On the boob tube the other night, they had the rise and fall of Jimmy Swaggert, one of the most famous of the current TV Millionaire Evangelists busily scamming people out of cash.
I noticed only one major fact through the entire program and, after rooting around in my memory, the same fact showed up for as long as radio and TV evangelists have been annoying everyone, at least that I can remember.
Why is it that everyone involved in these things, including most of the listeners have this Midwestern, southern-type drawl straight out of Hicksville USA or Texas? I mean it. Everyone interviewed for the program, and my back was to the screen as I was working, sounded White, southern, and like members of the moral ‘majority’!! I could just picture thin lips, big hair, pinched mouths, protruding chins, thin or plump faces, 50’s or 60s style glasses, and faces marked more by scowls than smiles in the women. In the men I could just picture close set eyes, big style political hair – graying, of course, square faces, either rail thin or portly bodies, and either jowlly, good-ol’-boy faces or sunken cheeked, hollow eyed, skull faced, sun burnt fellows with big ears, short hair, a too firm sort of fanatical look wearing high waters and leather shoes.
Skinny or fat women with skirts far below the knees, wearing dresses designed in the 50s and made out of patterned material my Grandmother liked, and everyone looking judgmental as heck.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed this overriding stereotype, especially in the voice?