The Duck Dynasty Clan

The readings and class discussions on reality TV have been particularly interesting to me. This is probably because I am an avid reality TV viewer, which I am becoming more and more embarrassed to admit. Coincidentally, the day we had our class discussion on Duck Dynasty, I later was at home watching the Country Music Awards when low and behold the duck clan themselves made an appearance. This segment of the award show was a great illustration of some of the concepts we are learning about. Duck Dynasty is a unique example of a reality TV show because it represents two polar opposite ends of the economic/social class spectrum. The characters in Duck Dynasty are shown behaving in exaggerated ways, but always as a representation of being either extremely low class or extremely high class. I think that might be part of the draw to this show because it is so hard to classify where these camouflage wearing, mansion living, duck hunting, millionaire rednecks fall into society. They don’t act in ways that we would expect them to act, which “otherizes” them, and thus makes for a hilarious television show. The same idea took place during the Country Music Awards. The CMA’s have the reputation of being a prestigious, glamorous, invite only, high-class event. So because the duck clan was in attendance of such event, one would be expect them to demonstrate the same sort of persona and level of class. This was not really the case, however, because the duck clan showed up to the CMA’s in their everyday bandanas and camouflage looking just as scruffy as ever. The funny this is though, that their wives all looked smokin’ hot in sparkly evening gowns and high heels. Now how does that make sense?? To make this whole dynamic even stranger, the cast of Duck Dynasty made their grand entrance to this event by twerking to a duck-themed remix of Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop.”

Please just take a moment and picture this….

Obviously the entire audience laughed at this whole situation, including myself sitting and watching at home. But from everything we have learned in class, I have to wonder, are we laughing with them? Or are we laughing at them and the fact they are behaving in such an “otherized” way?