It is almost ironic how reality so often hits the stars of ‘reality shows’ right smack between the eyes.  It’s almost as if they start buying into their own hype (or rather the network’s hype) and think they are no longer the ordinary, if somewhat quirky people they actually are, but are individuals the rest of us want to hear opine about something with which they really have no experience.

Now, I happen to enjoy watching Duck Dynasty and its partner-show Duck Commander (although I am not very clear on the difference between the shows; they’re both about the Robertson clan, their duck-call empire and the odd assortment of characters they deal with in the Louisiana backcountry in which they live).  They all proudly style themselves as ‘redneck’, only they aren’t;  growing up in Alberta, I know a redneck when I see one and the Robertsons aren’t redneck - they is swamp folk!!  Akin to hillbillies and all, y’know?  Exceptin’ that hillbillies live in the mountains, whereas swamp folk don’t.

Of course, this slightly off-kilter, down-home, rough-around-the-edges, camo-wearing, Old Testament-bearded, squirrel-eatin’ schtick is exactly why the show is so popular.  Like many of the reality shows currently out there, we all - myself included - tune in to chuckle at the impossible situations and bizarreness of these people.  They’re not us and we are thankful for that (as are they, no doubt).

So when the ‘patriarch’ of the Robertsons, Phil, does an interview with, of all things, GQ Magazine and goes off the rails and starts talking about how blacks were a lot happier before the Civil Rights Movement and how homosexuality is a slippery slope to morphing into bestiality, you gotta know what’s going to hit the fan...and it ain’t duck!

Of course, his comments created a brouhaha of controversy ranging from condemnations of his narrow-minded intolerance and bigotry to arguments around free speech and the ‘intolerance’ of those opposed to what he said because, after all, if you have free speech then you are free to say whatever you want.  Well...no...free speech is about being allowed to voice one’s opinion (so long as it is not traitorous or seditious or advocating violence against anyone), that’s true, but it’s also about dealing with the consequences of what you say.

Nobody prevented him from saying anything, and clearly what he said has not been suppressed by government agents skulking in the shadows.  He is being held to account for what he said.  Free speech cuts both ways.  If he is free to say what he believes, as he should be, then he must also be able to defend those beliefs/opinions in the public arena...which, in this day and age, is huge.

To read what conservative pundits have to say about all this you’d think all he pretty much said was he had some issues with homosexuality.  Not surprising given he is a Born-Again fundamentalist non-denominational Christian.  But he didn’t.  Here’s what he said:

"Women with women, men with men. They committed indecent acts with one another, and they received in themselves the due penalty for their perversions," Robertson said. "They’re full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant, God-haters. They are heartless, they are faithless, they are senseless, they are ruthless. They invent ways of doing evil."

Now, the first two sentences in that quote are a direct lift from one of the Gospels.  That’s fine.  One can argue the perception of ‘sexual orientation’ was different 2,000 years ago than now and even argue the whole concept of a homosexual identity didn’t really exist in that culture at that time.  But that would make little difference to a Bible literalist like Robinson.  And he is totally free to believe those words, and hold them in his life, just as I am totally free to argue historical context and question whether they apply in the modern world.

Where he got into trouble, deservedly so in my books, is saying gay people are "full of murder, envy, strife, hatred."  That we are "insolent, arrogant, God-haters" and "heartless, faithless, senseless, and ruthless", to boot.  Oh...and we invent ways of doing evil, so I guess we are creative as well.  But we knew that....blacks can all sing and have natural rhythm and gays are creative and stylish.  I guess we just didn’t realize our creativity was for evil.

In the series, everyone has a role.  He is "The Patriarch", his wife Kay is the "Voice of Common Sense" (and "Long Suffering Patience" when it comes to the idiosyncrasies of her menfolk), Uncle Si, Phil’s brother and a Vietnam veteran, is the "Eccentric and Decidedly Odd Uncle".  Each of the boys (Willie, Alan, Jase, and Jep) occupy a niche with Willie being the "Fun-killing CEO" of the Duck Commander company exasperated by the laid-back attitudes of his brothers, who all work at the company; Jase as his nemesis and generally a thorn in his brother’s side; we don’t see much of Alan; and Jep is just sort of ‘there’ and always willing to go along with whatever harebrained schemes Uncle Si comes up with (and they’re often doozies!) or whatever small rebellion against Willie’s authority his brother Jase is planning.  But at the end of each show, the family all comes together for a communal meal and realize God and Family is what matters, come what may.  And that is what attracts a record number of viewers to the show.  It’s kind of a rougher, modern-day Walton’s Mountain.

The show, however, is also at least partially scripted, as are most of the reality shows these days, and certain things about the Robertsons get left out or edited out.

Phil Robertson has also advocated marrying off girls.  Not ‘young women’ - girls.  With mom and dad’s permission, of course!  He married Kay when he was 20 and she was just 16.  Is it just me, or is that just a little creepy?  No...it’s a little creepy.

"You got to marry these girls when they are about 15 or 16. They’ll pick your ducks," he said referring, of course, to the womenfolk cleaning the birds the menfolk bring home from duck-hunting.   "...[Y]ou wait until they get to be 20-years old, the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket."

He then went on to say, "Make sure that she can cook a meal. You need to eat some meals that she cooks, check that out,...[and] make sure she carries her Bible. That’ll save you a lot of trouble down the road. And if she picks your ducks, now, that’s a woman."

None of this should come as a surprise, given who he is.  If it wasn’t for the television series, which even he says might last for 5 or 6 years and that’s it, he’d just be some local in Monroe Louisiana who made a bundle of cash making and selling duck calls; a local ‘character’ and on nobody’s radar whatsoever.

I don’t really care what some guy who hunts ducks down in Louisiana thinks or believes.  He is free to believe the sun revolves around a flat 6,000-year-old earth, for all I care.  That’s fine.  Believe whatever it is you want to believe so long as it doesn’t bring harm to others.

Robertson is not just some crusty old backwoods salt-of-the-earth curmudgeon trying to get by and hold things together the best way he knows how.  He has - whether he wanted it or not - become an American cultural icon of sorts and with that comes a certain responsibility.  That responsibility can very well involve him bringing a message of good old-fashioned values to Middle America (which he disparages as ‘a bunch of yuppies’ on a regular basis on the show) but he needs to temper that with the understanding that the very culture he is so critical about is the same culture that pays him and his family $20,000 an episode, over and above the millions he reportedly made off his Duck Commander product or any of the product licensing spin-offs the show has created.

This is not about ‘free speech’ or ‘freedom of religion’.  It is about taking responsibility for ones actions and views.  I would think an individual like Robertson, who you can’t help but admire for what he has actually accomplished in his own life, would hold to that.  I can almost hear him say ‘Man up!  Be a man and take some responsibility’.  We all screw up.  We have all said and done things in our lives we regret or that blew up in our faces.  I sure have.  It’s not so much the screw-ups that screw us up, but the blaming of others or the failure to accept responsibility for our own failings and shortcomings that screw it all up.  Did he honestly think buying into his own mythology and celebrity status and saying the things he said wouldn’t have repercussions?  He is not stupid, but this sure was.  Has the backlash to his comments been a form of censorship, an attack on his right to free speech? No. It hasn’t.

What?  In order for free speech to be preserved, nobody can react to what someone else says or does?  Those people uttering inane, uninformed or misinformed opinions can’t be challenged or, if need be, made to take responsibility for the statements?  That’s ridiculous.  He wasn’t arrested, he wasn’t thrown in jail and left to rot.  He was met with predictable reaction...some of it gut-level and not thought out very well, either, but predictable.  Who does that fall on?  The person making what they had to know would be ‘controversial’ and inflammatory statements or those who respond/react to them?  Whose rights are more important?  The people exercising their right to free speech, come hell or high water, or those that such observations affect?

Certainly having a serious sit-down with him might have been called for, but suspending him only further fuelled the controversy and, I suspect, the only reason A&E did was because of concerns their sponsors - the companies that pay the bills - would pull their advertising.

The show is about him and his family and not having him in the show any longer would have changed the nature of the show, and resulted in lost viewership; that would cost A&E money.  So he has been reinstated.  What will happen from here is anyone’s guess.  Will he use the show as a platform to apologize?  I doubt it.  And even if he did, would such an apology be sincere or more along the lines of ‘I’m sorry you were offended’, which is no apology at all?

What’s done is done...move on.  Or cancel the show.  I think we can all survive the trauma of not seeing Duck Dynasty, and all its repeats, but of course if that were done it would create another ersatz ‘controversy’ about censorship and corporate retribution.  All that would do is make Phil Robertson a martyr.