The NRSC has been forced to pull an ad from the airwaves and Internets featuring a few hicks at a local diner talking about the Senate race in West Virginia. Normally nobody in Washington or West Virginia would think twice about this, because West Virginia is full of hicks, and everyone knows that. But Democrats found the casting call for this ad, which was shot in a Philadelphia diner with Pennsylvania actors. And it is apparently an insult when you actually list the way stereotypical West Virginia hicks look. You know, “Trucker hats (not brand new, preferably beat up).”
Here’s the casting call:
Wardrobe:
- We are going for a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look. These characters are from West Virginia so think coal miner/trucker looks- Each character should bring a several options and stay away from all black or all white or thin stripes (thicker stripes and plaid are good)
- Clothing Suggestions:
• Jeans
• Work boots
• Flannel shirt
• Denim shirt
• Dickie’s type jacket with t-shirt underneath
• Down filled vest
• John Deer hats (not brand new, preferably beat up)
• Trucker hats (not brand new, preferably beat up)
• No Thin Stripes
Yeah, that is probably sort of offensive if you are a normal person who happens to live in West Virginia and owns a shirt or two with “thin stripes.” And your afternoon editor will disagree with Dave Weigel on this, who said Republicans should have probably found some actual West Virginia hicks for this ad, and would have done so quite easily. Sure, you could have done that. But any hick you round up probably wouldn’t be very telegenic and would have trouble saying the lines without saying something racist about Obama.
Of course, the NRSC could have just covered the Republican candidate, rich business guy John Raese, in coal dust and thrown a coonskin cap on him. Same thing, right? “I will work together with Jay Rockefeller in the Senate to ensure there is a muskrat in every pot. That’s my promise to you, sealed by me shooting this shotgun in the air and jumping around.” [Salon]
{ 85 comments }
Wanted – fat fucks with one tooth between them. Sounds like an ad placed by Dick Morris in Craigslist.
Or an ad placed in Craigslist FOR Dick Morris!
By a hooker with those so, so suckable toes.
I'm surprised they didn't require the actors to undergo some teeth extraction and hold a mason jar full of moonshine.
Dang them book learned city folk with them fancy thin stripe shirts!!!
Dang them all!
Ma bes' frens cuzzins momma/sister wuz kilt ded by one-a them thin stripers!
I'm pretty damn sophisticated, what with my thin stripes and all. It's practically a PhD.
So, there's a shortage of actual, real life hicks? Maybe there's a shortage of real life hicks who can memorize their lines through the Wild Turkey haze.
In fairness, the "clothing suggestions" list could accurately be retitled, "things typically worn to a Teabag crybaby party." So it's not inaccurate.
Speaking of clothing, I think 'John Deer' hats is actually spelled John Deere.
Wouldn't an ad in West Vriginia be more effective if it was delivered by, oh, I don't know, messenger pigeon, or horseback messenger? Or on the outside of a tin of snuff? The flashy-talky-box seems like overkill.
I think his rates went sky high after the last few years. SkoalRebel don't need no got-damnyed casting calls!!!!!111
thin stripes sort of like "pin stripes"? Sort of like the New York Yankees?
Missing from the list: overalls/ coveralls.
Pigshit cocksleeve, aslo too.
and meth….
Sideshow Bob: I'm telling you Cecil, I can't take much more of this! Rustic workmen who've turned the saniJohn into a smokehouse! Coveralls that don't quite cover all!
And miners' hard hats.
So the take away here is that the only thing authentic about the Repugs is their douchebaggery.
Uh, have any of these GOP tards ever BEEN in West Virginia? Cause them fellers don't talk nuthin' like Real West Virginians. Needs moar guns- and religion-clinging, also.
The NRSC could have gotten folks from the Beckalapooza complete with Rascals and saved themselves the mockery.
As someone who lives in the city, that clothing list makes it seem to me like they're casting for lesbians.
"Oh Shropmire, do find us a few of these 'hick' people. I believe you can tell them by the large cars they drive and the meth lesions. And they must be overweight, no exceptions! Oh, and do ask them to bathe beforehand. That will be all."
I think the no thin stripes thing is actually so that they don't cause a moire or strobing on camera.
And to prevent *stroking* on camera, no pictures of Pristine O'Donnel embroidered on jean jackets.
I think now would be a good time for you to dust off that ol' "Flo the Waitress" getup you wore in the off-Broadway production of Alice: The Musical — something tells me we ain't seen the last of these here NRSC hicky flick New York actor casting calls.
Actually, I have a rider on my contracrt with my agent that I will not even audition for anything involving Republican or right wing groups. I will , however , be keeping my eyes peeled for any such Hicky breakdowns.
Also: NEEDZ MOAR MOIRE!!1
How bad a marketing person are you that you have to search for these people outside the republican party? I just assumed you could walk out of any office and grab the first "clerk" walking through republican hq. Isn't this what all of them already look like?
Harold Ford in the lower left corner…how is it possible for a black man to look like a cross between Archie & Richie Rich? His hair is practically cross-hatched.
Harold Ford, Jr. is literally a poorly done Wall Street Journal hedcut.
They went through all that trouble and the ad looks like it was shot on a sound stage with costumed actors reading from a script — I'm surprised Mel wasn't wiping the countertop down. That's your new GOP — the bastards can't even fake authenticity anymore.
"But any hick you round up probably wouldn’t be very telegenic…"
Yeah, these professionals are just gorgeous. And so talented!
I blame the Jews.
"Do you smell that? It's pandering, son. Nothing else on the world smells like that. I love the smell of pandering in the morning."
Why this almost makes it sound like the Republicans are cynical and pandering. Hard to believe. After all, they coulda filmed this in Wasilla with no fancy pants casting call needed.
His spirit was channeled by Cartman on South Park last night, so I suspect his 15 minutes are up. That or he's beyond such trivia as local market ads.
And no one thought to call the Palin clan?
Hicks? Check.
Jeans, boots, denim? Check. Check. Check.
Do anything for a buck? Check.
In there defense, maybe the spelled it wrong. "Hickey" blue collar?
Word of warning: if anyone in West Virginia offers to give you a "hickey-blue collar," you tell them naw.
Why not just write 'no minorities'?
Or, how about "ass-clenched, geezers only"?
"These characters are from West Virginia" already says that.
Shouldn't they have just hired Jackie and Dunlap?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f45K8Jh14-k
I knew they were actor faux hicks from the first words out of their mouths because I understood every word.
Teeth optional.
It takes a Potemkin Village, to elect a republican.
i hope no one gets the breakdowns for florida.
Last I saw, SkoalBandit looked to be an excessive burden for any mode of transportation.
Why didn't they just get Fred Thompson? He's available.
I'm Jinxed! Should have read ALL the comments before I posted mine.
• Underwear skidmarks
• Ball-peen hammer
The casting director just hates alt rock and was slightly confused. He meant no White Stripes t-shirts.
It's a damn shame about that gay-ass "No Thin Stripes" rule — the "Blue Collar" (and "Blue Elbow"!) "Hickabee" boys woulda chewed the ever-loving shit outta that there diner scenery.
Well, seriously, real West Virginians can't read the script.
Attention West Virginia! The GoP thinks you're all assholes.
Worthless Republican jackoffs don't even know how to spell "John Deere."
Ask 'em what color John Deere is?
A friend of mine played in an all-girl country band that had a song called, "Dear John I'm leavin' on your old John Deere."
It might be hard to get cooperation from the talent, but it would be great if they could get Cleetus the Slack-Jawed Yokel and Kenny's family to do an ad for them.
So if our Wonkette disagrees with Weigel on "hire real hicks for yer ads", is their position that the NRSC just shouldn't have been dumbfucks and kept the casting call very quiet?
Couldn't they just keep some hick character actors on retainer, which would be probably cheaper than making like three of these ads per state, with a new cast and set every time? It's not like The Base would give a fuck.
In other words, the ad is just as fake as Sheer "Am i An Idiot?" InSannity's laugh.
InSannity, of course, is the most recent winner of the Nathan Lane Lookalike Contest. First price was two weeks on Fire Island.
What? Were Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee already booked?
To be fair, Philadelphia is the major metropolitan area where you are most likely to find hick-like non-hicks. Just go to Fishtown and find some guys with pick-up trucks and few teeth. Yay, casting!
Nah, Fishtown has been gentrified (though now the new casino has just opened, who knows how that will affect things); the Northeast proper is where you'll find a lot of hick-like white folks, many of whom are also racists like real hicks.
There are still plenty of those types in Fishtown, if you can avoid the hipsters. Just check out those guys who beat the guy to death down at the stadiums after a Phillies game last(?) season. I'll bet at least one of those winners owns a trucker hat. Or the folks that the NY Times interviewed before the '08 election who said that they were votin' for the n-word. There's certainly more of that in the Great Northeast, but Fishtown is a much more central location to obtain your toothless racists.
Where's Joe the Plumber when you need him? Is his look too upmarket for this ad? Too articulate? Is he stripe-prone in a thinnish way?
I like it–in an unguarded moment, the contempt Republicans really have for their base just shines through.
Right on…"we're for the workers! We're for families! …and we need hicks to get this point across."
Fuckers all. I hate them with the power of a thousand suns.
Nothing about the republicans is real. Yuck. They are such freaks, too. Also.
Yeah, as a person from West Virginia, these comments are exactly why we hate this guy.
so at first i thought this was silly, since i always agree with wonkette (you guys are worse than bill o to an impressionable young white girl in this big city).
but then i talked to my boyfriend, who is an actually West Virginian person, and he was pretty offended. we were talking in gchat and i am just too goddamn lazy to re-format this, so just pretend its Dada like that Pinheads and Patriots review.
for someone who cares about the state, though. which this guy evidently wants us to believe. evidently.
it's pretty tough to swallow that pill
i mean, if you consider the history of WV
the economic plight of those hills' people
the lack of a voice they have had
to try to pass people off as west virginians is more than just mildly offensive
it's a continuation of a terrible, terrible history.
an awful story that just keeps going on.
on the other hand, joe mansion is a fucking weasel
and i might kill him if i had the chance.
so it's a toss up, and like everything west virginia related i have to shrug my shoulders, palms to the sky, and go "this is too fucked to even care about anymore."
amen. (?) (!)
If you and yer boyfriend ain't already know 'bout it, y'all might have a good ol' time surfin' a spell over yonder at West Virginian former Republican John Cole's political and pet picture blog hollar, balloon-juice.com.*
*(I ran this comment through the NRSC's "English-to-West Virginian" translator app before posting so that it would be more easily understood by you and your boyfriend.)
I was born in Fairmont and my whole family is there, and I was groomed to be a future hickster before my nuclear family left for NY when I was 5. I am consequently about 1/8th hick.
West Virginia *is* full of hicks, but so is every state (maybe not every state so bad as WVa, but still…) My family there is educated fringe hick, but definitely bumkin to the core, as is every person I know there, some of whom take great care to overcompensate by being nauseatingly extra-bourgeois, like in Morgantown.
But don't take the stereotyping personally. Not only is it tongue-in-cheek, but the first sentence of the next-to-last paragraph in the Wonkette entry above allows for normal people to exist in WVa – presumably like your boyfriend, but probably not. I'll bet he's 9/10ths hick at least, with 1/10th off for making it up to Pittsburgh every so often, which is like WVa's version of what Toronto means to Buffalonians. Also, hick, hicky, hickington, hickadoodledoo, hickalupagus, hickory stick.
Wanted, Three Sheep Fucking Shills – Pay DOE
One more missing item from the list:
Dignity (not brand new, preferably beat up)
He doesn't "read" for parts anymore.
Not that he could "read" at all before.
No sir, no hillbillies to see here. Those gentleman all have 5 fingers per hand. I would have thought the GOP would have this stereotype down cold by now.
No thin stripes! Thin stripes are slimming. We need fat fucks with diabetes and mouth cancer.
Are they sure that wasn't a casting call for gay porn?
NEEDZ MOAR BANJO PLAYERS!
The tragic irony of West Virginia is that the land is so beautiful and the people are so fugly.
These actors are too articulate to be believable. I'll need a clipboard and some chewin tobaccy, NRSC. Time to head down to Walmart and round up some hicks to speachify on the talky box.
Go, Philly, Go, Philly! The GOP loves Philly- Mikey Steele hired homeless guys from Philly to hand out his literature when he ran for Senate in Maryland/
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