"Our captain has a handicap to cope with, sad to tell.
He's from Georgia, and he doesn't speak the language very well."
—
Tom Lehrer, It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier
Hailing from the
Deep South of the continental United States, he's a stereotypical cigar-chompin'
Good Ol' Boy who thinks shootin' and
blowin' stuff up is nothing but fun or at least doesn't take it as seriously as others in
The Squad.
He speaks with a heavy drawl or accent and often peppers his speech with odd euphemisms or folksy sayings that leave others confused or at a loss for words. Should he earn a promotion to officer, this will manifest as addressing his subordinates as "Son" and "Boy".
His apparent lack of common sense is meant to indicate limited intelligence in general, and he's sometimes shown having a hard time understanding things that more urban-bred (and therefore educated) members of
The Squad have no trouble at all with. On the other hand, he usually excels at shootin', fightin', and findin' things in the woods — all skills you need to be a good soldier — because he's been doing those since birth back home.
He's the foil for any minority or
New Meat soldiers in the unit, as he almost exclusively gets to play the role of the insular xenophobe. Of course, if he makes it as far as participating in some foreign battle zone, you can count on him ignorantly blundering about and angering the locals to the frustration of his commanders.
Even if this character is written as an officer, it is important to remember that this is a class-specific trope. A military officer with southern accent, a good education and a genteel matter is not usually a
Southern Fried Private, but an attempt by the writer to provide some variety among a group of characters who might otherwise speak and dress pretty much the same. Good examples of this type would be
"Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley) on
Star Trek: The Original Series, Surgeon Wilkins (Chill Wills) in the
John Wayne cavalry classic
Rio Grande, and Chief Engineer "Trip" Tucker on
Star Trek: Enterprise.
For those outside the US?
Any geographical area of any country that's seen as being a bit backwards or woodsy can breed a non-US version of this character.
Despite the title, this trope is not a cross between
Groin Attack and
Kill It with Fire.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- The Black Tri-Stars of Mobile Suit Gundam were given thick Southern accents in the dub, which carry over to appearances in other media, including the Dynasty Warriors Gundam series.
Comic Books
Film
- Barry Pepper as squad sharpshooter Pvt. Jackson speaks in a southern drawl and prays out loud while he blows away Nazis in Saving Private Ryan.
Jackson: Be thou not far from me, oh Lord... <Blam!> Oh my strength, haste thee to help me... <Blam!>
- Vernon Pinkley in the The Dirty Dozen. There's also Archer Maggot, but he's a genuine full-blown psychopath, not just an ignorant, insular hick.
- Averted in the film Jarhead where the character Kruger (Lucas Black) is a Texan with a very thick accent and displays some of the tendencies above, but is by far the most outspoken critic of the military operation (such as the lack of free speech for soldiers and possible health dangers of the anti-chemical weapon pills they're given).
- Hamburger Hill Sgt. Dennis "Dont mean Nuttin" Worchester.
- Chef from Apocalypse Now.
- Numerous characters in The Thin Red Line, some of them needlessly aggressive, others prone to articulate philosophizing.
- Lt. Aldo Raine. He's a Lieutenant, not a Private, but he's still a hick from Maynardville, Tennessee—he even brings up making moonshine at one point.
- Conrad in Three Kings - "I rigged the football with C-4, sir.". Although possibly subverted, as he later gains respect for the Iraqi locals, so much so that he requests to be interred by them.
- PFC Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name. Also his buddy Bubba Blue.
Lieut. Dan: Where' you boys from in The World?
Gump and Blue: Alabama, sir!
Dan (amused): You twins?
Gump (confused): No. We are not relations, sir.
- Captain Duke Forrest in M*A*S*H.
- Private Cowboy in Full Metal Jacket. Subverted in the book, where they only call him that because of his hat.
Folklore
Literature
- Ripper from The Zone novels, who drives everyone mad with his unbelievable stories of his family's misadventures back home in Hicksville.
- The West Virginian uptimers in the 1632 series plays with this. While the Americans are quite intelligent and adaptable contrary to the "stupid hick" stereotype, several are easy-going good natured fellows when they are not blowing things up, at times to the point of giving a Mildly Military impression to some observers.
- Corporal Opie Dalrymple in Rally Round the Flag, Boys! by Max Shulman. He was a country music star before he was drafted, but being in the Army doesn't stop him from writing new songs or weaken his drawl.
Live Action TV
- Gomer Pyle USMC, arguably a light-hearted take on the trope. Gomer was too nice to picture him as an "insular xenophobe" though he is certainly "insular".
- Luther Rizzo from the later seasons of M*A*S*H fits in here, although he's actually a sergeant and doesn't do a lot of shooting or bombing. He hails from Louisiana, is fond of cigars and folksy sayings, and when kids from the orphanage are reluctant to try his Cajun cooking at a Christmas feast, he blames it on them being from North Korea, and the way he says 'North' suggests he's not thinking of Communists.
- Denver 'Bull' Randleman from Band of Brothers, to a certain degree.
- The Pacific: Sid Phillips and Eugene Sledge are from Mobile, Alabama; Merriel "Snafu" Shelton is from Louisiana.
- A subversion is Finn Abernathy of Bones, who exhibits all of the traits above (especially colloquial speech), but is extremely brilliant, impressing even Brennan.
Machinima
Music
- From Tom Lehrer's "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier":
"Our captain has a handicap to cope with, sad to tell/"
"He's from Georgia and he doesn't speak the language very well."
Newspaper Comics
- Beetle Bailey had one of these, named "Bammy", in its early years.
Real Life
- Truth in Television in the United States, where 20% of the US population lives in rural areas, but those same rural areas supply nearly half of all military recruits
.
- And Texas A&M University supplies more commissioned military officers than any school in the United States aside form the service academies.
Video Games
- The Engineer from Team Fortress 2 seems to be a subversion; he is referred to as a "good ol' boy" in his profile, but also has 11 PhDs and tends to engage in Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness. Also unlike most "good ol' boys," the Engie can't shoot his pistol to save his life. The most accurate pistoleer is actually the Frenchman!
- Haggard from Battlefield: Bad Company averts this trope to an extent. One one side, he has a southern accent, is somewhat dumb, has dated a cousin, and he's only in the army because he loves blowing things up. On the other, he welcomes the new guy as easily as the rest of the squad does, is more trusting of the hostage than Sarge is, and merrily hops across a border chasing the same gold the rest of the squad has to persuade itself to chase.
- In Grand Theft Auto IV, there's a TV show Halo parody called Republican Space Rangers, in which three such characters explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and nuke them all to hell for being weird and different.
- Just about anyone with a speaking role in Starcraft, from the main characters of General Edmund Duke, Jim Raynor, and Raynor's buddy Tychus Finnely all the way down to the Terran Marines.
- Corporal Dunn of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has a southern accent, and is a bit less serious about the Rangers' situation than Foley, at least when not under fire. He also has something of a sarcastic streak and displays some disdain towards General Shephard and his "prima donna unit".
- A Star Wars version is Smugglers' companion Corso Riggs from Star Wars: The Old Republic. Complete with drawl (yes, "Yee-Haw" is one of his battle cries), old fashioned attitudes towards women, and cheerful enthusiam towards his collection of weaponry.
Western Animation
