/ 10 July 2007

US rednecks belly-flop at festival

Belly-flopping in the mud, tossing toilet seats and guzzling beer, average Joes celebrated the unrefined life of the American “redneck” at a wacky annual event initially held as a counterpart to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Setting the tone for the daylong pseudo-athletic antics, a toothless man who calls himself “Freight Train” kicked off the event on Saturday by lighting the propane-fuelled, beer-can-adorned ceremonial torch to whooping and hollering from the crowd.

His ability to touch his nose with his lower lip earned him the title of official mascot of the Redneck Summer Games in East Dublin, Georgia.

The top favourite was evidently the mud-pit belly flop. Contestants with a large beer gut — and there are quite a few — have a marked advantage as they produce a bigger splash when they land belly first in the pit filled with muddy water.

The winner gets a trophy featuring a crushed beer can, though the precise rules are somewhat vague, reflecting the redneck’s laid-back reputation.

The Confederate flags that adorn just about everything from bikinis to pick-up trucks, as well as the distinctive drawl in conversations, leave little doubt this is the heart of the United States South, home of the proud and controversial American redneck.

“Being a redneck is a heritage; it’s the way we’re born and raised, it’s a way of life,” says Rick Humphrey, who manages the local radio station that runs the event. He admits, though, there is no precise definition, as just about everybody seems to have an opinion on what makes a redneck.

But one thing is certain — and the toilet-seat-hurling competition made this quite clear — it’s definitely not your refined wine-and-cheese crowd.

“I’m a redneck cos’ I drink beer; I party and I don’t care about much,” says Brenda Cross, a woman of generous proportions and undetermined age who sold pork rinds at the fair.

Tongue-in-cheek humour also appears to be a prerequisite, and “Freight Train”, who holds no steady job but earns money making funny faces at country fairs, obviously qualifies. “I used to have a wife, but her husband came got her,” he says. “I don’t have no cavities either cos’ I don’t have no teeth.”

The word “redneck” can be pejorative or pronounced with pride, depending who uses it. It has political connotations because of its association with the Confederate flag, once the banner of the southern states that seceded in the 1860s partly so they would not have to abolish slavery.

“To some a redneck is just a country southerner; to some he’s white trash. For black people, he’s the man who used to crack the whip,” says Bobby Johnson, of the arch-conservative League of the South, which had a stand at the event.

The stereotype of the US redneck is a low-income southerner who lives in a trailer, drives a battered pick-up truck with a gun rack, chews tobacco, hunts squirrels and barbecues roadkill.

The negative image is in a way what gave birth to the Redneck Summer Games. When nearby Atlanta hosted the Olympics in 1996, the local radio station came up with the idea to show the world what the event would look like if it were run by rednecks.

Humphrey says the games both celebrate and spoof the redneck way of life.

In one of the events, contestants dunk their heads in a bucket of water and use their mouths to retrieve raw pigs’ feet — a reminder of the pickled trotters served at many southern bars.

The good thing about the games, in Humphrey’s view, is nothing can really go wrong, “because it’s all a bunch of rednecks who drink beer, jump in the river and don’t worry about anything”. — AFP