Are you not familiar with the mocking of your accent, a la SNL’s “Da Bearss” skit?
Also, your state’s unofficial moniker is the “Second City”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I already mentioned the Superfans skit. I don’t know of anyone who didn’t enjoy them. As for the accent, heck, we’ve got a radio station here that does movie reviews doing the same thing.
(Bolding mine) Now THAT’s a good way to rile up some downstate folks 
As long as there is that grain of truth, or perceived truth, have at it. Lord knows I’ve probably “picked” on everyone and every group at least once in my life.
Whoops! Of course I was refering to Chicago with the Second City crack.
As an aside, I and my best, lifelong girlfriend actively worked at losing our ( and still actively mock) Southern Califonia accents and now she has the thickest Chicago accent I’ve ever heard. Every time she givea me an update on her Maaaahm, I internally crack up.
I think one of the reasons for so many in-group or almost-in-group jokes is that someone is a lot more likely to know stereotypes and embarrasing truths for his own group and neighboring ones than for someone in the other end of the world. I’ve often been part of kidding sessions which left “outsiders” not so much outside the kidding team as punted out of the solar system, they had no idea what was going on.
To me it also depends on delivery, and on whether it’s actually mean-ness disguised as humor or actual humor which may or may not match mine.
I’m Jewish, with a dark complexion, a big nose, a Jewfro, and a New York accent (albeit a faded one from years in the mid-West). I don’t mind jokes with a grain of truth, but the moment someone says we’re cheap, or that the “old” testament is awful and bloodthirsty compared to the kind and gentle “new” one, I cry foul. Most non-Jews have not read the whole of the Jewish scriptures, nor even the entire Torah, and there are certainly lots of awful things in the gospels (there’s that whole nasty crucifixion bit) and the book called Revelation, which is scary and stomach-turning. I could cherry-pick some things from the epistles and Acts if I wanted to as well.
On the whole, I love Jewish jokes, though.
I love lawyer jokes, as they are really just accurate reports on events with the names obscured to avoid lawsuits.
As a life-long native of California, and having lived in both the Southland and the SF Bay Area, The Californians is very much a Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange County thing. The “funny” part is that 20 million people use the same interstate freeways like a dozen streets in a rural small town burb, making the place seem smaller. Damn it is geographically huge for somewhere outside of Asia. The accents are all wrong, and nobody lives a soap opera like that (I hope).
I laugh at Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck” humor but get real annoyed if some New York liberal tries to do the same.
I want to meet whoever that one person was from southern Appalachia who convinced Hollywood we say “anythin’,” because we don’t. Now, we do say “nothin’.” And we do say “somethin’.” But anybody with a drop of Scotch-Irish blood knows it’s always pronounced “anything” heard as “anythang”, seein’s how we retain the “g” wherever it feels right and even add one on when it feels better, as in “mounting” for mountain.
But otherwise I’m okay with the hillbilly thing and can usually do you one better if we’re cracking jokes about it. It is distinctive and probably recognized in other countries whereas a mid-western accent wouldn’t be. We all generalize and stereotype to get the drift quicker.
But it wouldn’t hurt Hollywood to hire voice coaches who are actually from the hills.
In the last year or two, a lot of comedians have gone really hard on the whole “Florida is batshit crazy” angle, and I can really do is sigh and agree.
Hard to be mad when the jokes are spot-on accurate.
True story, Johnny. :o
My mother used to ask me regularly “what the hell kind of state are you living in?” . That was, of course until California elected The Governator. Then she didn’t have much room to talk.
As a Texan, I look skeptically on those who point out how batshit our Republicans are. This is not news to me. The Late Great Molly Ivins tried to warn the country about W but far too many non-Texans voted for him. Following her lead, the Texas Observer gathered its evidence against Ricky Perry, should he get the presidential nomination. Not needed–& no doubt he’ll shoot himself in the foot again. Yet another Aggie Joke. (And I know some A&M graduates who actually have brains.)
I live in the country’s most diverse city, with a lesbian mayor; I don’t know anyone who admits to voting Republican. However, I am quite aware that Texas has more than its share of rabidly fundamentalist racist xenophobic gun nuts; it’s a big state. (All of them do not check *all *those boxes. And some of my friends own guns–they just don’t go to bed with them.)
Let Ray Wiley Hubbard (actually an Oklahoman) explain how the problem with irony is that not everybody gets it…
A bit of reminiscence, featuring Ray Wiiley’s first infamous “hit”:
Wow, the accents were horrid. You don’t get on 405 North. You get on the 405 North.
Cubs.
One word says it all.
My brother’s wife is a natural blonde. Well she’s gray now but that’s OK; she’s earned it.
Anyhow, for years she had a bumper sticker which said “Dumb blondes have dark roots”.
See, there is crying in baseball. If you are a Cubs fan.
But, again, I don’t know of anyone who’d get upset by that. More of a meek agreement.
I’ll admit I’m speaking for myself and my circle. Maybe there’s someone out there legitimately offended or indignant by Cubs jokes. Or accent jokes. Or jokes about all our governors going to prison.
The proud few wear our pain as a badge of honor.
Some days it takes real balls to walk out the front door in a Cubs cap.
Heck, I’m the one telling jokes about my own groups half the time.
I still like the joke about Italian cars with flat tires: Dago wop-wop-wop.
Or Polish submarines with screen doors.
And Seattle? Seriously, we deserve every joke that’s ever been made about Seattle. PEMCO’s commercial about “socks and sandals guy” is priceless.
I really am of the opinion that if you can’t take the joke and run with it, you need to lighten up in general.