I like the term “peckerwood” myself. Despite some ethnicity behind that as well, it’s really more a cultural descriptor.
On the other hand, “white trash” seems explicitly racist (that is, anti-black) because it is based on the notion that a white person in similar roles to a black person (i.e., servants, sharecroppers, menial laborers) is thereby distinguished from other white folks. More like black = trash (MTCicero’s grouping of “97% of the African American population” with “goddamn white trash” is pretty direct here).
I don’t know where you are, but I’m in one of the primary historical centers of redneckism, southern Appalachia, and anyone meeting this description would be held in great contempt round here, and the idea that they were in any sense “rednecks” would be laughable.
And he did it by marketing to a demographic that goes largely ignored by Hollywood. Turns out that market segment has money and is willing to spend it.
The movies aren’t good, but there’s a dearth of movies that are good that are being sold to the socially conservative/religious African American audience (the same could be said for the socially conservative/religious audience regardless of race which is why those horrid Kirk Cameron movies get made) so his competition is non-existent.
So good for him for finding a niche and filling it and making a ton of money doing that. But no, not funny.
He’s also taken to referring to his significant others (past- I don’t think he’s involved at the moment) as “significant others” and other general neutral terms, and when asked if gay gave the “I don’t discuss my private life one way or the other” answer that usually means “I’m gay”. It’s to his credit that if he is gay he doesn’t lie about it (as Aiken and others did before coming out), but my gaydar is fully in the pink and it has nothing to do with M’dea. (M’dea isn’t a character most drag queens would play- she’s not glam enough.)
Where I grew up (rural central Alabama) white trash had/has less to do with socioeconomic standing (though most are poor) than things like morality, work ethic, etc… A family that’s struggling and on welfare and food stamps but good salt of the earth people would not be considered white trash; a woman who has three kids by three fathers and has been to jail for check forgery and whose current baby daddy in residence is a dog fighter would be white trash. They’re white and they’re trash hence “white trash”. (I’m not defending any use of the N-word, but it’s true that while many used it interchangeably with black or colored [which was rarely used as a pejorative] there really are some who used it only for “black trash”, and “white trash” is a pejorative and equivalent of that [dishonest, thieving, amoral, substance problems, domestic violence, etc.]).
White trash are not necessarily poor. Jerry Lee Lewis has earned millions and is still worthy of the term, and when Roseanne and Tom Arnold married they actually said “we’re everybody’s worst nightmare: white trash with money!” at the reception, to which many responded “Yup”.
Of course this is regional and there are variations. The term cracker is the same: in Florida and the Gulf region of other states as well as south Georgia ‘Cracker’ wasn’t pejorative: it meant “white yeoman farmers”- i.e. poor white- while in other areas it’s on par with white trash.
For True Blood fans, Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress at a honky tonk, relatively uneducated, usually broke or close to it, lives in a run down old house and drives an old beat up car, but she’s a good person- nobody would call her white trash. Her brother Jason kind of has friends in both camps, while his co-worker Hoyt is a redneck. Sam Merlotte’s birth family would be considered white trash but due less to their poverty (in the rural south as in most agricultural reasons where people were historically dependent upon the weather and rainfall and things beyond their control it was generally accepted that any family can become impoverished) but to their amorality (dog fighting, prison, skipping out on bills, etc.).
Are you asking if blacks are guilty of welfare fraud and drug abuse and the like? There are certainly blacks who would qualify just as there are Filipinos and Sioux, but they’re not the norm.
I know how frustrating it was being gay and never seeing gay characters on screen unless they were comic relief or homicidal, and how irritating it is seeing so many affluent urbanites (which is Del Shores’ appeal- he writes working class small town southern white families so well). I’m guessing many black people get tired of having to go to a comedy to see black people on the big screen.
Ironically there are probably more movies now with gays as mainstream lead characters than there are with black mainstream lead characters. Outside of Tyler Perry films I can’t remember the last really big romantic comedy with a mostly black cast.
I wonder how long before somebody becomes a multimillionaire by making movies for the U.S. Latin-American market (which is as large as the black market [give or take some overlap]) and if, when they do, if the movies will be in English or in Spanish. (There are of course hit Spanish language movies and movies with Spanish speaking U.S. residents as main characters but none have really become huge hits in the mainstream.)
Not funny at all. So unfunny that just his very presence in the not even supposed to be funny Star Trek almost ruined the movie. Okay, that’s a big exaggeration, but still, not funny.
No, no, I meant stereotypically “black” circumstances.
I’m just extending my earlier suggestion that “white trash” is, IME, a description of white people who conform to some combination of negative racist stereotypes about black people. I can understand MTCicero calling his neighbors “white trash” (not “rednecks”) by that standard–which is not to say that I approve of the term or the standard.
As for whether such people find Tyler Perry funny… :dubious:
Re-reading through this thread, people such as spark240, Sampiro, and Nzinga, Seated have me rethinking my devotion to liberal ideals. IME, they are to the left what persons such as Christine O’Donnell and Sarah Palin are to the right.
Well, that’s definitely wrong. 97% of the African American population don’t even know who Tyler Perry is. I only found out through my wife, and that was just a year ago.
Other than dressing as a woman for the Medea character, what makes youcall him a closet case?
(That’s not a rhetorical question. I’ve heard the claim before but have seen so little of him I couldn’t say anything about his orientiaton of my own knowledge.)
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That boy is as gay as the day is long. No cite, obviously, but he has the stereotypical mannerisms of a black, gay man in inner turmoil. I think the only reason he hasn’t come out yet is because of how it would impact his pocketbook. Once he’s reached what he feels is his FU money threshold, however, he will come out…and it won’t be a surprise to anyone.
Any reasonable person would interpret “goddamn white trash” as less than an endorsement, yes? Your subsequent remarks explained that part of your disdain was based on their “hip hop style” and music. What then is anyone to make of a category composed of that, plus “97% of the African American population”?
I’ll take you at your word.
By the way, while I don’t mind being grouped with Sampiro and Nzinga, who are good contributors, I’m hardly a flag-carrier for “the left.” And while I despise racism, it’s not out of “white guilt.”
I think you’re off in la-la land here. I don’t consider drug abuse or welfare fraud a “stereotypically black problem”. “White trash” isn’t racist against black people. I grant you that the origin of the term - with the ‘white’ modifier on it - may have spawned from overt or latent racist attitudes that suggested ‘white people are supposed to be better than this’ - but I just don’t see any of that retained in the modern, conventional usage.