Hillbilly Reality Show Is 'Bigotry for Bucks

[Guest Olympic Slam]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senator on Tuesday accused CBS of peddling "bigotry for big bucks" by planning a "reality" show based on "The Beverly Hillbillies," which portrayed a family of simple country folks suddenly transplanted to a posh neighborhood.

 

 

In a fiery speech on the Senate floor, Georgia Democratic Sen. Zell Miller called on CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves, to cancel the program, which has already sparked protests in rural areas where casting is being done.

 

 

"What CBS and CEO Moonves propose to do with this cracker comedy is bigotry, pure and simple. Bigotry for big bucks," Miller said. "They know that the only minority left in this country that you can make fun of and demean and humiliate ... are hillbillies in particular and rural people in general."

 

 

Like the premise of the long-running CBS hit comedy "The Beverly Hillbillies" about a poor mountaineer and his kin who strike it rich on oil, the idea for the new "reality" series is to transplant a real-life family from a humble home in the backwoods to a mansion in Beverly Hills, California.

 

 

Also like the original comedy, which aired from 1962 to 1971, the show would try to capitalize on the fish-out-of-water dynamics between the family members and their new upscale environs and neighbors.

 

 

Critics of the show, however, have branded it a "hick hunt" designed to hold poor, rural people up to ridicule.

 

 

Groups in Appalachia and the South, where casting for the show has been focused, have picketed a CBS affiliate, launched letter-writing campaigns and taken out newspaper ads around the country to try to pressure the network to back down.

 

 

"CBS, the once proud and honorable broadcasting company, ... it seems has become just another money grubber," Miller said, attacking Moonves as "a man who obviously believes that network television is an ethics-free zone and it is acceptable for big profits to always come ahead of good taste."

 

 

CBS executives met with rural activists earlier this month to discuss the controversy but gave no indication they were ready to cancel the project -- which remains without a cast five months after plans for it were first unveiled

 

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All I gotta say is that if this were a racial minority group instead of white Hillbillys, there'd be some serious screamin' going on. What do ya'll think?

[Guest LooseCannon]

All I gotta say is that if this were a racial minority group instead of white Hillbillys, there'd be some serious screamin' going on. What do ya'll think?

I agree. I hate this sort of classist and elitist bigotry as much as I hate racism.

[Guest BDC]

I'm going to go one better with you.

 

I'm from the Appalachian mountains, specifically Eastern Kentucky. Joy. What's the first thing that comes to mind? Yup.

 

So, here's how it gets real good, I go to a program in Washington DC called President's Classroom and, being where I'm from, am labelled as a joke/hick even though we had a textbook Jimmy Stewart from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Am I saying make fun of him? No. I'm pissed because nobody bothered him, yet asked me to talk and got angry when I didn't drawl my words out.

 

So, in other words, the answer is yes: people from the mountains are looked down upon. Every bit of mountains except for the Rockies. I mean, is it so hard to value someone after you meet them instead of slapping stereotypes? At this rate, I'm going to label "city folk" as uppity, stupid ultra-PC yuppie bastards.

 

I despise ultra-PC yuppie bastards with a passion that exceeds their own stupidity.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

That's my boy Zell.

 

Sure there's a double standard, but that's the price the privileged race must pay.

 

Heck, I like making redneck jokes just as much as I like making ghetto jokes...

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Zell is my favorite Democrat.

 

No matter how much people complain the double standard won't change.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

It's a good premise, but I'd rather it was something along the lines of just taking an underprivleged family from anywhere and putting them in this setting, and actually letting them keep the setting when it was over instead of "let's laugh at the poor people sort out five different forks" bullshit.

 

I hate this kind of upper-class bullshit so much. People wonder why I despise the wealthy, it's because of shit like this. Oh, and some personal stuff, but I'll keep that out of here.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

I don't think the rich are going to be the only people watching this show...

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

They should transplant some rich folks to Mudlick, KY instead.

 

Hey, at least you've got hills, BDC. I'm a flatlander "hick."

[Guest BDC]

No, no, no, if we're going to transplant some rich people, I want to do it right. We'll stick them out in Saul where you have to drive for an hour to get anywhere.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Top this: Bill Gates goes Pennsylvania Dutch Amish.

[Guest nl5xsk1]

I don't see the hoopla about this. If it was actors portraying "hillbillies", then that would be offensive. But just taking people out of their natural element and broadcasting their true reactions is NOT stereoyping and NOT bigoted.

 

Having said that, this - to me - is just another horrible Reality-TV show that has NOTHING TO DO WITH REALITY and is something that I'll hear way to much about but never watch.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

No, no, no, if we're going to transplant some rich people, I want to do it right. We'll stick them out in Saul where you have to drive for an hour to get anywhere.

How about up in the hollers somewhere?

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Actually, I'd LOVE a reality show titled:

 

"I"m a peacenik, get me out of Iraq"...

[Guest Some Guy]

As long as teh first season is called, "I'm a peacenik, human shield here I come!"

 

Just to give the whole story.

[Guest Olympic Slam]

Actually, I'd LOVE a reality show titled:

 

"I"m a peacenik, get me out of Iraq"...

If that's a success then we can only hope for "I'm a celebrity peacenik, get me out of Iraq."

[Guest teke184]

Too bad the first season of "I'm an annoying asshole and I'm leaving the country" are on indefinate hiatus... damn Alec Baldwin...

[Guest BDC]

Agent, Saul is basically a collection of hollers.

 

This pisses me off to no end. Because a person is from a certain area they need to be told that they're inferior and high brow pricks can laugh at them over a bottle of Perrier?

 

This goes for mountain folks, inner city people, farm people...