The Dukes, at hazard...

I thought I was finished with this topic, but stupid memes like the one below keep being posted, and as you know I have trouble ignoring a stupid meme...

This has appeared several times in my Facebook feed:

One thing I’d like to point out to the fool that made this meme:

The Nazis on Hogan’s Heroes were NEVER the good guys. Never. They may have worn the Nazi swastika, and were generally portrayed as clowns (which the Nazis certainly weren’t) but they were NEVER portrayed as heroes.

Nazis were always buffoons in Hogan’s Heroes. Werner Klemperer, who played Col. Klink (and whose family fled Germany in 1935), even had that in his contract. But clowns or not, they were always the antagonists...the bad guys.

Bo, Luke, and Daisy Duke were not played as buffoons or bad guys; they were the “good ol’ boys” that you were supposed to like, supposed to want to be, supposed to lust after. And they proudly displayed the Rebel flag, a symbol that many of us have come to realize symbolizes hate and repression. (Some of us have always thought that.)

Look at it this way. If a television show were produced today that used Nazi imagery in the same way as The Dukes of Hazzard used Confederate imagery, in a modern (non-historical) setting and proudly displayed by the show’s protagonists, you wouldn’t expect that show to remain on the air over commercial stations, would you? You’d expect that show to disappear from commercial broadcast TV, to be relegated to late-night public access cable with the rest of the broadcasting lunatic fringe.

Don’t you think that TV networks have every right, even every responsibility, to respond to changing public opinion? After all, their livelihood is at stake. They have to respond to a changing market.

(All of which begs the point that the technology exists to remove the Confederate flag from the Dukes’ car, electronically. Hell, if every bare boob in Showgirls can be covered by an electronic brazier for commercial TV broadcast, the roof of the General Lee can be electronically painted a solid orange. If the demand to do it is there, the technology is certainly up to it. If you’d still object, either to the removal of the flag or the continued broadcast of the show, then I have to question what is is that you’re really objecting to.)

Perception of the imagery of the Confederate flag has changed in recent years, drastically so over the last few weeks. Whether or not that flag means bigotry to you, it means bigotry to many Americas today, if not in fact most. It’s time for all of us to recognize that many Americans see the Confederate flag as a symbol of hate and oppression.

As to any comparison between The Dukes of Hazzard and Hogan’s Heroes, you’re being silly and holding yourself up for ridicule. Which I am happy to provide.

The Blues Viking
The opinions expressed here are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.