on Journalism”, September 1926) AH, MENCKEN. Thou should be living at this hour! Your country has need of thee!
What would the Sage of Baltimore think about American culture today? Probably the same as he did in the Roaring Twenties: not much. As opposed to the High Kulture that Herr Mencken favored.
How entertaining it would be to sit that man down in front of a television set these days with its oh-so-advanced programming. It would take about five minutes to explain to him how television has evolved (or devolved) and how the American public became addicted to it. And maybe another 10 minutes to get him to understand the significance of the Nixon-Kennedy debates, the Moon Walk, Nightline, Ronald Reagan and the O.J. Simpson case and chase. But the most fun would be showing him a modern Reality program. Oh, for 800 words from Herr Mencken after showing him something featuring a Kardashian!
When word started coming from family and friends about another Reality show, this one shot in West Monroe, La., and featuring a family in the duck-call business, some of us thought . . . meh. The, ahem, art of Reality television doesn’t do its stars any favors.You might even say it’s almost designed to show human beings at their most deplorable. But you needn’t be embarrassed if you once (or twice, or a bunch of times) accidentally clicked one button wrong on the remote and, lookee here, the Robertsons are at it again: Phil, Willie, Jase, Uncle Si and Miss Kay, just to start.
How much of their antics are scripted, and how much really is reality, is anybody’s guess. But the crew, and show, seem harmless enough.
One thing does make the series stand out: The family is hardshell Christian to the core, and each episode ends with the family around the table and Phil saying grace. Their religious beliefs-and family values-seem to reflect those of a lot of other folks in the South. Church on Sunday. Train up the children in the way they should go. Eat, drink and be merry- and pray when it’s time.
America ate it up, hook, line and Miss Kay’s gumbo. It became the biggest draw on cable TV.
Then Phil gave an interview to GQ published last week.
OBAMACARE could only hope to get this kind of publicity. So far the story has made it into the Washington Post, the Weekly Standard, CNN, ABC News, the New York Post, and the front page of the BBC’s website.
When a duck-call maker down in Louisiana makes his opinion of homosexuality known, it turns out to be international news.
Phil Robertson’s remarks to GQ aren’t really fit for a family newspaper, but suffice it to say he told it with the bark off. He was asked to share his thoughts on homosexuality, he did, and they seem to have offended lots of fashionable people.
Did anybody expect anything else from Phil Robertson? When he’s not filming his Reality show, he’s giving speeches in fundamentalist churches, waving his Bible around in the air, and quoting from it chapter and verse. And getting a helluva lot of Amens from the audience, too.
Phil Robertson is-hold your hats, Hollywood-a real old-time-religion, Church of Christ attendin’, Good Book quotin’, prayin’ at supper Christian straight out of the bayous of north Louisiana. What else would he say? Who could be surprised?
But the suits at A&E claimed to be. And now they’ve gone and suspended the main character of their hit show.
How this will play out in the seasons to come, if there are seasons to come, is anybody’s guess. But it’s hard to imagine the rest of the family going on with the show without Phil. That’s another thing about family values: loyalty. It’s up there with family feuds and shootin’ irons. And may strike only anthropologists and other strangers to these parts as unexpected.
Our wholly unsolicited advice to the Robertson family: Find another channel. Surely some outdoors channel would like to have the No. 1 rated cable reality series. Tell A&E to go to hell. In the most elevated Christian sense, of course. And then forgive the folks there-in line with another quaint Christian practice. Judge not, lest . . . and all that. It’s all very complicated for a kind of religion we’re told is simplistic and primitive.
Like hell it is.
ANY TIME somebody is made to pay-rightly or wrongly-for comments they make publicly, there are always some folks who’ll email or tweet or even, gasp, write to us, usually questioning the value of the whole First Amendment. What happened to Mr. Robertson was unfair, and A&E will deserve every bit of the backlash it’ll get. But, no, this isn’t a First Amendment case.
Why? Because the First Amendment to the United States Constitution says, in its very opening, “Congress shall make no law . . . .” Which means that Phil Robertson won’t be visited by the police. Or be ticketed for his candid comments. He won’t have to appear before a judge. And he won’t go to jail. The government won’t be a-visitin’ Phil Robertson because of his remarks. In some countries without a First Amendment folks certainly can, and do, get jail time-or worse-for things they say. Not here.
But if the suits at A&E are offended, or if they just pretend to be offended so they won’t lose advertisers and money, and they feel obliged to protect their pocketbooks by suspending Phil Robertson, they have every right to make that bone-headed decision. Lest we forget, the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment are theirs to exercise, too.
What’s more, Gentle Reader, you’re free, too. In this case, you’re free not to watch that channel. Hey, what a country.
Editorial, Pages 82 on 12/22/2013