Duck Dynasty: Joke's On Us

I have heard recently it said on Facebook that the members of the “Duck Dynasty” were, in fact, not these rustic types living in the backwoods of Louisiana, but in fact, are clean shaven professional men, yuppies, who saw an opportunity to be on television and took it. Whether or not these yuppies are racist and homophobic is not known, but it would seem that the Duck Dynasty would be bigoted, and so these professionals, actors, decided to play to public perception.

Now, I have not heard anything that makes me think that I can confirm or deny these rumors with any certainty. But it did make me think of Andy Kaufman and the many characters he played, including his baffling performances on Saturday Night Live as well as his wrestling career in which he wrestled women, culminating in a very public feud with wrestler Jerry Lawler in which Andy Kaufman was (supposedly) injured and had threatened to sue Lawler. Now, 30 years later, there is a suspicion that Lawler was in on the joke and that it was a hoax – a very well-acted piece of performance art that neither party ever completely admitted to, but carried it into their public personas, never letting their guard down.

So all of this makes me wonder, what if the joke is on us? What if this is a hoax, a brilliant piece of performance art that doesn’t take sides, rather is to pull the wool over all of our eyes? Perhaps the portrayal of a racist, backwater family with pre-Civil War attitudes is supposed to show the polarization of our society, exploit it, and hold a mirror up to all of us. What if it is a parody of life in the United States, showing the disparity in lifestyles between the two societies we have become, one that holds stubbornly onto the old way of life, resisting social and technological progress and the other presenting itself as moving forward into the 21st century (or as Buzz Lightyear says, to infinity and beyond!)

If this is the intention of the Duck Dynasty, you might argue that it is about 10 years too late to the party. This is well-covered terrain. But there’s another layer involved as well—our willingness to watch and comment upon this type of reality program, to look at “those hillbillies” as a way to feel better about ourselves, whether it’s to watch them as circus freaks or to admire their willingness to endure a harsh way of life for their “values.” In other words, we are so used to viewing people in these kinds of terms, is our outrage perfunctory? Are we outraged because we are used to being outraged, and not out of a genuine kind of surprise any more? And if it is a hoax, then those “values” seem to amount to nothing more than money. If there is no real conviction behind it, is a legitimate hoax in the Kaufman-esque sense of the word, or is it just making a buck?

A&E is one of several channels that have come to specialize in this kind of programming and making a fortune on it. The actors on Seinfeld, when renegotiating their huge salary increases, justified them on the grounds that the network was making an enormous amount of money off of their talents, and so why shouldn’t they. Having been sensitized to stories of actors in the 1950s and 60s who did not receive residuals for their television shows, we bought into it. So why should we now expect that the so-called reality stars are not just in it for a share of the pie, rather than that they truly believe in every word they say. We are at once cynical about reality television, but we are also willing to believe the worst about some characters because it reinforces what we believe and provides us with an outlet and a scapegoat for our rage at the injustices we feel in our society, which are many at the moment.

I don’t know if Duck Dynasty is a hoax or not, but I am becoming more and more taken with the idea that we have all been fooled. Again.

Candidate House: The Politics of the Future

This was a blog I wrote during the 2008 election, but it didn't get a single hit for some reason, so I am reposting it now, in the spirit of the zeitgeist.

Whatever that means.


Candidate House: Politics of the Future


Ok, so in a previous blog I outed myself as hooked on a lot of bad reality TV. Not all reality TV mind you. I, like anyone else, have my discernments here, too. But anyway . . . it seems to me, and I suggested this to friends back in January before all of the infighting and fiascos and monsters and such, that we need a primary process that responds to how Americans really make decisions, that responds to the "reality" of America as it currently stands.

So I was thinking, we should replace the primary process with one or more reality TV scenarios. Imagine Edwards and Romney and Giuliani and Huckabee and Hillary and Obama and McCain and families all living together in Candidate House. Uh huh. And then further imagine different challenges each week a la The Apprentice one week perhaps, American Idol another week, Big Brother, Fear Factor (eat those bugs, Huckabee!), etc. Depending on the number of candidates, the challenges could be weighted and candidates voted off periodically, and then the two remaining candidates campaign against one another.

I haven't worked out all the bugs yet, but we've got 4 years to work it out. And come on. If Diebold's election machines won't work properly to give us fair elections, then maybe the producers of American Idol can still guarantee us a little democracy.

Whaddayathink?

America's Next Great Artist -- Brought to You by Bravo

Ok, despite my protestations to the contrary, I did watch America’s Next Great Artist or whatever it’s called, on Bravo. I was surprised to see an artist that I knew of from my studies at NYU on the show, Nao Bustamante. I have to admit that as an artist I moderately dislike her work, so obviously I was hooked, just to see how she did. Sometimes I find her work moderately interesting, but mostly I just find it annoying. Case in point was the performance art piece that they showed when they introduced her, in which she put bags full of water over her head, there’s a moment of worrying whether she’s going to drown or not, and then she cuts the bag off her head. When I saw this piece at NYU, I’ll be honest, I had PMS. So to me, someone walking around with bags of water strapped to her body wasn’t all that revelatory. I was already experiencing that. And it was happening around all these electrical wires, so I wasn’t sure if accidental electrocution was an intended or unintended potential outcome.

Anyway, a lot of the art on the show was really good, especially the piece that won this week, and I’m not just saying that because he’s from Minnesota. I was very pleasantly surprised, because frankly, I was very skeptical. And it wasn’t only the most “commercial” pieces that won, although they did talk about the potential value of some of the pieces.

I was most gratified in my opinion of Bustamante’s work. For one thing, when she was one of the three in the bottom of the judging, she got defensive and said that she was not responsible for how the judges reacted emotionally to the piece. She was not the only artist to be defensive, and I thought, yes, this will be an interesting series, all those great artistes and their egos. Yes. I’m getting more hooked by the moment.

Moreover, the judges said that her work had a lot of concept behind it, but not so much in the execution, which is exactly what I have always thought of her work, too. There are sometimes interesting ideas behind her work, but not every good idea has to be followed up on or will make an interesting performance.

Which is the beauty of Conceptual Art, where it can be enough just to have the idea and to write about it, but the artist doesn’t have to actually execute it. You can make a diagram of a sculpture and make it or not, send it out to a forge to have someone else make it, etc. It’s the idea that’s important, not the execution.

Now, that said, I also do think that art is as well as a provocation, also experimentation. And you don’t know if the piece is going to be interesting until you actually do it. And in that regard, I applaud Nao. I always say that sometimes “bad” art or theatre is more instructive than pieces that you like or find effective, and can be great opportunities for discussion. I have told a number of people about Nao’s piece over the years (usually to deliver the punchline about having PMS). And I have been inspired by pieces that she did to incorporate some of her work into my own performance pieces.

So now I’m hooked on another reality show on Bravo, to see how Nao and all the other contestants do.

(And You’re Cut Off on VH1. I’m hooked on that too. But that’s a guilty pleasure, so don’t tell anyone.)

Skanksta: You Heard It Here First

Ok, so last year I coined this term, hoping to get the neologism of the year, but I didn't really work hard enough to circulate it. So, please circulate and prolifically employ the word Skanksta. You don't really need me to define it for you, do you?

Basically, it comes from my bad Reality TV habit, which only gets worse with every new show. (Celebrity Rehab? Celebrity Apprentice? Anyone . . . )

After two seasons of Flavor of Love (now in season 3), two seasons of that train wreck I Love New York, and of course the Flavor of Love Charm School with Mo'Nique, you can surely imagine how I coined the term Skanksta. I actually coined it to describe Miss New York herself.

(If you've never seen these shows, you've missed an amazing cultural experience, believe me. Truly.)

So anyway I beg you, be fruitful and linguify. And don't forget to give credit where it's due. I suffered through these shows. I deserve the credit.