Last week I was in the South (Georgia and South Carolina) for Thanksgiving weekend. A lot has been written about "Red" and "Blue" America. Here in Blue Minnesota's Twin Cities I don't see many American flags painted directly on cars (vs. the removable kind), but in Red Georgia (Atlanta) I saw several, and many of those flags were accompanied by "God Bless America" text, which I've never seen here. What up?
I think a lot of this has to do with post-9/11 America. My dad, not one to be a flag-waving type, stuck an American flag decal on my car when I first bought it. My mom is kind of uber-patriotic and sticks American flags wherever she can, but actually, this trend also permeates Wisconsin... makes me think that perhaps it's a blue-collar thing. I tend to think of Minnesota, specifically Minneapolis, as white-collar, but Wisconsin as a whole is a pretty blue-collar state, as are lots of portions of the South and so on. Could make for an interesting ethnographical study!
Posted by: vix at December 4, 2004 02:48 PMWalt-
Southern Indiana is not Georgia, but there's a similar phenomenon down here. I've seen at least 3 cars in recent months that were painted entirely in red, white and blue with American flags sticking out of every corner. One I saw honestly looked like a patriotic three-year old had assembled it and colored it with her crayolas. As you know, I grew up in a white, working-class town, and as a kid I recall seeing lots of vans, pickup trucks and old cars painted in garish colors and kooky designs...well before this latest bout of flag fever. It may be class-related, or maybe a folklorist would call it art...it is interesting though.