Mash-ups are not the end of culture, but the final form.
The politics portrayed here are not exclusive to Alabama, but my state is a bellwether for such politics nationally. Indeed, the south generally serves as a great indicator of the national direction. That is because southern Alabama is the epicenter of all wingnuttery -- as you can see by our TV ads.
Tim James has pandered his way to national attention. Young Boozer (real name!) has drawn national mention. So has Dale Peterson, a candidate for Agriculture Commissioner (really!). These ads are aggressive shouts for attention; they are desperate moves (no one in Alabama had ever heard of Dale Peterson).
The time had come for a mash-up -- a complete deconstruction of the right-wing Alabama advertisement:
Alabama's politics can be twisted; ironically, Dale Peterson is the most progressive candidate in the race in the ways that really count for the post. That said, I think Alabama is going to surprise the country this year -- and contribute to a sense of disappointment among the right.
For if the election were held today, the man at the beginning of that video -- Artur Davis -- would probably be elected Governor. The heart of Dixie...might just be turning blue again.
Showing posts with label Alabama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alabama. Show all posts
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Tim James Speaks English
By now I'm sure you've all heard about Tim James, son of Alabama's worst governor in modern times, whose millionaire-financed campaign has so far failed to get him in first place among Republican nominees for governor of Alabama. In desperation, James has begun pandering to the racist-ignoramus demographic with an advertisement about driver's license tests.
But in the age of YouTube, that sort of thing can quickly be turned against you:
But in the age of YouTube, that sort of thing can quickly be turned against you:
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Friday, November 27, 2009
Alabama's Annual Archaeism
Despite its reputation as the buckle of the Bible Belt, Alabama's de facto state religion is college football. Today will see the ritual battle of our two main denominations in what has come to be known as the "Iron Bowl."
Auburn, located in a southern corner of the state, is a former agricultural school whose campus is a cultural island amid a sea of red state farmlands. The University of Alabama has a truly old campus in urban Tuscaloosa. Both are now premier universities sharing a century's history of big games and cult figures.
Among these is Paul "Bear" Bryant, the man in the houndstooth hat. Besides coaching Alabama to countless victories over the decades, Bryant was the first coach in the Southeastern Conference to recruit Black athletes. In fact, his decision in 1971 was something of a watershed for race relations in the south: by 1973, the entire SEC was integrated, and arch-segregationist George Wallace had opened Alabama's state government to Blacks.
But Bryant's biggest legacy is a tradition of victory. His iconography is ubiquitous; he is a patron saint to millions, always pictured wearing the hat. Indeed, Alabama's religion has created quite the consumer kitsch-culture, with flags mounted on vehicles year-round and large stickers proclaiming allegiances; but the big, recent trend is simply a magnetic sticker of the hat. Far less common are elephants, which were the team mascot long before Bryant was their coach.
Auburn fans have no shortage of this crass, commercial stuff either, and are never ashamed to display it with proud prominence. Upon entering the state, you will find it the color schemes of both teams everywhere, even in the most inappropriate places.
These bottles are incredibly common throughout the state. I've never found one that wasn't enshrined like a holy relic on mantle, shelf, or windowsill:
Alabama has the most national championships of any college team. Auburn has its share of glories, and among them is a (possibly apocryphal) game in which an eagle soared over the stadium as the team won a huge comeback upset of Alabama. The story led to Auburn's somewhat unique position of having two mascots: they are the Auburn Tigers, but the school keeps a live (rescued!) eagle on display.
The name for their rivalry, "Iron Bowl," is an archaeism. For decades, the game was held in neutral territory at Legion Field in Birmingham; apart from a sad Civil Rights legacy, the city is best known for having once been a major steel producer. Today, the largest foundry is a museum and concert location with a reputation for being haunted by the ghosts of non-union workers, but the name remains attached to this perennial battle. Perhaps it is fitting, as American football is a game of the industrial age.
Moreover, football is a creation of marketing. As I explained, both teams reinforce their rivalry with every sort of consumable. An exceedingly small sample of Alabama residents have ever visited, much less attended either university, yet I have seen couples break up and friendships end over this game. Tribalism is rampant, and encouraged.
Thus the Iron Bowl is our archaeic ritual sacrifice; it is surrounded by an industry of charms, wards, and icons. Despite the involvement of a Crimson Tide, precious little blood is spilt by these latter-day gladiators, who wear layers of high-impact plastic and protective padding. The church of football does not want victims, but fans; the libation is Gatorade and the offering is sweat.
If you visit this state, bear one cultural rule in mind: there are only two denominations of our state religion, and they are always at war. Rumors of a third option persist in the northern reaches around Huntsville, but these folk are held harmless cranks by most -- and heretics by some. Avoid a lynching by leaving your orange-and-white color schemes at home.
Auburn, located in a southern corner of the state, is a former agricultural school whose campus is a cultural island amid a sea of red state farmlands. The University of Alabama has a truly old campus in urban Tuscaloosa. Both are now premier universities sharing a century's history of big games and cult figures.
Among these is Paul "Bear" Bryant, the man in the houndstooth hat. Besides coaching Alabama to countless victories over the decades, Bryant was the first coach in the Southeastern Conference to recruit Black athletes. In fact, his decision in 1971 was something of a watershed for race relations in the south: by 1973, the entire SEC was integrated, and arch-segregationist George Wallace had opened Alabama's state government to Blacks.
But Bryant's biggest legacy is a tradition of victory. His iconography is ubiquitous; he is a patron saint to millions, always pictured wearing the hat. Indeed, Alabama's religion has created quite the consumer kitsch-culture, with flags mounted on vehicles year-round and large stickers proclaiming allegiances; but the big, recent trend is simply a magnetic sticker of the hat. Far less common are elephants, which were the team mascot long before Bryant was their coach.Auburn fans have no shortage of this crass, commercial stuff either, and are never ashamed to display it with proud prominence. Upon entering the state, you will find it the color schemes of both teams everywhere, even in the most inappropriate places.
These bottles are incredibly common throughout the state. I've never found one that wasn't enshrined like a holy relic on mantle, shelf, or windowsill:
Alabama has the most national championships of any college team. Auburn has its share of glories, and among them is a (possibly apocryphal) game in which an eagle soared over the stadium as the team won a huge comeback upset of Alabama. The story led to Auburn's somewhat unique position of having two mascots: they are the Auburn Tigers, but the school keeps a live (rescued!) eagle on display.The name for their rivalry, "Iron Bowl," is an archaeism. For decades, the game was held in neutral territory at Legion Field in Birmingham; apart from a sad Civil Rights legacy, the city is best known for having once been a major steel producer. Today, the largest foundry is a museum and concert location with a reputation for being haunted by the ghosts of non-union workers, but the name remains attached to this perennial battle. Perhaps it is fitting, as American football is a game of the industrial age.
Moreover, football is a creation of marketing. As I explained, both teams reinforce their rivalry with every sort of consumable. An exceedingly small sample of Alabama residents have ever visited, much less attended either university, yet I have seen couples break up and friendships end over this game. Tribalism is rampant, and encouraged.
Thus the Iron Bowl is our archaeic ritual sacrifice; it is surrounded by an industry of charms, wards, and icons. Despite the involvement of a Crimson Tide, precious little blood is spilt by these latter-day gladiators, who wear layers of high-impact plastic and protective padding. The church of football does not want victims, but fans; the libation is Gatorade and the offering is sweat.
If you visit this state, bear one cultural rule in mind: there are only two denominations of our state religion, and they are always at war. Rumors of a third option persist in the northern reaches around Huntsville, but these folk are held harmless cranks by most -- and heretics by some. Avoid a lynching by leaving your orange-and-white color schemes at home.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Satan Lives In Alabama
Those of you who know me from Osborne Ink are aware that I blog too much already, but this land-bound writer cannot resist the siren song of the (O)CT(O)PUS. This being my first post for The Swash Zone, I suppose an introduction and mission statement is in order.
Beginning with the personal: I discovered my liberalism on the day in 1980 that my third-grade teacher Mrs. Huffington (an ironic name) took my incomplete pencil-drawing of a dragon and destroyed it amid senile mutterings of Satanic influence. My inspiration -- a deluxe vinyl LP of Rankin-Bass' The Hobbit, including storybook -- was confiscated for a day. Mrs. Huffington's proud ignorance -- indeed, one could call it arrogance -- also led her to dispatch the classroom's sole Jehovah's witness to the office every day so she could lead the room in the Pledge of Allegiance.
When my father was informed, his reaction was as near to ballistic as I have ever seen from a northeastern liberal. This gentle soul, later ordained an Episcopal deacon and deeply involved in prison ministry programs, tore the flabby educator a new metaphorical orifice.
This incident, like many others, made it difficult for me or my family to maintain a social circle outside of the small academe of Northwest Alabama. We were transplants from the north -- and from a way of thinking that clashed with southern culture.
My family hails from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line; my maternal ancestors escaped Savannah ahead of Sherman's army, resettling in Missouri and then New England. But my paternal line is of pure Yankee extraction, including one of the early presidents of Harvard. I am the direct descendant of men who fought the bloody British at Bunker Hill and invented American higher education.
From an early age, then, I felt called to rebel against the tyranny of Teh Stupid™. As the 1980s progressed, Mrs. Huffington's attitudes were endemic to Alabama and the conservative movement as a whole. The voices raised in opposition to Harry Potter books today come from the same people who picketed The Last Temptation of Christ in 1987 and sued the state to have my American history textbook replaced with a more "Christian-friendly" (read: less informative) one.
Before I was even old enough to vote, I was rebelling through action and opinion. My first letter to the editor was published two years before I had a driver's license. One year later, mine was the second signature establishing the Alabama chapter of the ACLU -- right below my father's. Needless to say, I became inured to the harshest criticisms long ago.
While it may seem a myopic product of a provincial life, the sum total of my experiences has led me to form an Alabama Theory of Wingnuttery™. To wit:
All wingnuttery originates in Alabama.
Indeed, a strong case can be made that no original wingnuttery has been formulated outside the state of Alabama in over a century. Every John Bircher tract, every Phyllis Schlafly speech, every Michelle Malkin blog post has a prologue in this state. Could I only share a scrapbook of op-ed clippings with you, you'd find that the teabaggery of August is perfectly predicted by stupidity published in 1989.
I live on top of the epicenter of all wingnuttery.
Dangerous? Perhaps. Perhaps my presence here is a karmic punishment. Because this is the second thing you must know about Alabama: one cannot escape it. Like a black hole, Alabama exerts its own special force on sons and daughters. Many friends have noted that as far as we can get away (as far as the other side of the world) Alabama inevitably sucks us back in. It isn't that we want to return, but that we find ourselves back in the very towns where, as teenagers, we plotted escape.
Wingnuttery produces its own gravity.
It has mass. Like the black hole at the center of a galaxy, it is the circling drain-hole of rational thinking. It is a malevolent intention dressed up in the lamb's skin of piety. It seeks to turn us all into illiterate peasants reciting Bible verses that we don't understand. Wingnuttery is worse than mere evil: it is malignant, aggressive, and aimed directly at the foundations of scientific civilization. It is, in a word, Satanic.
Satan lives in Alabama. I live in hell.
They say the devil hides in the details; the state constitution here is the longest legal document in the world. Longer than Moby Dick and the King James Bible put together. Written with the intention of denying education to black children, today it manages only to accomplish the mission of centralizing all decisions in the state capitol where our legislature meets for 30 days a year. Establishing the most regressive tax system in America, our state constitution has been amended more than 800 times.
And there you have it. I make these claims not from ego, but from the sad horror of Dante.
Beginning with the personal: I discovered my liberalism on the day in 1980 that my third-grade teacher Mrs. Huffington (an ironic name) took my incomplete pencil-drawing of a dragon and destroyed it amid senile mutterings of Satanic influence. My inspiration -- a deluxe vinyl LP of Rankin-Bass' The Hobbit, including storybook -- was confiscated for a day. Mrs. Huffington's proud ignorance -- indeed, one could call it arrogance -- also led her to dispatch the classroom's sole Jehovah's witness to the office every day so she could lead the room in the Pledge of Allegiance.
When my father was informed, his reaction was as near to ballistic as I have ever seen from a northeastern liberal. This gentle soul, later ordained an Episcopal deacon and deeply involved in prison ministry programs, tore the flabby educator a new metaphorical orifice.
This incident, like many others, made it difficult for me or my family to maintain a social circle outside of the small academe of Northwest Alabama. We were transplants from the north -- and from a way of thinking that clashed with southern culture.
My family hails from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line; my maternal ancestors escaped Savannah ahead of Sherman's army, resettling in Missouri and then New England. But my paternal line is of pure Yankee extraction, including one of the early presidents of Harvard. I am the direct descendant of men who fought the bloody British at Bunker Hill and invented American higher education.
From an early age, then, I felt called to rebel against the tyranny of Teh Stupid™. As the 1980s progressed, Mrs. Huffington's attitudes were endemic to Alabama and the conservative movement as a whole. The voices raised in opposition to Harry Potter books today come from the same people who picketed The Last Temptation of Christ in 1987 and sued the state to have my American history textbook replaced with a more "Christian-friendly" (read: less informative) one.
Before I was even old enough to vote, I was rebelling through action and opinion. My first letter to the editor was published two years before I had a driver's license. One year later, mine was the second signature establishing the Alabama chapter of the ACLU -- right below my father's. Needless to say, I became inured to the harshest criticisms long ago.
While it may seem a myopic product of a provincial life, the sum total of my experiences has led me to form an Alabama Theory of Wingnuttery™. To wit:
All wingnuttery originates in Alabama.
Indeed, a strong case can be made that no original wingnuttery has been formulated outside the state of Alabama in over a century. Every John Bircher tract, every Phyllis Schlafly speech, every Michelle Malkin blog post has a prologue in this state. Could I only share a scrapbook of op-ed clippings with you, you'd find that the teabaggery of August is perfectly predicted by stupidity published in 1989.
I live on top of the epicenter of all wingnuttery.
Dangerous? Perhaps. Perhaps my presence here is a karmic punishment. Because this is the second thing you must know about Alabama: one cannot escape it. Like a black hole, Alabama exerts its own special force on sons and daughters. Many friends have noted that as far as we can get away (as far as the other side of the world) Alabama inevitably sucks us back in. It isn't that we want to return, but that we find ourselves back in the very towns where, as teenagers, we plotted escape.
Wingnuttery produces its own gravity.
It has mass. Like the black hole at the center of a galaxy, it is the circling drain-hole of rational thinking. It is a malevolent intention dressed up in the lamb's skin of piety. It seeks to turn us all into illiterate peasants reciting Bible verses that we don't understand. Wingnuttery is worse than mere evil: it is malignant, aggressive, and aimed directly at the foundations of scientific civilization. It is, in a word, Satanic.
Satan lives in Alabama. I live in hell.
They say the devil hides in the details; the state constitution here is the longest legal document in the world. Longer than Moby Dick and the King James Bible put together. Written with the intention of denying education to black children, today it manages only to accomplish the mission of centralizing all decisions in the state capitol where our legislature meets for 30 days a year. Establishing the most regressive tax system in America, our state constitution has been amended more than 800 times.
And there you have it. I make these claims not from ego, but from the sad horror of Dante.
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