Jeff Foxworthy’s Redneck Humor and the Boundaries of Middle-Class American Whiteness

Abstract

Popular culture has aided the reworking of a redneck discourse that historically signified poor rural White southerners (Jarosz & Lawson, 2002). Solidified by comedian Jeff Foxworthy in the 1990s, the term redneck has been reinterpreted as an identity salient to a mass audience (Hartigan, 1997). When redneck is used as a self-description or as a way of indicating otherness, it becomes a means of establishing identity boundaries. To expand research exploring the nuances of whiteness, this article seeks to illuminate how, and why, redneck identity is being constructed in this humor. Specifically, I seek to address three interrelated questions. Research Question 1: How is redneck defined according to Foxworthy humor? Research Question 2: How does this humor construct the boundaries between the redneck and non-redneck? Research Question 3: Do the boundaries utilized in this humor help us understand the production and maintenance of a more normative, mainstream whiteness? To address these questions, I conducted a semioticsinspired narrative analysis of more than 300 Foxworthy redneck jokes derived from his comedy routine and posted on the Internet site Country Humor (Foxworthy, 1991, 2004). My analysis is organized around four broad themes that permeate these jokes: lifestyle and fashion, rural living, sex and 647772S GOXXX10.