Other than K-dramas, the other culture I’ve been exploring via television lately is that of redneck Louisiana and duck-hunting as portrayed in the A&E series Duck Dynasty. It’s just as fascinating, if not quite as foreign, as Korean drama culture.

Duck Dynasty is a “reality TV” series starring the Robertson clan, owners of a multi-million dollar business that creates products for duck hunters, including duck calls, hunting videos, and other hunting paraphernalia. The company is called Duck Commander, and there’s a companion company, Buck Commander, that sells stuff for deer hunters. The show, however, isn’t about hunting so much as it is about the Robertsons and their weird and wonderful family dynamic.

Meet the Robertsons:

Phil is the family patriarch, the man who founded Duck Commander, a fanatical and skilled duck hunter, designer of the double reed duck call that is Duck Commander’s featured product. Phil wants everyone to be “happy, happy, happy” without bothering him too much, and he doesn’t have much use for “yuppies” and modern technology.
Ms. Kay is Phil’s wife and mother to the four Robertson boys. Ms. Kay can cook anything and make it taste great; her speciality is fried squirrel and squirrel brains. She says the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and squirrel brains make you smart.
Three of the “boys” are featured in the TV show:
Willie is the CEO of Duck COmmander. He spends most of his time on the TV show trying to get the rest of the family to work and build duck calls instead of taking naps, going hunting, and generally goofing off.
Jase is Willie’s older brother, but he’s more interested in working in the duck call room, designing duck calls and testing them. Jase and Willie have different,complementary roles in the business, but outside of business hours they are highly competitive in everything from fishing to sports to cooking to outwitting one another.
Jep is the baby of the family, kind of quiet, but according to the book he does a lot of the filming for the hunting videos.
The other main character in the TV shows is Uncle Si, a Vietnam veteran who has the best and funniest lines in the show. Uncle Si makes the reeds for the duck calls. He also drinks sweet tea by the gallon from a plastic Tupperware glass that he carries with him everywhere. Uncle Si reminds me of a combination of Engineer Husband’s two brothers: the storytelling, the exaggerations, the beard, the eccentricity.

After I watched most of seasons one and two of Duck Dynasty, I wanted to know how much of the show was true and how much was put-on. So I read The Duck Commander Family: How Faith, Family, and Ducks Built a Dynasty by Willie and Korie (Willie’s wife) Robertson (with Mark Schlabach). The book isn’t a classic, but it serves the purpose of giving more information about the Robertson family background. Each TV episode closes with the entire clan gathered around the table, and Phil prays a blessing over the food and the family. The book tells how the family came to have such a strong heritage of faith in God. It wasn’t easy. Phil and Kay married young, and Phil became an alcoholic and deserted the family for a time. After God brought him to a realization of his need for Christ and his love of his family, Phil returned to Ms. Kay and his sons and became a strong man of God, still a little quirky but grounded in the Bible and faith in God’s provision.

I highly recommend the TV series, and then the book if you want more information about this wacky, unconventional, and inspirational family. Warning: the Robertsons are NOT your typical rich, sophisticated family. They like to blow things up, shoot animals and eat them, and generally run wild. It’s a great TV show to watch with the young men in your family, older men, too.