Review: Squidbillies “Southern Pride and Prejudice”

Take that, “traditional southerners.”

Spoilers Below

There has always been the debate as to whether the Confederate flag represents traditional southern values, heritage, ancestral history or a time in which slavery was accepted and people of non-Anglo Saxon heritage were considered property. I actually live in the South, so I’ve witnessed this debate first-hand more times than I’ve started up my car. Personally, I can definitely understand how the flag is offensive to African Americans, and I’m white. Some people will say that it has nothing to do with slavery, and while that may be true to them, it represents a section of this country in which slavery was much more dominant and considered a part of everyday life for white plantation owners. Squidbillies tackles this issue in the most clever and surprisingly subtle way that I’ve seen to date.

Early has no issue with the Confederate flag; in fact, he is in favor of displaying it as often and prominently as possible. Dan Halen outlaws the image, and that just makes Early angrier. Rusty looks into the history and finds that squids were actually subhuman objects to the founding fathers and wealthy whites of the land during the period that the Confederate flag was flown over the Georgian valleys. After Early gets the image tattooed to his face, he also learns the truth. Suddenly, Early is all for banning the image and to rectify the situation on his face, he gets the tattoo completely redone in a solid black coverup (that’s right, he’s now in blackface).

“Southern Pride and Prejudice” takes the issue to a new outlandish level, that you can’t deny is funny is on some level. It doesn’t even come off as slightly offensive, because Early is just so stupid and I get the feeling that the episode was written to poke fun at just how ridiculous the whole controversy is. In my humble opinion, I’m sure that some people don’t consider the how the Confederate symbol hurts those who had slaves as distinct family members; but I personally think that no matter what, it carries the idea of slavery being an acceptable practice and that in itself is damaging to African Americans. For the second week in a row, I have to say, “Good going Dave.”