I've stayed out of weighing on this nonsense (and it is complete and utter nonsense) but can we hold up any TV show from the 70s and 80s as being anything more than commentary for where we were at as a society at that time? The show that I would hold up as as the prime example of that was All In The Family. It centered around a bigoted racist intolerant main character who wanted no business with anyone who didn't share his color or religion. But the show served an incredible social purpose. It brought to the forefront racial, lifestyle and religious stereotypes that people avoided talking about, and made fun of people that criticized their fellow man for their beliefs, their skin color or the God they chose to worship. There were a lot of shows that tried to address stereotypes of race (The Jeffersons, Cosby Show), divorce (Frasier, Who's The Boss, Golden Girls), lifestyle (Will & Grace, Roseanne, Barney Miller) and ethnicity (Seinfeld, the Nanny, the Larry David Show). Each show went out of their way to comment about stereotypes (and do their best to debunk them). Which gets me to my point about the Dukes of Hazard and this ridiculous ban regarding the General Lee. I was a big fan of the show because of the fun and joy the show brought each and every week. To tune in and watch how Bo and Luke Duke were going to outsmart Boss Hog and Roscoe P. Coaltrain was must see TV for a teenage boy who loved the idea of living wild and free. Sure, the show used blatant sexualty (but John Schneider was just as big a sex symbol as Cathryn Bach was), but it wasn't trying to program society, or be an outlet for the writers to do any major social commentary. The coincidence that the boys car was named the General Lee had about as much to do with racism, as Boss Hog's love of money and power had to do with him being overweight. The Confederate Flag is the issue. It's use and association with Slavery and and white supremacy is the issue here. I think the TV show portrayed the flag as a sign of defiance, which it has been used as a moniker for in the South for Generations. But that doesn't mean the TV show ever tried to make more of it than that. Sure, the show lacked some ethnic diversity in it's casting, but so did Andy Grifith and the Beverly Hillbillies. The bottom-line is the Dukes of Hazard was Southern based sitcom that owns a part of American TV history. People are not forced to watch reruns of the show on any network, but acting like the show was some derogatory or demeaning commentary against minorities and other ethnic groups because of a flag painted on the top of a car is about as stupid as a person burning down their own house because they didn't like the color. This is not an issue of tolerance. It's simply an issue of common sense.
