March 26April 2, 1998
pretzel logic
“It has nothing to do with political overtures,” swore Mattel’s spokesperson. “This is just a fun toy. An irreverent, wise-cracking bear.”
Take A Bubba To Bed
But watch what you say with that Southern accent.
I will be the first to admit that much of what I learned about Southerners I picked up from watching Foghorn Leghorn, a tradition of cultural ignorance repeated by my boy, who recently asked why my Carolina-born general manager “talks like that chicken on TV.”
I know that I am not alone in equating the blustery bird with Southern Culture. The opening music to Mike Nichols’ Primary ColorsFoghorn’s theme song, “Camptown Races”instantly establishes that Dixie governor Jack Stanton/Bill Clinton is Foghorn Leghorn.
Southerners, mostly, have a pretty thick skin about all this. I have always suspected, however, that some folk down there might still be smarting from the whooping they took in the War Between The States.
My suspicions were recently confirmed in conversations with two Southern culturalists, who say that while it is okely-dokely for Southerners to make fun of themselves, it’s a whole other thing for Damn Yankees to dis Old Dixie.
It’s not every day that I talk to Southern culturalists.
But I was compelled to reach out to Dr. Michael Hill, president of the League of the South, and Michael Grissom, author of Southern By The Grace of God, after watching a commercial for a toy called “Bedtime Bubba.”
The first thing that struck me, upon watching the advert, was Mattel’s amazing sense of timing, releasing a Bedtime Bubba toy into the market at the same time a real live Bedtime Bubba occupies the White House.
Mattel, however, doesn’t see it that way.
“It has nothing to do with political overtures,” swore Mattel manager of public relations Sara Rosales, when I asked her about the seemingly obvious connection between the toy and the president. “Bedtime Bubba is a plush bear doll, 13 inches tall, with a chip that has about 1,000 random sayings. It is a stuffed toy for children. He will tell you knock-knock jokes. He will scream at you. He is a wisecracking, Southern-accented bear who will crack a lot of jokes.”
Not unlike Bill Clinton, himself a Southern-accented wisecracker who has been known to scream at people. Right, Sara?
“This was not meant to make any kind of statement,” she insisted. “This is just a fun toy. An irreverent, wise-cracking bear. We did extensive product testing with children.”
Fine.
So the Bedtime Bubba design team wasn’t secretly thinking about inserting sayings like “Oral sex isn’t adultery” onto Bedtime Bubba’s microchip.
But what of the Bubbafication of the South?
“One of the best-selling areas” for Bedtime Bubba, along with its predecessor, Real Talkin’ Bubba, “is the South,” said Rosales.
Me, I’m a Damn Yankee, even if nI am a Mets fan, so what do I know of Southern sensitivity?
What I do know is that the marketing of a Naptime Negro or a Dreamland Jewboy plush doll would probably raise unholy hell. And rightly so.
Which brings me to Dr. Hill and author Grissom.
“Southerners,” said Hill, “have always been able to laugh at themselves about a lot of things. If people in the South are buying this because it sounds like old cousin Lucas, that’s fine. But if you have people buying this in other parts of the country and ridiculing Southerners, and the whole use of the term Bubba conjures up a mental image of redneck crackers, well, we don’t like that.”
Hill complains that “Southerners, particularly rural Southerners, are still a group that you can make fun of and ridicule without any social consequence. We can be called rednecks and crackers and nobody has to pay a price, like you would if you insulted another group.”
Grissom, who said he wrote his book to kindle Southern pride, agreed with Hill that toys like Bedtime Bubbawhich neither man has seendo have the potential to hurt.
“Southerners are known by their friendliness and their willingness to laugh at themselves,” said Grissom. “The jokes are on us. But there is a limit. If this bear is just an absolute buffoon that characterizes Southerners like illiterate, wisecracking hicks, that wears thin after a while.”
Grissom said that “white male Southerners are the last group that is allowed to be kicked and bashed with impunity, because we have no organization, but that’s our own fault. We are the only ethnic group that doesn’t get out and demand rights for ourselves, so it is a field day on Caucasian Southerners. It’s not just toys, it’s everything. I have a feeling Mattel cares very little about the Caucasian Southerners.”
I am sure that Mattel cares very little about anything other than the bottom line and would, if it could get away with it, market Naptime Negro and Dreamland Jewboy.
And while I sympathize with Hill and Grissom about the bad rap that Southerners get, fellas, I can’t buy into the Southern nationalism schtick you’re selling.
Hill’s League of the South calls for the creation of a “free and prosperous Southern Republic.” Standing in the way of that, ever since “the War for Southern Independence,” is a “vast and oppressive bureaucracy in the form of welfare and affirmative action programs that squander our wealth and incite racial strife. ”
It is always good for people like Hill and Grissom to point out that not every Southerner is a wisecracking redneck bubba.
But it is also good to remind my fine Southern friends that the War for Southern Independence was fought over a nasty thing called slavery and that white male Southerners actually do have an organization representing their interests.
It’s called the Ku Klux Klan.
Hey, Bedtime Bubba, do you think we can add one more saying to your repertoire?
“Can’t we all get along, y’all?”