Thursday, December 19, 2013

Phil Robertson on Phil Robertson

This fits well with Lem's post immediately below.

Judge Phil Robertson (if you are someone who judges others) after seeing and hearing Phil and Kay tell their own story.


It will be twenty-six minutes well spent.

52 comments:

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Nothing Phil Robertson said is anything most people think and say all the time. It is perfectly okay to disagree with him, but for A&E to over react the way it did? It is completely BS.

As I said over at Troop's, A&E is playing it both ways. A&E suspends Robertson after he completed taping for the season to appease the gay mafia, A&E fully intend to run all the tapes and benefit from all the publicity, and then A&E can "reinsate" Robertson when it is time to record the next season.

Robertson should, however, tell A&E to duck off.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

My first sentence was poorly phrased. What Robertson said is how most people would put it if speaking honestly. I do not find it H8ful, but sort of honest. So what?

I hear gays all the time malign straight people as "breeders."

AllenS said...

That was really good. Well worth the time.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I liked the part where they talk about helping people by the road side. I remember my father doing that many times.

Chip Ahoy said...

Didn't matter what color your skin was, how bad your past is.

That's English for you. It cannot be faulted for being English. The skin was in the past, that happened back there, apparently it no long goes on that potentially faulty skin. But it does! In spite of despite the spiteful spite, alright? The present extent of grace and openness is not stated. But the past is just that, the past. It is the past and not the present. Compare: It didn't matter what your skin is nor what your past was.

My dad too. Mum told me this on account of he's embarrassed, odd, because he's the hero of all his own stories. A guy stopped into a garage where Dad was and asked to have a tire repaired. A poor black guy in the Shreveport. And man, was he poor. Dad saw that all his tires on the man's car were shot. Completely bare. Dangerous. And he had a young family in the car too so Dad had new tires put on and told the guy to not worry about paying and do be extra careful with tires. It's a very important thing.

And that makes me wonder why the truck skids around so much. For a tire-anxious guy you'd thing the truck would have tires that adhere like mad, but they don't. They scare me actually, although they look great.

chickelit said...

Inspiring video, Haz. Thanks for that.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Yeah, I watched that. Before he decided to shoot himself in the mouth.

If you don't like A & E then you can encourage them to get their own studio and distributor. A & E did these rednecks a huge favor, as far as their pocketbooks can tell. If you don't like that, that's fine. Phil claims that the money never mattered anyway. (Not sure Kay or Willie agree). But whatever. He predicted he wouldn't be in it forever so now he gets his wish.

The whole appeal of the show was rednecks living in nature and with family in a nice, humorous and verbally clever way -- WITHOUT any intolerance! Imagine that! Jeebus is even used to promote tolerance, in their book. Very unusual. That was the appeal and that's why a cultural outlet as friendly to gays as A & E went with it, making them stars in the process.

So Phil's just getting what he seems to have trouble avoiding. Everything about him, even his own Christianity, is end-obsessed. So as with the favor the Marine did for the Paradise-seeking Muslim, we're merely arranging the meeting. Phil: Meet infamy. Infamy, Phil.

Unknown said...

Mind crime.

How about MSDNC takes Martin Bashir back and A& E takes Duck man back. wash.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It's not a "mind crime" you ridiculous buffoon. It's business. There's no way you can center your company around "entertainment" and make your flagship property about a family leader who seriously equates gays with thieves and worse. It's just not going to happen. It's brand degradation. You guys are apparently crummy capitalists after all.

But Evi's of course right in his way about the timeline. They already wrapped the upcoming season. And by the time that the new season is ready to be filmed and or air, who knows whether his penance will have been done. That's how it works for most, with the lone exception of intense and violent psychos like Mel Gibson, to whose demeanor Robertson doesn't bear much resemblance at all.

I'm not angry with Phil, but he disappointed me. I loved his show and he reminds me of my grandfather a lot.

chickelit said...

There's no way you can center your company around "entertainment" and make your flagship property about a family leader who seriously equates gays with thieves and worse.

You have a funny definition of "equate" ritmo. Althouse has already hashed out this point (and quite well I might add). Her 200 plus commenters have added nor subtracted anything to her point.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh come on. You and I both know she's the consummate BS'er, just arguing because a point can be made, no matter how unrealistic it is. We both know that Phil Robertson, Duck Commander, was not thinking of a point as finely hashed out as whichever one Annie attributed to him. She's just being his lawyer. Even Bill Clinton, a parser and weaseler much more weasel-like than Phil Robertson, needed a lawyer to get out of his fiasco. And Phil Robertson is no Bill Clinton.

He just spoke his mind. Not Althouse's mind. Deal.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And I still love the guy and think he's awesome, BTW. But he just f'd up. It happens.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Why even bring up what lawyer Ann Althouse has to say anyway? A & E has lawyers a thousand times better than her. They get paid to protect their business. Who is Annie arguing to anyway, the market? I think A & E and their lawyers know their market better than Annie OldFart does. Annie doesn't even know her own commentariat.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It's not a free-speech issue. Constitutional law just checked at the door, and, whoops, it has other things to do. No Annie Oldhouse commentary or other scholarly legalisms are necessary.

But it is about brand protection and the reputation of a company that has a vested interest in not offending large audiences of people who value creativity and entertainment. Not to say that a pseudonym in cyberspace wouldn't know anything about image and how to protect one's business, April. But apparently, well, maybe some don't.

chickelit said...

But it is about brand protection and the reputation of a company that has a vested interest in not offending large audiences of people who value creativity and entertainment.

Suppose a majority of DD fans weren't offended? Do you have proof one way or the other? You seem to have completely overlooked TY's points in the Jindal thread. It could just as well be about offending the makers themselves of reality TV shows and the Hollywood executives.

I think the network is playing their viewers for faux outrage.

I look forward to future interviews with the patriarch. The story seems hardly over.

Now there's a word that offends people these days: patriarch.

Unknown said...

As popular as the show is, I do not think it was a particularly smart business decision.

It's all just a diversion anyway,. A big fat nothing burger to distract from news that actually, you know, matters.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Suppose a majority of DD fans weren't offended? Do you have proof one way or the other?

No. But I've been a pretty big fan. I loved it when I first saw the promo nearly two years ago featuring Phil butchering frogs and talking about honorable living and women who cook.

You seem to have completely overlooked TY's points in the Jindal thread.

Didn't even read it yet. I'll get around to that.

It could just as well be about offending the makers themselves of reality TV shows and the Hollywood executives.

Sure. Well, maybe it is. I respect Trooper's opinion, he's done this, and Phil spoke about goofy decisions the producers made earlier that he'd defied. There are almost always a number of possibilities.

I think the network is playing their viewers for faux outrage.

I doubt that, but then, I'm not even entirely sure I know what that's supposed to mean.

I look forward to future interviews with the patriarch. The story seems hardly over.

So would I. The problem is, when people talk about people of an unchangeable and perfectly harmless orientation relating to how they experience love burning in hell, it tends to turn them off to the idea that they have much of anything else enlightening or entertaining or interesting to say.

Now there's a word that offends people these days: patriarch.

If you say so. Maybe you can explain why you feel that's the case. I certainly don't.

Trooper York said...

They suspended him because they can not allow a popular figure to espouse traditional values. They have to marginalize anyone who promotes traditional values. They do normally due it with subtle ridicule and selective editing but if someone has a chance of getting through to the low information public they have to squash him.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And why-ever the f' a governor would want to get involved in this, let alone send up a prepared statement on it, is anyone's guess. That just makes it even more ridiculous. But of course, we're talking about another one of the GOP's supposed "star" politicians so there you have it.

Trooper York said...

I don't have the data but I would venture to guess that the audience of "Duck Dynasty" is not the metro-sexual liberal who would be offended by what Phil said.

It was a bad mistake by the politically correct TV douche bags and I hope they suffer for it in a big way.

Trooper York said...

The last time I heard a governor has the right to talk about current events.

If that is not the case than I hope that you will join me in telling Chris Christie to shut the fuck up. About everything.

Thank you for your support

Unknown said...

Jindal is the governor of Louisiana. The show is located in... Louisiana.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

That's BS Trooper and you know I don't say that lightly. I love Phil and a good number of his supposedly "traditional" views. This was not one of them. It was an ugly and tortured, selfish view. The guy eats crayfish all day long and apparently the Almighty doesn't find that as detestable as he thinks he would homosexual-bestiality. Talk about selective.

Christians need to figure out how to be less self-serving and selective when it comes to which of the "commandments" they never cared for anyway.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The last time I heard a governor has the right to talk about current events.

He also has the right to be a big joke.

Christy has his own set of issues. Like his voters being New Jersey people, for one. That's a huge issue.

Unknown said...

You have a right to be a big joke, Balls, and look where it got you.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I know that's all you got, April. It's ok.

Trooper York said...

I don't thinks so Ritmo but I respect your opinion. I just ask that you let Phil have his opinion. He did not say it on his show. He said it in an interview.

People can be weak and sin. I think Phil would be the first to acknowledge that. I don't think you mean to say that if you don't keep kosher you are a hypocrite and can never espouse Christian values because you are a hypocrite.

I can tell you by my personal experience the hierarchy of cable TV is directly contemptuous of traditional religion.

My friend who I call when I need a car service is a devout Muslim. He was standing by one day to drive us to an event and the producer of our show offered him some of the food that was on set. It was not halal. In fact it included shellfish. He sat back and laughed and told that story the next day.

That is the kind of people who work at A&E and Discovery and TLC.

They are not good people. To call them vile is to be too kind.

Trooper York said...

Now it appears that the "Duck Dynasty" family has said it will have to review their continued participation with A&E.

They have some power. They should use it. They should walk and demand that they move the show to another channel.

Contracts are made to be broken. A&E has breached their contract and they need to put them to the wall.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I respect your opinion and trust what you say about tv execs and agree that it's not right to belittle and unnecessarily needle or second guess "their" stars for some deeply held belief. Sorry if I flew off the handle with how expressed that.

Phil can have any opinion he wants. Most of them I liked and a couple, I was like, "Eh, I'll try to see where he's going on this, but I'm not so sure. Either way, it's an interesting/entertaining take on it".

On this one I think he was just misguided. Well-intentioned. And maybe even right (who knows when it comes to supernatural morality?) But obviously he stepped into an unnecessary controversy.

I liked how he said he was poor before and could handle being poor again. Maybe that's the test. (Not that he could lose much of what he's already got, which is substantial).

But what did this opinion accomplish? Do people really think homo-sex is bestiality is thievery? Really?

I can appreciate seeing sinfulness as a generalizable and pervasive thing. I just don't understand why we have to equate all sins as equally sinful.

Because I feel pretty damn sinful when I heckle.

It makes me think of the Arsenio Hall character who grabs his crotch and says "If loving the Lord is wrong, I don't want to be right".

Phil's a loving guy and a strong guy. I think sometimes that just sets up a bit of confusion every now and then. If it didn't, how do you explain his close family relation to someone as wacky as Sy?

I'm just trying to see all the angles.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Don't forget: Phil threw his wife and three kids out of his house when he was younger for "crimping" his sex-drugs-rock n' roll lifestyle.

Just because he came to Jesus doesn't mean all his thoughts thereafter are right, does it?

I don't think this was anywhere near as big a mistake. Who even knows if it was a mistake. But if accepting his imperfections is a big part of his identity now, who are we to say that his opinion was one deserving a defense at all? It might well have been something almost as mistaken. Nowhere near as disastrous or cruel. But surely it could have been mistaken.

No?

chickelit said...

I can appreciate seeing sinfulness as a generalizable and pervasive thing. I just don't understand why we have to equate all sins as equally sinful.

Who said that? (besides you)

chickelit said...

I know you can play a better Devils Advocate than that, Ritmo. So far you sound like a summer intern.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It sounded like Phil did. I understand he grew up in a cabin on a river but in 2013 do people really think mentioning "sin", "swindling", "bestiality" and "homosexuality" together doesn't leave in something that's not like the others?

My problem is that I don't think most people defending Phil or others who would say what he said really feel that way either. They've looked at the evidence, and what we know from people around us. I think a lot of conservatives don't think gay orientations or even gay sex is somehow a sort of abomination that they might have felt it was in the 1960s, when we knew a lot less.

But what strikes me as shallow, is this need they seem to have of thinking that doing so helps them defend religion as an institution - whether they have it or not.

Any religion that's remained relevant in the world has had to reform over time. That's just the way it goes. And I find it very strange that some conservatives think they're doing any religion a favor by saying that we should be unquestioning about it or about some other, obviously emotional person's unquestioning way of going about it.

I don't see the point of piety without wonder, curiosity and critical engagement. That just seems disingenuous to me. And even moreso when furthered by someone other than the person embroiled in those trade-offs and conflicts. They're just cheerleading a cause that they've decided to stop considering whether it's even truly their own.

In what way do you agree or disagree with Phil's comments, Chickie? Does that part even matter? Or are you just defending piety for the sake of piety?

Leland said...

Nothing Phil said is as dumb or wrong as this: California makes so much crude oil that the price of gas isn't really >$3.00/gallon - it's closer to the $0.50/gallon the Saudis pay. I think the fool that created that sentence ought not opine about anything, much less judge anyone else.

Trooper York said...

I do agree with you. Lumping homosexuals with bestiality is an insult to Scotsman everywhere.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Leland - it was a sarcastic comment. I was actually making the opposite point of what you took it to mean. Sorry if you missed that. I think if I was really that wrong then Bag would have whipsawed me about it. But he probably knew it was sarcasm too, (he and I go way back on these things) and that it illustrated that he was, indeed, wrong, and that California was not producing enough petroleum to be useful from an energy industry perspective.

I actually saw you bring this up the other night, but let it go.

Trooper York said...

I think I have an equitable solution. Let Duck Dynasty move to the Christian Channel. They would be happy to promote a series about a family who make artificial devices that people blow into to call fowl.

A&E can start a new show "Dick Dynasty" set in San Francisco where a group of friends who are really like a family ( no I swear they are just like a real family, no kidding )make artificial devices that people can blow or whatever.

I am sure that it would fit with their world view and be really, really popular.

chickelit said...

In what way do you agree or disagree with Phil's comments, Chickie?

Better in the pink than in the stink, I guess.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

That's actually an ingenious solution, if the Christian channel wants to increase their viewership. I actually hadn't known how many interviews they gave with those channels until I started supplementing my viewing of them on A & E with some miscellaneous YouTube videos. I'd tune in and find a way to watch them if that's what they did. But then you'd have to hope that the Christian channel wouldn't edit out their portrayals of un-Christian behavior. Maybe they wouldn't.

Trade-offs, trade-offs. They're what make life so impossible!

Trooper York said...

Except that A&E would never do that. They want the money and they want the control too.

They want to exploit the Duck Dynasty family and keep them under their thumb. It's like...err...SLAVERY!!!!!

Paging the Crack Emcee!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

That's right, Chickie. I forgot. You focus on biologically imaginable scenarios. Not that men ever have anal sex with women. (I'm also being sarcastic there, Leland). Or that all or even most gay men have to have ANAL! sex with their lovers. (That's actually a true point. They don't).

But your answer just continues the distraction. The point is simple. What if you only fell in love with and were attracted to men, the same way (one guesses) you do with women? What would you do?

Palladian said...

Not that I'm knocking buttsecks.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

David Burge ‏@iowahawkblog 14m
Nobody has a right to have a show on A&E.
Just like nobody had a right to be a Hollywood screenwriter in 1948.


Spot on, isn't it?

chickelit said...

What would you do?

Well, that's a tough question. But I wouldn't include anal sex and I'm not a hypocrite.

Now don't go all ZPS on me: link

chickelit said...

But your answer just continues the distraction.

You asked me a straight question (which part did I agree with) and I gave you a straight answer.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chickelit said...

Good thing I get thread comments gmailed to me so I can see the deleted ones.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

They were deleted because I later felt them to be redundant, not out of any kind of embarrassment.

Your fixation on equating sexual orientation to practices involving the anus, however, would seem to be pretty embarrassing.

I really think you might be gay, Chicken. I mean, if the only thing stopping you from being gay are thoughts of anal sex, just think of how many other ways there are to be, physically, gay.

Embrace who you are.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

CNN's story is still getting a comment every second or two. It's kind of fascinating to watch - what with Disqus is capable of. Over 42,000 as of now. That can't be typical, can it?

Michael Haz said...

Step 1: Chastise Christians for being Christian.

Step 2: When they react, call their reactions unchristian.

Step 3: Repeat steps 1and 2.

chickelit said...

Your fixation on equating sexual orientation to practices involving the anus, however, would seem to be pretty embarrassing.

Did I equate something like that? You seem to be pretty full of likening "equating" with other verbs lately.

You simply asked me in what way did I agree or disagree with Phil's comments. I responded with a comparative adjective and not even a superlative one.