Things just keep on getting worse for Duane “Dog” Chapman. After the phone call heard ‘round the world halted production on his A&E reality show, the network dealt the bounty hunter another blow by announcing that they were pulling already-produced episodes from the air. According to The Hollywood Reporter , reruns of Dog the Bounty Hunter have been pulled “indefinitely,” although A&E stopped short of actually saying that the show is canceled.
Civil rights groups have been calling for the show to be removed from the airwaves after a tape of a phone conversation with his son was released in which he repeatedly used the word “n---er” in reference to his son’s girlfriend. A&E released a statement regarding their decision to yank the series saying, “In evaluating the circumstances of the last few days, A&E has decided to take Dog the Bounty Hunter off the network's schedule for the foreseeable future. We hope that Mr. Chapman continues the healing process that he has begun.”
Obviously this was a major screw-up on Dog’s part. While he may not be racist in the “he thinks black people are inferior to white people” sense (and that’s giving him the benefit of the doubt) he’s at the very least casually racist. His whole reasoning of how he was "disappointed in his [son’s] choice of a friend, not due to her race, but her character,” is a lame excuse at best. The fact that he’s employing the tried and true celebrity apology cocktail of contrite statement in which he tempers his apology with an explanation of “how I’m not really that way” (Michael Richards), coupled with reaching out to the leaders of the group he has offended (Mel Gibson), topped off with, if we’re lucky, a trip to a made-up rehab (Isaiah Washington’s “gayhab”) is, at this point, just insulting to our intelligence.
I can’t say whether A&E’s yanking of all traces of Dog from their network is a strong move meant to let people know that this kind of language will not be tolerated, or if it’s just a way to distance themselves from the bad publicity until this whole thing blows over; my guess is it’s a little bit of both. What I do hope is that celebrities as well as the general public will actually learn from this latest incidence of celebrity hate-speech. The lesson here is not to be careful what you say over the phone or in front of a camera, but to think before you speak. Words are the most powerful weapons in the world and the impact of what you say, even casually, should not be taken lightly. Duane Chapman is learning this the hard way.
