Reuters reports that Georgia's senior U.S. senator, Zell Miller, today accused CBS of "bigotry for big bucks" and demanded that the network cancel its planned reality-show remake of The Beverly Hillbillies.
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Like the hit 1960s TV series, The Beverly Hillbillies will feature a poor rural family transplanted to a posh Bevery Hills mansion; the humor in the show is intended to come from the juxtaposition of rural simplicity and California excess. However, Senator Miller has concluded that the family, not the California lifestyle, will end up looking ridiculous on this show.
In the senator's words, the show will be a "cracker comedy" and will "make fun of and demean and humiliate ... hillbillies in particular and rural people in general." He also attacks CBS CEO Les Moonves, calling him "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."
Always nice to see that, with serious issues such as war or peace to be decided in the next few weeks, the U.S. Senate has time to debate the merits of reality TV. Perhaps Sen. Miller wanted to make sure that Washington D.C. would not suffer from a war-related hyperbole shortage.