On January 20, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as 47th President of the United States. Two days later, the A&E network announcement That he had ordered 20 new episodes of his reality comedy “Duck Dynasty”, entitled “Duck Dynasty: The Revival”.
The network, in its official declaration, did not connect the second restoration to the first. But short of ABC, bringing the character of Roseanne Barr from between the dead to direct the revival “Roseanne”, “The Conners”, it is difficult to imagine another programming decision which would declare so obviously that the Times had changed its return.
“Duck Dynasty” was broadcast mainly during the Obama era, with 11 seasons starting in 2012, and it was never openly politics on the screen. (Offscreen was another story; we will get there.) Focus on the Robertson family of Louisiana, who made a fortune with the commander of Duck-Call Business before becoming stars of reality, the series was the first and above all a light family television program.
But “Duck Dynasty” was also in many ways precursor of the conservative identity policy that would sweep after it. It was filled with cultural signifiers – beards, bibles and Buckshot – who spoke to the authenticity of rural life and reverence for heritage. It has become the objective of a controversy which previewed how the central grievances on “sensitivity” and “cancellation” would become conservative policy.
And it was a consumer success that found an audience by representing a kind of life – traditionalist, openly Christian, country – It was absent from a lot of pop culture.
