One of the stars of the hit TV show Dukes of Hazzard, John Schneider, has opened up about the controversy surrounding the General Lee car and cancel culture in general. Schneider was best known as Bo Duke from the show, and has continued acting and keep up with a stellar career at 61 years old.
He often reflects on his time as Bo Duke, especially since the iconic General Lee car has been the topic of conversion and controversy the last year or so. And Schneider hasn’t hidden away from discussing that in a recent interview with Fox News.
John Schneider on cancel culture
” It was the older, uneducated generation that wanted to remove it from the series, from the airwaves. There’s a group of people that seem to base their values on removing what they’re against. I’ve always placed people’s values on what they are for,” he says, referencing the Confederate flag placed on top of the car.
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“… It had been attacked maybe 20 years ago. And then that attack went away,” he recalls. “I guess the critics found another hobby. So no, it didn’t surprise me. But I tell you, my wife and I dirt track race. We are out among people from coast to coast all year round… And there are still children playing with General Lees in the dirt regardless of cancel culture trying to cancel it. And I think it’s because parents save their General Lees and pass them down to another generation.”
“It was never about division”
As for the show as a whole, he calls the show “out of date” yet still “relevant as ever.” He continues, “It depends where you are, but from where I stand, none of the cancel culture antics is going to diminish what the show has represented to families who grew up on it. It brought families together. It was never about division. For years, I’ve had people from all walks of life come up to me and say how the show brought their families together. Generations watched it. And they still do.”
When he was asked what he thinks of cancel culture, and he has a simple answer for that: “Simply put, why would I want to belong to a country club that would have me as a member? Cancel culture is very short-sighted and it’s very much against everything I believe in concerning freedom of speech and freedom of expression. I’m looking forward to the day when the wind finally comes out of the sails of all that nonsense.”
In a sense, he wants cancel culture itself to be “canceled.” “But until then, we do our own thing. Every day, we tell the stories we want to tell. And we distribute them the way we want to distribute them. We don’t belong in that country club.”
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