Veggie Tales Creator and Karen Swallow Prior Thumb Their Nose at ‘Cracker-Barrel Christians’
download from CBRL media library 2-2016
Veggie Tales creator Phil Vischer, the man who swears heβs not progressive despite knocking creationists as a bunch of dummies, crediting his white privilege for the success of his show, arguing that liberals and Democrats are the real pro-lifers who have been reducing abortion, and recently claiming he didnβt know there was such things black Christians until he was an adult, took a few minutes to engage in some good old fashioned elitism and spiritual snobbery when discussing the demographic differences between those who eat at Whole Foods and Cracker Barrel.
Explaining that people who are more politically or culturally liberal are more comfortable with uncertainty or with trying new things and who have the excitement of discovery (such as himself) He contrasts this to old homely Cracker Barrel, where the conservatives who go there are “psychologically less comfortable with uncertainty” and rooted in a need for the familiar while “ejecting new ideas.”
PHIL VISCHER: I’ve read research that shows that conservatives, and not Christian conservatives, but just people who are generally conservative are psychologically less comfortable with uncertainty. People that are politically liberal or culturally liberal are also more comfortable with uncertainty or with trying new things.
For example, I don’t know if you saw the statistics, something like 80 percent of Whole Foods stores are in a district that’s represented by a Democrat in Congress. And it’s reverse for Cracker Barrel stores. Eighty percent of Cracker Barrel stores-
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR: That explains my home, my town here!
VISCHER: Yes. Are in a district that’s represented by a Republican. And so I saw someone who then used that to say, and Cracker Barrel is about the comfort of familiarity. Whole Foods is about the excitement of discovery, of finding something new. A cheese from somewhere else. So that you can kind of use those two to, you know, just those two ideas as: if you are conservative, you like the comfort of certainty.
So I’m wondering how much, you know, because Christianity in America has become so closely aligned with conservative values, which came first: the conservatism or the rejection of new ideas or trying, or going to Whole Foods, basically? How long has Christianity been Cracker Barrel and not Whole Foods and which came first: the Cracker Barrel or the Christianity?
HT to @wokepreachertv for the video and transcript
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This story reminds me of a joke I once heard, “Two idiots walk into a bar…”
Is Phil Vischer aware that most Cracker Barrels are located by Interstates? Does he understand that those restaurants exist to make money by serving food to travelers who want more than drive-through vittles?
I think all of this newfound handwringing of his merely points out that he is incapable of dealing with the fact that most of the criminals in VeggieTales were voiced with Latino-sounding inflections. And I assume that was by his choice. Those kind of things do not randomly happen.
He needs to apologize and find new work out of the public sphere.
It will be better for his psyche that way.
Whole Foods stores are in upscale neighborhoods in large cities because thats where there is a higher percentage of people that will pay more for groceries in order to buy organic. You could say the same thing for Gucci, Ann Taylor, and Armani stores. Nothing to do with risk, Mr Vischer and Ms Prior are just flattering themselves, and pretending they are not elitists. BTW my Kroger now has almost as many organic selections as the Whole Foods down the street from them; they are really cutting into Whole Foods market it seems to me. Maybe my Krogering in the organic cereal section indicates Iβm just a natural risk-taker! Lol.
Let me get this straight.
They think conservative Christians are people who eat at Cracker Barrel because they like certainty and don’t read Catcher in the Rye because their kids might leave the faith.
Furthermore, the same attitudes that influence dining and reading habits are “detrimental” to the Christian faith for…reasons?