- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
southern U.S. senator on Tuesday accused a major U.S. television network
of peddling "bigotry for big bucks" by planning a "reality"
show based on "The Beverly Hillbillies," which portrayed a family
of simple country folks suddenly transplanted to an upscale Los Angeles
suburb.
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- In a fiery speech on the Senate floor, Georgia Democratic
Sen. Zell Miller called on CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves,
to cancel the program -- which has already sparked protests in rural areas
where casting is being done.
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- "What CBS and CEO Moonves propose to do with this
cracker comedy is bigotry, pure and simple. Bigotry for big bucks,"
Miller said. "They know that the only minority left in this country
that you can make fun of and demean and humiliate ... are hillbillies in
particular and rural people in general."
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- Like the premise of the long-running CBS hit comedy "The
Beverly Hillbillies" about a poor mountaineer and his kin who strike
it rich on oil, the idea for the new "reality" series is to transplant
a real-life family from a humble home in the backwoods to a mansion in
Beverly Hills, California.
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- Also like the original comedy, which aired from 1962
to 1971, the show would try to capitalize on the fish-out-of-water dynamics
between the family members and their new upscale environs and neighbors.
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- Critics of the show, however, have branded it a "hick
hunt" designed to hold poor, rural people up to ridicule.
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- Groups in Appalachia and the South, where casting for
the show has been focused, have picketed a CBS affiliate, launched letter-writing
campaigns and taken out newspaper ads around the country to try to pressure
the network to back down.
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- "CBS, the once proud and honorable broadcasting
company, ... it seems has become just another money grubber," Miller
said, attacking Moonves as "a man who obviously believes that network
television is an ethics-free zone and it is acceptable for big profits
to always come ahead of good taste."
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- CBS executives met with rural activists earlier this
month to discuss the controversy but gave no indication they were ready
to cancel the project -- which remains without a cast five months after
plans for it were first unveiled.
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