Activist left-wing magazine Rolling Stone has chosen “Duck Dynasty,” a reality television show popular among a majority conservative audience, as the “worst show of all time.”
Rolling Stone’s elitist media critic Rob Sheffield didn’t pull any punches in demonizing the right-leaning Robertson family.
“Congratulations, Robertson family – you are officially the worst anything ever!” begins Sheffield, before plunging into a profanity-laced rant that supposedly passes as “criticism.” Sheffield continues:
A dipshit sitcom passed off as a reality show, with a bunch of bearded phonies stumbling over their scripted banter – like The Beverly Hillbillies with less believable facial hair. The Robertsons talked about Jesus a lot, but Jesus probably prefers Real Housewives like the rest of us.
The political is personal here as Sheffield’s criticism drips with disdain for the unassuming (and massively successful) A&E television show.
From patriarch Phil Robertson’s plea at the Western Conservative Summit to incorporate Christ into political discourse to the show’s celebration of social conservatism and traditional family values, “Duck Dynasty” is a show that appeals to Middle America, social conservatives and what coastal elites like to call “fly-over country.”
As a result, the show has a target on its back. It’s unfathomable for the Left that a show that doesn’t go out of its way to advertise “progressive” values can be successful and draw a loyal audience.
In fact, it’s precisely the show’s anomalous nature — an unapologetically conservative show in a media landscape of Hollywood liberal propaganda — that provokes the most ire and disdain among the likes of Sheffield and other self-appointed gatekeepers of “good television.” After the magazine’s faux campus rape story humiliation, instead of trying to figure out what does or doesn’t constitute good TV, perhaps Rolling Stone would be better served focusing its energy on figuring out what good journalism looks like. Leave reality TV to the experts, like the Robertsons.
