Great Moments in Kentucky Stereotyping: Roadkill Bingo Edition

by Becky

For the last few years, a British public relations firm hired by Kentucky's Department of Travel and Tourism  has been managing a website touting our great state. Last December, they added a little something new to the site. Well...

Just read below.

Drives can drag a bit, even with the jingle jangle of the banjo on the bluegrass-playing radio stations, so it’s good to spice them up with fun car games...

One popular game for long-distance trips is ‘roadkill bingo. OK, it seems a bit sick, spotting dead animals, but you will never see so much roadkill in your life, and so varied. Sadly, roadkill is a fact of life in Kentucky. The locals are used to it, and as they say, when in Rome. ... So if you can get over the sadness, and the blood, give it a whirl...

This is not from the tourism website. It's just something I found on the internets.

For the jackpot, however, it has to be a skunk; 10 points. Not because they are rare — they are not — but because when you drive slowly over a freshly killed one, it absolutely stinks. If you have the windows open or the sunroof up, award double points because the smell is overpowering. With the windows down you are at one with nature for some time: the smell — and it's as bad as the cartoons make out — stays in your car for up to five miles.

Needless today, the firm was fired and the tourism commissioner, Mike Cooper, has resigned his post. You can read more from nky.com here.

In a 2010 email, Cooper wrote of the PR firm's work, ‘I really like the site, especially the edginess of it. I wish we could get away with that over here!"

This article from the UK's Daily Mail follows that quote with:

Clearly, that ‘edginess’ is not accepted in Kentucky, and the state’s Republican leader spoke out about the great expense that the ordeal cost them.

"The fact that the state of Kentucky has spent close to $700,000 with a company that wants to bill us as the Roadkill Grill is just a ridiculous example of how we waste taxpayer dollars in Frankfort," said Steve Robertson, chairman of the state’s GOP group.

Ugh. I know roadkill bingo does not provide a flattering portrait of the varied wildlife and acres of lovely habitat in the Bluegrass State. But we're Kentucky. We're used to jokes about dead skunks and Dueling Banjos. None of that bothers me. I grew up here, I get the joke.

What bothers me is the insinuation that we don't get the joke. That "'edginess' is not accepted in Kentucky," and that we're so backwards, we don't even know how backwards we are.


A stereotype joke that is more delicious than roadkill. Taken at a friend's party.

One of my favorite aspects of Kentuckians is their sense of humor. We'll play the stereotype, the "happy hillbilly or the mean old redneck," as Callie likes to say. But we do it with our tongues in our toothless cheeks. Joke. That's a joke.

And if a British PR firm thinks that more people will want to visit us to see for themselves the mountain of dead animals clogging our rural byways, let 'em.

Because, hell. We get the joke.