‘King of the Hill’ co-creator says Hollywood often treats southerners ‘as a sort of caricature’
During an interview with Texas Monthly on Monday, "King of the Hill" co-creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels explained how they aimed to portray their Southern characters with 'dignity,' rather than relying on the typical caricature of Southern Americans.
Judge, who grew up in New Mexico, right next door to Texas, explained how he and Daniels wished to break from the stereotypical portrayal of Southerners when they created "King of the Hill" back in 1997.
"From the beginning, Greg and I wanted to like these characters. We’re on their side. A lot of Hollywood treats anyone with a Southern accent as a sort of caricature. We were real conscious of treating these characters with dignity," he told the outlet.
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Daniels noted that people tend to feel "seen" when creators actually do their research on the group of people they are portraying in their shows, and accurately depict the subtle nuances of their lives.
When Daniels began his work on another hit television show, "The Office," he was met with skepticism from the people of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the show is based, fearing that the show would simply make fun of the blue-collar city and its residents.
"People feel seen when you’ve done the research. I took that spirit into The Office," he noted. "The people of Scranton were worried in the beginning, because they were used to being made fun of. And I was like, 'No, I’m coming off of King of the Hill. We try to do stories that get it right.'"
Saladin K. Patterson, the showrunner for the upcoming "King of the Hill" revival, recalled an interview with a voice actor from Singapore — who was also a huge fan of the show — and shared his thoughts on the creators' portrayal of Southerners.
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"We were interviewing a voice actor who grew up in Singapore and was a big fan of ‘King of the Hill,’ and he said it was one of the few American shows that the Singapore government would let them watch," he explained. "We asked him, ‘Did that give you a particular view of Southern America?’ And he was like, ‘We didn’t know they were Southern. We just thought they were American.’ To people outside of the country, King of the Hill actually represents America."
With many of the TV shows in the late 90s and early 2000s casting fathers as clueless and out of the loop, the "King of the Hill" creators decided to take their TV dad, Hank Hill, in a different direction.
"Certainly when we were doing it, every TV dad was the fat dummy. And we were like, ‘Let’s jump back to ’Father Knows Best,'" Daniels recalled.
This philosophy wasn't just applied to the show's father figure, it was also applied to the show's mother, Peggy Hill, according to Judge.
"It seemed a little rebellious, and then when [voice actor Kathy Najimy] started playing Peggy in a certain way, it became fun to have her be wrong sometimes, and go a little crazy," he said.
"King of the Hill" ran from 1997 to 2010 and is being revived with a new season in August.