Mind if I get up on my soapbox really quick? Oh, you do? Well, here it goes anyway:
If your reason for assuming that Coyle is stupid is just because he’s southern, then you need to check your prejudice. You’re actively spreading harmful stereotypes already constantly seen in media, and are only causing further harm to a community.
You already felt that way prior to the letter, so let’s not go there, and there’s previous evidence already in place to suggest that it’s due to forced drug use and increased paranoia. He has nice handwriting, and all former/earlier instances of his writing are shown to have no spelling errors. You just latched onto this as an excuse to make more “Southerners are stupid” jokes.
You want him to be stupid, because you want your prejudiced ideas to be reinforced. You want him to be stupid, because he’s southern. You think he’s stupid, because he’s southern, even if plenty of his lines suggest the exact opposite. He’s not the most well spoken individual in the world, but he in no way comes across as uneducated.
You don’t take the abuse he faced as a child seriously, because of harmful beliefs about the commonality of incest in the south. You think the line about him kissing his mother is funny, because he’s southern. You’re not considering the larger implications of childhood sexual abuse that he normalized and blamed himself for as an unhealthy way to cope.
If Coyle sounded like Franco, you would talk about him differently. If he sounded like the Kress twins, you would talk about him differently. If he sounded like Easterman, you would talk about him differently? Do you see where I’m going with this? You are so comfortable calling him stupid, because he’s southern, and because of harmful stereotypes that you have been raised to think are fine. You cannot remove him from the context of being southern, because it is relevant to him as a character, but it does not- in anyway- make him stupid.
Anyway, getting off of my soapbox now.
Sincerely, a person from the south.
