"Joe Sixpack"
Disrespectful to the Ordinary American?
Just Askin'
So, I grew up on a farm on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks. I've herded more cattle, baled more hay, ridden more horses, shot more coyotes (and wild dogs), split more wood, dug more ditches, shoveled more sh*t, driven more tractors, cleared more brush and fixed more fence than your average average American by quite a bit.
Now, somehow it seems that, because I went off and got a Ph.D. (at a public school, let me note; in the South, let me note; turning down private school offers, let me note), I'm a pointy-headed elitist something-or-other.
(Well, in reality it's that I support Obama; by definition, apparently, this makes me an unreal American.)
But ignoring some rather large issues in this vicinity, let me just quibble with the term "Joe Sixpack."
This is not a term evocative of the "real" Americans I grew up with. My family didn't drink beer, though they didn't have a problem with it, nor with people who did. (And it wasn't a religious thing.) Sixpacks weren't part of our lives. But, more to the point: the term "Joe Sixpack" evokes images of a slice of America that's more...I dunno...urban...industrial...something. It doesn't seem like any kind of representation of my family, rural, agrarian, largely abstemious. To be honest, when I hear Palin use the term, I think something like: man, she doesn't even know or understand the people she's stereotyping; this is a stereotype of a set of stereotypes...a meta-stereotype. It's really kind of insulting. It's like a white person's stereotype of black people or something. It betrays a certain ignorance about the very people she's pretending to understand, the very group she (despite her million-dollar net worth) pretends to belong to and represent.
I mean: If you're going to stereotype, you might want to get your caricatures right.
I don't think this is a major point...but if Palin's going to make this a cornerstone of her persona, I'm going to treat it seriously.
Disrespectful to the Ordinary American?
Just Askin'
So, I grew up on a farm on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks. I've herded more cattle, baled more hay, ridden more horses, shot more coyotes (and wild dogs), split more wood, dug more ditches, shoveled more sh*t, driven more tractors, cleared more brush and fixed more fence than your average average American by quite a bit.
Now, somehow it seems that, because I went off and got a Ph.D. (at a public school, let me note; in the South, let me note; turning down private school offers, let me note), I'm a pointy-headed elitist something-or-other.
(Well, in reality it's that I support Obama; by definition, apparently, this makes me an unreal American.)
But ignoring some rather large issues in this vicinity, let me just quibble with the term "Joe Sixpack."
This is not a term evocative of the "real" Americans I grew up with. My family didn't drink beer, though they didn't have a problem with it, nor with people who did. (And it wasn't a religious thing.) Sixpacks weren't part of our lives. But, more to the point: the term "Joe Sixpack" evokes images of a slice of America that's more...I dunno...urban...industrial...something. It doesn't seem like any kind of representation of my family, rural, agrarian, largely abstemious. To be honest, when I hear Palin use the term, I think something like: man, she doesn't even know or understand the people she's stereotyping; this is a stereotype of a set of stereotypes...a meta-stereotype. It's really kind of insulting. It's like a white person's stereotype of black people or something. It betrays a certain ignorance about the very people she's pretending to understand, the very group she (despite her million-dollar net worth) pretends to belong to and represent.
I mean: If you're going to stereotype, you might want to get your caricatures right.
I don't think this is a major point...but if Palin's going to make this a cornerstone of her persona, I'm going to treat it seriously.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:58 AM
3 Comments:
Just a shout out from someone who hasn't been here in a while. Joe Sixpack is also quite off point for the many Evangelicals and Baptists who disdain alcohol in any form. Obviously, that doesn't include the Palins, I guess, who hail from Alaska where drinking is probably something of a long winter past time.
Also, I think beer is more common among urban blue collar workers (like in Ohio and Pennsylvania). First, they are of Irish or German or Eastern European heritgage where beer has definitely been part of common sociability.
Barbara
I don't know whether or not the stereotype is correct, but I was shocked that she used the locution. It depresses me to think that, in a country where obesity and alcoholism run rampant, we are ok with defining the average American with a reference to beer.
Kinda sad, really. What'll it be next? Joe Fatass? *sigh*
i thought she meant really toned abs. =P
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