"Dukes" Keep Rebel Flag

Sat., Apr. 15, 2000 10:55 AM PDT by Mark Armstrong

The Confederate flag may disappear from South Carolina's statehouse dome, but there's been no compromise on an equally hallowed piece of the South: the General Lee.

That's right, Bo and Luke Duke's orange, butt-kicking '69 Dodge Charger.

Despite racially charged controversy over South Carolina's use of the flag, it'll keep waving when The Dukes of Hazzard returns to TV on CBS May 19. John Schneider, Tom Wopat and Catherine Bach will once again be reunited for The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood, featuring the Dukes as they head to Los Angeles to raise money for a much-needed hospital in their hometown of Hazzard County.

Ridiculous plot lines aside, them good ol' boys are returning to TV at an interesting time.

Back when CBS first aired the show in 1979, the flag generated little more than a yee-haw from its viewers. After all, the Dukes liked to speed and chase women. Daisy Duke turned high-riding denim short-shorts into a nationwide phenomenon. And the General Lee, complete with welded-shut doors and a "Dixie"-playing horn, regularly outpaced country cops Rosco and Enos, and helped the Duke boys thwart the chicken-wing-grubbing Boss Hogg.

The show ran until 1985, but it's spawned a loyal following of Hazzard-heads in Nashville Network syndication, not to mention a previous reunion special in 1997.

Now, some can't help but wonder if the General Lee's Confederate rooftop art glorifies a symbol of racism.

Sheila Douglas, spokeswoman for the NAACP, says the group has no plans to protest Hazzard or CBS for its decision to keep the flag in its upcoming movie. But she says any use of the symbol--whether at a state capital or on some redneck TV comedy--shouldn't be taken lightly.

"The use of the flag is a concern for us, period," Douglas says. "The fact that these guys are using it fictionally does not separate it from flying over the capital dome. Part of what African Americans have had to contend with are those myths and stereotypes and perceptions of history."

The NAACP battled hard to have the flag removed in South Carolina. And despite a compromise in the state Senate, the civil-rights group is not backing off its tourism boycott against the state.

Meanwhile, Hazzard producers Bob Clark and Gy Waldron said in a statement that they kept the flag on the car to "maintain the integrity of its character" in the upcoming TV movie.

"The Confederate flag has always been a part of the General Lee from the beginning," the statement reads. "It is not our intention to offend anyone, neither do we accept its appropriation or perversion by those groups who have taken it as a racist symbol.

"To suggest that its use on the General Lee has any other meaning is historically inaccurate and not in keeping with the nature or intent of the show."

Or, in the words of Waylon Jennings, they're just some good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm.