‘Duck Dynasty’ drama? Phil Robertson takes producers to task for editing, omitting ‘Jesus’

The Robertson family on “Duck Dynasty” may be all sorts of fun to watch on the small screen, but one of the issues of conflict that we have seen arise behind the scenes ever since the A&E series first rose to prominence is the presence of religion on the show, and just how much there should be. The Robertson clan are a deeply religious group; they are extremely active in the church, and many of them view the show as a further opportunity to minister their fellowship.

However, this for A&E and the producers at times leads to a balance; while they have no problem showing the Robertsons praying, they also are wary of putting too much religion on the show in fear of possibly alienating viewers who may not be Christians or may not want the gospel mixed with the entertainment.

Phil Robertson gave an interview with Sports Spectrum TV (one that strangely did not blow up in the media until this week despite being out for months) and in it he described a situation where the producers were cutting the word “Jesus” out of some of the show-ending prayers, and had to have a conversation with them to get it corrected:

“So they would just have me saying, ‘Thank you Lord for the food, thank you for loving us. Amen.’ So I said, ‘Why would you cut out ‘In Jesus’ name?’ They said, ‘Well those editors are probably doing that. They just think that they don’t want to offend some of the Muslims or something.’”

Phil also made another interesting comment about how the network is supposedly editing the show, claiming that there are times in which it appears as though there are curse words said, when there really is no cursing at all:

“The inserted fake bleeps … like somebody had used profanity, but no one had used profanity. I ask those guys that produce the show … ‘What’s the point of the fake bleeps?’”

Even with these issues, you do have to take this in perspective. Compared to the mass majority of reality stars who find fame overnight, the “Duck Dynasty” guys are taking this all very well and in stride. This is perhaps even more impressive given that unlike some other reality stars, they can’t really go anywhere with these sort of beards and get any peace.

What do you think about Phil’s comments, and are the “Duck Dynasty” masterminds right at times to subdue the religious message?