Trailer trash

Trailer trash (or trailer park trash) is a derogatory North American English term for a small percentage of poor people living in a trailer or a mobile home.[1][2] It is particularly used to denigrate white people living in such circumstances[3] and can be considered to fall within the category of racial slurs.[4] The term has increasingly replaced “white trash” in public and television usage as the latter expression became more politically incorrect.

Pejorative meaning

The term is mostly used as a pejorative to imply poor hygiene, low-level language skills, limited education, slovenly or sexual style of dress, sexual flirtation and promiscuity, and aggressive social behavior associated with people that live in trailers.

In art, entertainment, and media

Music

Billy Ray Cyrus' song "Burn Down the Trailer Park" and Toby Keith's song "Trailerhood" and contain humorous lyrics about living in a trailer park.

Colt Ford's song "No Trash in My Trailer" (2009) tells of a redneck-type male who throws his girlfriend out of his mobile home, the message being "there ain't no trash in my trailer, since the day I threw you outta here."

The song "Trailer Trash" appears on Modest Mouse's album The Lonesome Crowded West (1997).

Eminem refers to himself as "Dale Earnhardt of the trailer park, the White Trash God" in his song "Rap God" from the album The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013).

Television

Most of the residents of the Pimmett Hills Trailer Park on My Name Is Earl fit this stereotype to some degree or another.

The Canadian television series Trailer Park Boys, done in mockumentary style, documents the misadventures of the residents of the Sunnyvale Trailer Park.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Spears, Richard A. (1 Oct 2005). McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions:. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0071461078. Retrieved 24 February 2015. the poorest of people who live in run-down house trailers in bad neighborhoods. (Used with singular or plural force. Rude and derogatory.) : She's just trailer trash. Probably doesn't even own shoes.
  2. ↑ Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. poor people living in trailer parks in the US
  3. ↑ "Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon". Dictionary.com, LLC. a poor, lower-class white person, esp. one living in a mobile home with trash in the vicinity
  4. ↑ Henderson, Anita (Spring 2003). "What's in a Slur?". American Speech. 78 (1): 52–74. doi:10.1215/00031283-78-1-52. Retrieved 11 January 2013.

Further reading

External links

Look up trailer trash in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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