Karen Bettez Halnon, Ph.D.

Contact Karen Halnon, author of this research and the book Poor Chic: Poverty Fads, Fashions, and Media in Popular Consumer Culture(forthcoming).

Web site developed by web master, Daryl Fenstad, Senior at Penn State Abington, Spring 2008

E-mail your “Poor Chic” photos to Dr. Halnon and she may use them on this web site or in her upcoming book!

Updated last: June 25th, 2008

All images and photos displayed on this web site are in the public domain, are royalty free, or were donated by students

“White Trash” Mockery

White Trash Mockery, a Poor Chic subtype, refers to an array of fads, fashions, and media in popular consumer culture that make stylish or recreational and often expensive ‘fun’ of White poverty.

Poor Whites are stereotyped and stigmatized in popular consumer culture with imagery of:

• Trailer Parks
• Pink Flamingos
• PBR
• Dive Bars
• Wife Beaters (white tank-top T-shirts)
• Rednecks
• Drunkards

Poor Whites are ridiculed further in books such as White Trash Etiquette and in products available at places such as Redneck Warehouse.

White Trash Mockery, like other Poor Chic subtypes, is about objectification, stratification, and struggle in and through popular consumer culture. White Trash Mockery objectifies and stratifies by providing a vivid spectacle of a “class savage otherness,” or a class ‘below,’ in a society where lines between classes are becoming increasingly unclear.

White Trash Mockery also corrects for the rich who act so-called ‘trashy’ through media constructions of “super trash,” “celebrity scum,” and “celebutards.” Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Kid Rock and Pam Anderson are some of the best examples of the media construction of “super trash.”