What ever happens in this world, there will always be rednecks in Alberta.
Be it the election of a gay prime minister or the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, those rednecks will be drinking pilsner on their multi-acre lands and driving their obnoxious rig trucks, just as they always have.
What ever happens in life, in Alberta, stereotypes live forever.
Nice, right? Being a born and raised Albertan, albeit not the type that one thinks of when hearing the phrase "born and raised Albertan", I find this sentiment oddly comforting. Setting the record straight here, I don't hate the gays, or the blacks, or the Asians, I don't own a truck, I don't own a tractor, I don't even own a pair of fucking cowboy boots.
But show me the Man with No Name and i'll get that old fuzzy feeling inside. Why you ask? What is it about non-communicative, hyper-masculine, shoot-first-ask-questions-later types that I love so much? Well kiddies, I'm gonna be straight up here. Gender roles are comforting.
Even the fucking Suzy homemaker image is comforting (in a longing way mostly, how I'd love to have been born a lesbian and get myself a little pin-up wifey with a passion for cupcakes and secret kinky bedroom desires).
I came to realize this is yet another temping adventure over the holiday break. Whilst manning the front desk at a small but decked-out energy services company (read: oil company. Oooo you made it sound all non environment-harming with the word 'energy'! I feel safe now!) I received a phone call. The man on the other end was courteous, friendly and ended the conversation with "thank you mam". He also possessed that non-accent accent that all prairie Albertans have and after hanging up I got the fuzzy feeling.
This man was most likely, as we call them in Alberta, a rig-pig. Rig-pigs aren't always ignorant assholes, but they probably drive à truck, probably find cowboy boots to be formal attire and probably have a few backwards ideas about feminists.
Nobody's perfect.
This phone call got me wondering how I, a young independent woman raised on the hardcore ideals of feminists before her, could feel comforted by a stereotype that portrays men and women as embodying traditional aspects of masculinity and femininity. What happened to that four-year old me that refused to wear dresses and despised the color pink? Had she lost her edginess along with her virginity?
Life crisis averted, I still hate pink and I still prefer pants. But I also can appreciate those old cowboys and housewives, who perhaps embody "simpler times" or times in which we just didn't have to analyze every aspect of our own identities to the point that 'identity' became a twisted and depressingly tangled introspective mess.
Red necks will always be around because they don't analyze their own stereotypical identities, they portray as is, they skim the surface. They think in socially backwards terms and that saves them from loosing any feeling of security in their own existences.
But hell, us intellectuals have kinkier sex. So you win some you lose some.
'DILF' of the Week
So Cee Lo Green's not exactly easy on the eyes but damn does his voice make you wanna move. The dudes sings like the most beautiful winged Aryan you could imagine and if you close your eyes he makes a pretty good soundtrack to the ridiculously choreographed personal musical number you've always dreamed of. I'm talking riding on a unicorn whilst making out with Johnny Depp here people. If the Almighty's got an orchestra, he's saving Cee Lo a spot at the front.
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