Ku Klux Klan Regalia and Insignia - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

The Ku Klux Klan costume has appeared in several modern day cultural references, some comical and others slightly more serious. Examples include:

• In "Pinkeye", an episode of South Park Eric Cartman appears to be dressed as a Klansman for Halloween when his principal makes a ghost costume with a pointed hood.
• The mini-series Roots contains a scene where a Confederate veteran is shown inventing an early KKK robe by accidentally burning two holes in a cloth sack with a cigar.
• The film Blazing Saddles features Cleavon Little, the sheriff, and Gene Wilder, a gunslinger, posing as Klansmen in order to join the gang of villain Hedley Lamar. The joke is that Little is black, and Wilder is Jewish.
• The film O Brother, Where Art Thou? contains a scene at a KKK rally.
• Playwright Larry Shue's 1983 comedy The Foreigner revolves around Charlie, a shy Englishman, and his accidental discovery of a plot by local Klansmen to appropriate a young woman's inheritance money to fund their endeavors.
• In the opening sequence of Alan Ball's True Blood there is a shot of a small boy in the robes of the Klan standing amongst adults in the same attire.