Rumor: Amazon may remove The Dukes of Hazzard due to problematic imagery

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

While this hasn't been officially announced, there is talk that Amazon is considering removing the hit 1980s sitcom, The Dukes of Hazzard, from its service due to the imagery on one of its inanimate co-stars. 

According to "Vulture", Amazon has flagged the series for internal review due to the show's use of the Confederate flag on the iconic vehicle, the General Lee. The Confederate flag has long been viewed by some as a symbol of racism and oppression that has slowly been phased out of many places all over the United States in recent years. With Black Lives Matter protests still going strong all over the world, the entertainment industry has been reassessing a lot of its content from the past and weighing if it's socially acceptable to continue to run it when times are this sensitive. HBO Max temporarily pulled GONE WITH THE WIND from its service this week and says it will return with a "discussion of its historical context" due to its depiction of slavery in the film. The long-running reality series Cops was also canceled this week after 32 seasons due to the growing concerns of police brutality and this very same concern also led to the cancellation of A&E's highly-rated reality series, Live P.D. The Confederate flag made big news this week when NASCAR made the decision to stop waving the flag at all of their races, a decision that has been met with mixed reactions. 

The Dukes of Hazzard currently streams on Amazon Prime Video's sister service, IMDB TV. A final decision hasn't been made on the show's fate but sources at "Vulture" say it is being seriously discussed internally. This isn't the first time that imagery from the show became an issue. Back in 2015, Warner Bros. TV announced they would "stop licensing images of the car to toy-makers and other merchandisers" following the mass murder of nine people at a South Carolina church by a white supremacist who proudly posed for pictures with the flag. Around the same time, ViacomCBS dropped reruns from TV Land because they felt it wasn't appropriate to air a show with that imagery at a time of national trauma. Despite all the drama regarding the series, the show quietly made a comeback via streaming two years ago. 

Amazon added the show to its ad-free Prime Video subscription service in 2018 where it was one of the thousands of TV shows and movies available to stream at no additional cost. The series streamed on Prime Video for at least a year before it was shifted to IMDB TV, which is Amazon's free, ad-supported service available to anyone with an internet connection.  The show was part of a package of content leased to Amazon by Warner Bros.

The Dukes of Hazzard ran from 1979-1985 and was pretty popular for most of its seven-season run. the series followed the adventures of two "good ol' boys never meanin' no' harm" named Bo and Luke Duke. Along with their cousin Daisy Duke, their exploits were generally considered harmless fun and after its run on CBS, the series went on to have a long life in reruns. The show even spawned a movie in 2005 starring Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Jessica Simpson, and Willie Nelson.

I mentioned this yesterday but this is going to become a slippery slope. I think studios and networks are scrambling to do what they think is right to avoid a backlash but some of this might be going a bit too far. The fact of the matter is, I doubt anyone would be thinking of The Dukes of Hazzard if they weren't putting this out in the universe. Now that it looks like something that is seriously being discussed, it's going to only make this reassessment of art and content even more problematic for the foreseeable future.