Unplugging the Cable Guy

CD/DVD Review

Steve Carr

Larry the Cable Guy reflects the sentiments of his audience back at them like a languid affirmation — all in the guise of telling it like it is.

Known for his sleeveless flannel shirts, thick Southern accent, weather trucker caps and his ubiquitous catch phrase, “git-r-done,” Larry the Cable Guy is actually Dan Whitney, a Nebraska native who went to private school and didn’t move to the South until he was 16. He is an American in the rigidly nationalistic Lee Greenwood, love-it-or-leave-it, flag sticker on the bumper kind of way.

Fellow comedians Doug Stanhope and David Cross have both taken the Cable Guy to task on their respective Web sites for what they variously perceive as his racism, simplemindedness, phoniness and craven marketing (besides the usual hats, T-shirts and performance videos, his Web site also sells infant wear, key chains, thong underwear and bandanas). Stanhope, as is his fashion, is particularly nasty, calling Larry out for “appealing to the absolute stupidest, water-brained Velveeta cheese flag-monkeys on the planet.”

The latest salvo comes from Steve Hofstetter, a popular college comedian and columnist whose debut CD/DVD, Cure for the Cable Guy, not so subtly hangs Larry in effigy on the cover and pokes fun at “comics who rely on ignorance, apathy and racism.”

David Cross labels Larry a symptom of America’s “anti-intellectual pride.”
We’ve been dumbing ourselves down for so long that a backlash was bound to come. Larry just happens to be the most obvious representation of a much larger issue.

Nothing scares a fatted calf like a comic with a brain in his head and a chip on his shoulder. Comedy is a license to say anything; at its best it offers carte blanche to push limits, challenge an audience, confront hypocrisy and topple idols. Larry prefers to do none of that and instead reflects the sentiments of his audience back at them like a languid affirmation — all in the guise of telling it like it is. That choice may not be inherently wrong; most popular entertainment is more comforting that confrontational, but it is lazy. People deserve better entertainment. It is good to see some of them starting to demand it.