Country Music

People who listen to country music are usually viewed as white, patriotic, unintelligent males who seem to spend all day in their pickup trucks cruising down mud roads or parked outside of a trailer park. I know we've all heard the many names for these people such as rednecks or hillbillies. But how did these stereotypes of country music come into play? Most view country music as the number 1 music of our country. It seems as if everyone in some way, shape, or form can relate their lives to a number of country songs. The patriotic stereotype seems to originate from songs like Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue", with lyrics that sing, "And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A. 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass; it's the American way," What patriotic American couldn't relate to that song? And you would be labeled as Un-american if you couldn't. As for the unintelligence stereotype, the lyrics seem to be direct and anyone with a brain could understand almost every message each country song was trying to get across. Also, country music seems to have originated in the south, and the southern states have a reputation of being dumb or poorly educated. The justifications of this argument are completely wrong. In fact highly educated people have been proven to listen to country music. As for the patriotism, many country songs and listeners are highly supportive of our nation and our troops and they tend to show it in their songs more often than rock or hip-hop artists. Therefore, the patriotic stereotype tends to hold somewhat true.