The following is a YouTube clip from the movie The Waterboy (1998), a comedy featuring Adam Sandler as the dimwitted protagonist Robert 'Bobby' Boucher Jr. The most relevant segment from the clip spans from 3:50 to 6:05mins.
In this portion of the video, Bobby Boucher returns to his home in Jackson’s Bayou, Louisiana, aka “The Heart of Cajun Country”. Once home he tells his mother that he had just been fired from his waterboy job. Through this discourse Bobby and his mother are portrayed as illiterate, unrefined, Bible-beating Southern rednecks.
Firstly, Bobby is seen driving back to the bayou on a tractor. This portrays the Southerner as poor and agrarian, and plays on the notion that Southerners adore their John Deeres. Also, Bobby can't enunciate properly and is shown as a dunce and momma's boy, which are all stereotypes associated with Southern people. Bobby's home is a dilapidated shack that also houses a donkey(?), which paints Southerners as poor and classless.
Bobby's mother is shown butchering some unknown swamp creature, which substantiates the stereotype that Cajun people eat rodents, offal, and other unappetizing food. Furthermore, Bobby's mother calls girls the Devil, which correlates to the stereotype that Southerners are evangelical Christians.
I don't think this is an accurate representation of the Southern way of life, particularly for the Cajuns. Southerners own proper cars and houses. In fact, the standard of living is highest in southern states! Cajun people don't eat possum, squirrel, or roadkill; these are the people that gave the world gumbo and jambalaya. Southerners don't interpret the Bible to the extremes shown in the movie. Lastly, most people in the South obtain at least a grade-school education, which is enough to speak English decently. There aren't any Bobby Bouchers in the South I know.
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