Sunday, November 6, 2011

On White Trash

As someone who was conceived when her parents were still in high school, I have some serious fucking qualms with how lower-income white Middle Americans are treated in the media. I mean, here's my background: my dad knocked my mom up when she was sixteen and he was eighteen. Rather than skip out, he manned the fuck up and married her, taking a factory job straight out of high school, and working it until he was laid off, at which point he started doing various jobs before landing a job as a mechanic at a nearby auto shop. My mom's been mostly stay at home her whole time as a mother, but every once in a while she's gotten a part time job at a gas station or a department store to help pay for the bills. Both my parents are decent, hard-working folk. They might not always be the most politically correct, but they raised me.

I know, that seems like a pretty fucking damning mark on their record, but fuck, I mean, I'm still fucking alive after all this supernatural bullshit.

The thing is, if I was in some movie, what do you think I would've been like? What do you think my parents would've been like? Thick, inexplicable Southern accent (mine's pretty standard Midwestern, only a little bit of a drawl)? Tramp stamp and visible thong? Substantially overweight, maybe? Maybe the town slut? Father with a new bottle of booze every night? Abusive parents? Maybe half a dozen kids?

Never'd be the hero. Almost certainly comic fucking relief, jokes about eating possums and fucking cousins. Maybe some abhorrent admirer for the hero to try to resist the wiles of while he seeks out Miss Perfect Cheerleader/Secretly Hot Nerd, depending on whether he's Mister Perfect Jock or Secretly Hot Nerd (Male Version).

My dad drinks, but not a lot. He's yelled a few times, but he's never done it abusively. Only ever took me over his knee when I was little, and even then not that often and only when I was being really fucking bad. He's a good man. Most media, you think my dad would've stuck around and raised me? Of course not, it's the modern motherfucking Midwestern fucking tableau, written by people who've never fucking seen the Midwest except from a fucking plane window. Fuck, in half the fucking shows out there I'd be a convenient fucking miscarriage, just a very special episode teaching little Becky not to put out without having to cross the fucking Abortion Rubicon.

I know some people fit the stereotypes, and yes, I know as a white girl I don't have it as bad as other people do, but still, I'd really like it for people at the gas station to stop fucking smirking at me when they hear that Midwestern twang. It gets really fucking tired to have to hide your accent when on the coasts just to avoid being fucking patronized. Shit, it even happened in Champaign half the time I spoke to one of those fuckwits from Chicago.

Anyway, rant over, for now.

Oh, by the way, the Secretly Hot Nerd was Tara. I guess in the High School Romantic Comedy Equation, that makes me the Jealous Protective Possibly Gay Best Friend.

God, Penny and Chelsea are going to have a fucking field day with this post.

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