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strong values. Most everybody goes to church and is pretty family
oriented” (19). Whether or not his perceptions of the Atlanta area can be
bom out in facts is largely irrelevant. What he is evoking is less a
specific geographic place and more an imagined community of likeminded individuals that can accommodate Americans across the
continent.
Therefore, far from embracing the stereotypical qualities of a
redneck, he criticizes those stereotypes that have been employed to
denigrate people like him. In fact, he reveals that part of the raison d ’etre
of his comedy is as a coping mechanism for negative views of “redneck”:
“One reason I make Redneck jokes is, well . . . I have to. Otherwise,
having to endure an attitude from the rest of the country that Southerners
are stupid and backward would be too depressing” (18).
Foxworthy recasts himself as an honest, Christian, family man
with traditional family values that supersede his role as celebrity
millionaire. In an interview with CMT before his 2005 hosting of the
CMT Country Music awards, Foxworthy says, “I'm a great husband and
a great daddy, to the point that I have turned down so many things, workwise. I just turned down a movie, a chance to do something with Robin
Williams because I was going to have to be gone for seven or eight
weeks in Vancouver. I was like, T am not going seven or eight weeks
without seeing my wife a