The imagery that speaks most to White Trash People is that from the cartoon series Looney Tunes because White Trash People can totally identify with the Looney Tunes characters.
Take Wile E. Coyote, for instance. His failed attempts to catch the Roadrunner parallel the White Trash Person’s failure to shoot that 7-point buck, get that Hooters waitress to go out with him, or pass the GED. Sylvester and Tweety? Same story… only with a cat and a bird.
And what is the typical White Trash Man if not the dervish of danger that is the Tasmanian Devil? Go anwhere, do anything, leave a path of destruction in your wake. They are so alike he even got one tattoed on his ankle. And Taz is holding a doobie. Fuck yeah, he is.
Hell, White Trash People even have the same consumption habits as their animated counterparts. Follow us: Acme is to Wile E. Coyote as As Seen on TV is to White Trash. That Big Mouth Billy Bass only sang “Pretty Woman” four times before it broke, and the 8-Minute Abs VHS didn’t do jack for getting rid of that beer belly (not even when you overachieved and went for nine minutes). How is that different from the Coyote’s Acme Spring Powered Shoes malfunctioning on him?
Answer: it is not.
But it’s not just a sense of solidarity and sympathy that makes White Trash People adorn their homes with Looney Tunes art proudly won at the County Fair balloon dart booth. White Trash People also get worldly insights from these cartoons, especially the racist stereotypes.
For example, Speedy Gonzales illustrates how the Mexican is fast and cunning and if allowed here, he might very well outsmart us. Therefor, while we should build a wall at the border to keep the Mexicans from coming over and stealing American jobs, we should also make sure they cannot slip under that wall.
The xenophobia isn’t limited to Hispanics. Pepe Le Pew? He proves that Frenchmen are smelly Eurotrash, affirming the White Trash belief that we really should just bomb France.
Kill the wabbit? Indeed. Then eat it.
Don’t forget the overt racism of some of the early cartoons. They may not show them on TV anymore, but our white trash friends still subscribe to the stereotypes.
This kid at my high school got a tattoo of a Tasmanian Devil wearing a wrestling uniform in our school’s colors. He got the tattoo when he was 18, and when he graduated a couple years later, he got it covered up with a tattoo of Jesus, because “I don’t want that shit on me for life.”
“And Taz is holding a doobie. Fuck yeah, he is.”
The doobie on my ink is a bit obscured, blocked by the sixer of mickey’s hand grenades that he is holding.