Hollywood's Latest Cultural Goat: The Redneck?
by Mark on 3/8/2007 (10)
 | Cletus DelRoy: Hollywood's New Nigger. | | Did any of you watch the Simpson's last week?
The entire half hour episode was a pejorative slam on Southern people. The Simpson's is never one to shy away from hillbilly bashing, as evidenced by their "Cletus, the slack jawed yokel" character, but I'd never seen an episode so dedicated to denigrating an entire segment of American society as this one was.
Imagine if they did the same thing to blacks, Hispanics or Asians? Feathers, and heads would fly, indeed.
If nothing else, typecasting any segment of society is literally in the hands of Hollywood, as Hollywood has that kind of power, to be sure, and at least for now, Southerners are taking it on the chin.
It's not clear why Southerners have become Hollywood's new goat (it was blacks in the 80's, for those of us old enough to remember), but I'm sure that it has something to do with slavery and segregation. It seems to be an implied part of the human condition to justify kicking those that have kicked others, although no living Southerner has ever owned a slave or likely practiced any unusual brand of racism in their lives.
Share


page has been viewed 9553 times
|