By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Saturday, July 4, 2015
DVD and download sales for "The Dukes of Hazzard" have soared like the General Lee since TV Land dumped the show off its schedule a few days ago.
Clearly, the publicity fueled people's need to own the 1979-1985 series in perpetuity.
On Amazon's list of the top DVD sales this morning, season box sets of "The Dukes of Hazzard" dominate the top five slots. Amazon also makes episodes available for download for $1.99 each or $19.99 per season. When all the sales are combined, including downloads, "The Dukes of Hazzard" still has five seasons in the top 10.
A few days ago, TV Land pulled "The Dukes of Hazzard," which is set in the fictional Georgia county of Hazzard, from its schedule without explanation. But it's obvious it was reacting to all the controversy over the Confederate battle flag after the Charleston shooter was shown with the flag. The orange 1969 Charger dubbed the General Lee on the show has a Confederate battle flag on its roof.
While 83 percent of people who read my item about TV Land dropping "The Dukes of Hazzard" last week found this to be overkill, it has led to writers to ponder if the show itself was overtly racist. From my foggy memory, race was very much avoided as an issue. The Duke boys were rebels but only against Boss Hogg and his corruption. The flag was simply an affectation to show, yes, this is the rural South as Hollywood writers perceived it in 1979.
A Time magazine writer watched the pilot and wrote this:
There's nothing about slavery or states' rights in there, but the mythmaking is familiar enough. The Dukes fly the Confederate flag, the setup assures us, but they're outside any negative ideas you have about the Confederacy. They're just little guys going up against a succession of big guys. Just'a good old boys! There's nothing overt there about the flag–and the series didn't dwell on it after that–but it's very much part of the "history not hate" message that led, by now, to a majority of American whites seeing the flag as a symbol of pride while most black Americans see it as one of racism, according to a CNN poll.
This show may now be swept out with the cultural tide that carried away beloved classics like D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, the first feature film made in Hollywood, an heroic ode to the KKK which helped its ranks soar in the 1920s. The Duke boys can sail off with Amos and Andy, the hit radio show from the 1920's-50's where two white guys voiced poor Southern blacks as gullible saps. They can drift away with episodes of old dating shows where interracial couples were forbidden. It's not revisionism, it's just retirement.
John Schneider, who played Bo Duke and now spends plenty of time in Atlanta on Tyler Perry's "The Haves and the Have Nots," was not pleased with this news.
"I am saddened that one angry and misguided individual can cause one of the most beloved television shows in the history of the medium to suddenly be seen in this light," Schneider said to the Hollywood Reporter. "Are people who grew up watching the show now suddenly racists?"
During the week of June 15, "The Dukes of Hazzard" drew 220,000 to 465,000 viewers over 10 repeats on TV Land airing late afternoon, based on data I get every week for overall viewers. "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" earlier in the afternoon tended to bring in higher ratings. "Reba" episodes before and after "Dukes of Hazzard" also brought in more viewers on average.
TV Land's "Everybody Loves Raymond" and 'King of Queens" drew significantly more viewers in prime time.
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