CM: Controversy? No Harm, No Fowl.

It’s said that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. In this day and age, where someone can be famous – or more accurately, infamous - for fifteen minutes, the mentality seems to be for grasping those seconds and extending your spotlight for as long as possible. Even failing has been turned into a spectacularly adept social art-form.

In a case of 'Release the Quacken...' much of the last week in America has been about the undeniably homophobic, racist remarks of a member of the Duck Dynasty cast made in a GQinterview to promote the show. Most people in the UK will only have a passing familiarity with the cable series but it’s quite notable in an America. Broadcast on A&E in the US, the proported reality show is best described as the Beverly Hillbillies meets ZZ Top meets the Bog of Eternal Stench. It’s God-fearing, duck-loving television at its least subtle.  Lead beard-enthusiast, mega-rich duck-hunter Phil Robertson was suspended from the show after he drew a line connecting same-sex couples and bestiality and adding for good measure that black slaves had a jolly time of it back in the good old days.  In other words – this was a dream red-top, redneck headline. Immediately, several right-wing pundits said his suspension showed that free-speech and religious views were being impinged and other groups sprang up and said that a private company had every right to hire and fire (or in this case, suspend) an individual who used company time to promote a view that the company could not endorse. Sadly, the actual ducks couldn’t be reached for comment.  

One can argue the rights and wrongs of Robertson’s right to express his views until the cows, or indeed the mallards, come home, but the most interesting point here actually seems to be how A&E, GQ, Fox News, CNN etc have all managed to get thousands of column-inches, tons of bandwith, set twitter on fire and got the tv pundits frothing at the mouth without spending a single penny. A world that barely noticed or cared that a new season of Duck Dynasty was about to hit the airwaves, might now be monitoring it intently. There’s also a good bet that A&E will reinstate 'Ducksatawney Phil'  after a short, punitative time in the particular media wilderness that lies somewhere beyond the swamp and a little right of Calvary. No harm, no fowl? (Seriously, there’s no end to the puns I can use).

Cynical, moi? Well, it’s a tried and tested formula often used to varying affect by Hollywood, television and all branches of the media alike, sometimes born out of genuine opinion but often with a little bit of deniable handshaking between parties… says a ‘source close to…’ etc.

As a critic, I remember Swordfish being largely and unapologetically marketed on the novelty of  Halle Berry's breasts. The truth, a bare glimpse in the least titillating 'flash' of bust ever put on celluloid.  I've been more shocked at a Disney movie.  You remember the outrage over the violence in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, where the guy has his ear cut off for all to see? No – you actually don’t because there is no such scene. It all happens off camera, though the repetetive tabloid indignation and swooning probably made you think otherwise.  The Aurora cinema shooter became the ‘Joker’ killer because of the tenuous link to the film screening in which he unleashed carnage – with immediate calls from some outlets for The Dark Knight Rises to be more scrutinised than gun control. Which aspect of that tragedy do you remember more? The entirely misjudged first season of Torchwood was built around reportable shock-value of anyone in even the outer limits of the Doctor Who universe using the word 'f*ck' When Jim Carrey said he had suddenly developed major problems with the violence in Kick-Ass 2 and decided he couldn’t do publicity for the movie it generated more awareness for the film than if he’d stood naked in Times Square yelling “Allllllriggghty, then, superheroes!”. Small mercies, etc...

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