Caesar of the Hill: Hank and Horace in Arlen, Texas Zane Shirley

When I was growing up, my mother would not let my brother and me watch shows like The Simpsons , Futurama , or King of the Hill . She called them “grownup cartoons,” claiming to hate the way that they always presented adults as fools and idiots. She did not want her children to be raised with such disrespectful mindsets. Of course, banning these shows only made me desire to watch them more. By my young adulthood I had seen the entirety of Futurama (1999-2013) and much of The Simpsons (1987-Present), but the show that truly stayed with me was King of the Hill (1997-2010). I imagine it stuck because the main characters are exactly the kind of people who would never allow their child to watch King of the Hill The show’s satire rests in its caricatures of rural America and their interactions with the rest of society. Echoing the satire of ancient Rome, the pro-countryliving stance of King of the Hill makes it very easy to see its roots in the works of Horace. It is funny without being over the top. It certainly mocks its characters, but it also shows them overcoming their flaws. It makes no prescriptions about a right and wrong way to live, it merely shows where the cognitive dissonances of one’s ideology reside. In King of the Hill , Horace has already retired to his modest home in the country, and he has begun satirizing the people who never left the country in the first place. Horace will find, however, that one can leave the city, but its problems will follow you anywhere.

King of the Hill follows the lives of Hank Hill, his friends, and family in the small fictional town of Arlen, Texas. Bobby, Hank’s son, is a middle schooler going through puberty and all that accompanies it. Peggy, Hank’s wife, is a substitute Spanish teacher who is not particularly good at Spanish. His menagerie of friends consists of Dale Gribble (a vaguely libertarian, conspiracy-loving gun nut), Jeff Boomhauer (a bachelor who speaks in an incomprehensible southern accent), and Bill Dauterive (a high school football star turned alcoholic army barber). Hank is a middle manager at a local propane company, and the man lives and breathes his catchphrase, “propane and propane accessories.” The show may seem a simple caricature of rural and suburban rednecks living their simple lives. However, to those raised in the environment in which the show takes place, it strikes a chord. To people from the American lower-middle class, especially the South, the show stars familiar characters from our little Southern hometowns. We all know them, and we are certain that they are still living there. King of the Hill ’s greatest asset is its ability to make the people it is lampooning laugh and think, “Shucks, that’s just like me.”

Hank Hill is not a rich man, he is a working class everyman and carries the baggage that comes with it. Hank never went to college, he still works for the man who hired him after high school, and he married his high school sweetheart. The show gains many of its narrative arcs from Hank’s simplistic outlook coming into conflict with the complications of the modern world. For example, in the episode “Reborn to Be Wild” Bobby begins listening to Christian rock music and hanging out with a skateboarding Christian youth group. Instead of being excited that his son is finally interested in his religion, Hank becomes upset with Bobby’s more modern relationship with Christianity. When Bobby sneaks out of his room to attend a Christian rock festival, Hank interrupts the show to get to his son, loudly declaring, “Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity any better? You’re just making rock and roll worse”

(“Reborn to Be Wild”). The satire in this episode shows Hank’s concern is not actually with religion; instead, he is upset with the flamboyant way his son performs religion. It calls into question the actual piety of this simple man. Hank certainly goes to church on Sunday, but his life is not devoted to God in any meaningful way. The performance of piety is far more important to Hank than the worship of the Lord, and his appearance of practicing religion means more to him than Bobby developing his own relationship with Christianity. The episode makes no prescriptions of whether this is a bad thing. It just makes clear that is a fact of Hank’s life. This episode also clearly marks the show as Horatian satire in that it purposefully makes one notice subtle incongruencies within one’s outlook without openly attacking the institutions of its society.

Horatian satire makes a person feel comfortable in its criticisms. Its targets are familiar and the jests are never too harsh. As opposed to Juvenal’s raucous and angrily pointed criticisms, Horace tended to leave the target laughing rather than enraged. Horace’s work often plays up everyday practices in order to present them in a more ridiculous light. In Satire 2.6 from Horace’s collected works, “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse,” Horace devotes a passage to exaggerating the routinely chaotic and frustrating days of a city-dweller:

At Rome the mornings are different: you rush me right off To court to vouch for a friend …

After saying in court, good and loud, things that may some day

Incriminate me, I fight my way back through the crowd

In the streets, tripping over some slowpoke’s toes …

A hundred conflicting concerns pour down on my head And stream around me …

“Do have Maecenas affix his seal to these papers.”

If I say, ‘Well, I’ll try,’ he insists, “You can do it if you want to.” (Satire 2.6, 139-40)

I have omitted much of the page for brevity’s sake, but Horace’s description of what is essentially a bad day at work, followed by an awful commute, only to have further work awaiting one at home is a situation that many can relate to today. How many of us have been silently angry when some jerk says, “You just have to want to do it. You obviously don’t want it enough.” Horace’s over-the-top descriptions of these daily events make the reader feel at home, comfortable, and more willing to accept the criticisms contained in his satire.

Like Horace, King of the Hill makes you feel like you are back in your hometown so that you will listen to its criticisms. Horace makes clear his disdain for the city and his desire to retire in the country:

Oh, countryside mine, when will I see you again, Read my favorite classical authors, and then Get some sleep and get back to my lazy routine of life, Of pleasure mercifully free from worry and strife? (Satire

2.6, 141)

In the world of King of the Hill , Hank is our stand-in for the Country Mouse. He is a man who minds his modest finances and lives privately within his means: “Bobby, only jackasses go around saying how much money they make” (“Rich Hank, Poor Hank”). He is also a man who finds pleasure with the simple things: “Why would anyone do drugs when they could just mow a lawn?” (“The Incredible Hank”). He ponders the deeper meanings of life instead of idle gossip: “Suffering is a part of every religion, Peggy. I mean, look at what the Jews have been through, and you never hear them complaining” (“Meet the Manger Babies”). Becoming the patriarch of a family and living simply and nobly in a modest home are everything Horace posits we ought to desire, and that sentiment echoes through the centuries. Many of us find ourselves desiring a simpler life when the bustle of the city grows too hectic. King of the Hill gives a view of that simple life, but reminds us that it is not really better than a city life, nor is it worse. These are merely two different lifestyles containing their own pitfalls, power structures, and daily activities. Where Horace made fun of city peoples’ customs by exaggerating their practices and perceptions of power, King of the Hill does the same with rural American ideals. These Town and Country Mouse dynamics in King of the Hill are pretty clearly stated in Hank’s line:

Now you listen to me, mister. I work for a livin’, and I mean real work, not writin’ down gobbledegook! I provide the people of this community with propane and propane accessories. Oh, when I think of all my hard-earned tax dollars goin’ to pay a bunch of little twig-boy bureaucrats like you, it just makes me wanna … oh … oh God … it just ... (“Pilot”)

The line itself seems like it could be paraphrased from a Roman satire. How else is the farmer, upon whom Rome relies for sustenance, supposed to feel when a senator comes to his property demanding some form of deed, or a legal recompense for a perceived wrong-doing? He would feel gosh-darned angry, I reckon.

That line about “workin’ for a livin’” also signals that the show’s creators are not solely mocking its characters, but also giving them positive, humanistic traits. Hank is a proud member of the proletariat (don’t use that word around him, though), and the creators seem to believe that is an ideal way of being. Like Horace recommends, few of the characters desire to be bigger than who they are. They may be working class, but that is a point of pride. The few characters who do attempt to rise above their station are knocked back down by the end of the episode. Horace would especially appreciate that King of the Hill ensures that its characters are, as Horace puts it, “quite happy with the life they have chosen or stumbled upon…” (Satire 1.1, 33). Khan, Hank’s neighbor, is always trying to think up get-rich-quick schemes which inevitably fail. Khan spends a lot of time trying to impress the members of the local country club so that he may one day get a membership, but he is always mocked for it. He forces his daughter, Connie, to excel in school, practice violin, and avoid hanging out with the hillbilly neighbor’s kid. Of course, she inevitably ends up dating Bobby Hill and using her mastery of the violin to play bluegrass music. King of the Hill purposefully reminds us to stay in our place. One must, of course, accept and love their peers and community, but they must not attempt to rise above their station.

Just like Horace, King of the Hill advises that vying for a higher status is never worth the trouble that comes with it. Instead of envying others, work on yourself. This trope has been maintained throughout the years because it is comforting. It makes us feel secure in our own bodies. These satires do not make clear whether that comfortable security is positive or negative, but it is easy to believe that a posh city lifestyle is not worth the trouble when you already know you are never going to have one.

King of the Hill ’s characters are caricatures of real types of people, and like real people they come with flaws. Also like real people, their flaws are rarely irredeemable. Hank struggles with intimacy; he can barely tell his son that he loves him because he is scared of the vulnerability that it shows. In a rare moment of unrestrained affection, Hank says, “Bobby, if you weren’t my son, I’d hug you” (“Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby’s Saga”). This is a natural state for a multitude of men raised in a fairly misogynistic, emotionally repressive community like many in the rural South. Throughout the show’s run, however, Hank learns to better relate with his family. He still cannot buy tampons for his wife, but he can tell his child that he cares. Peggy, Hank’s wife, is another flawed character who is not inherently bad. She is a substitute Spanish teacher but nobody, including her, knows that she cannot speak Spanish. It’s a poor rural school district, and no one has ever confronted her about her lack of Spanish skills. Satirizing the state of America’s public schools, Peggy’s self-confidence that comes from never having had her belief challenged, is a perfect illustration of American privilege. She only ever experiences ramifications for her incompetence in the episode “Lupe’s Revenge” when she chaperones a school field trip to Mexico and accidentally kidnaps a young Mexican girl when getting her students back on the bus. The child is very clearly saying, “¡Vivo en México!” (I live in Mexico) while Peggy is forcing her onto the school bus, but Peggy responds ignorantly with a, “Yes, yes, long live Mexico, I know!” (“Lupe’s Revenge”). The episode culminates with Peggy in Mexico, on trial for kidnapping. She tries to defend herself, hoping to explain it was an accident. Instead, in Spanish, she says, “Your honor, I can tell you are a reasonable horse. I am very pregnant because of what happened with Lupe. She ate my bus accident and all I wanted was to make Lupe into a book. I have too many good anuses ahead of me to spend my life in a cigar factory” (“Lupe’s Revenge”). The court allows her to go free, realizing the crazy white lady had no idea what she was doing. Nobody ever informs her of her mistake and she goes on teaching Spanish classes. If one knows only this story, Peggy’s behavior could easily make you hate her and the way she ignorantly flaunts her privilege. Peggy, however, is a caring wife and a devoted mother. While Hank huffs at Bobby for being weird, Peggy accepts Bobby and all of his idiosyncrasies. When her students need help, she stops at nothing to provide it, even if she has to break a few rules. Her appearance in the community certainly matters to her, but her community also, very sincerely, matters to her. Thus, in a very Horatian fashion, Peggy is an exaggeration of the good aspects of her character along with the bad. created by Mike Judge, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions, 1998.

Horace’s influence can clearly be seen in today’s satire — most of us desire to escape from our problems, most of us desire to master moderation, most of us are tired of our daily grind. Horace’s satire is funny without stepping on too many toes. It is poignant without juvenile humor. King of the Hill is the same. The show is both a biting criticism of small town closed-mindedness, while being a rousing celebration of working class community pride. Horace desired to move to the country and have a simpler life, but King of the Hill argues that the rural life is not necessarily simpler, it is merely different. Communities of all sizes have drama, power structures, and ridiculous customs that are deserving of satire. If Horace decided to move to Arlen, Texas, Peggy Hill would bring him cookies to welcome him to the neighborhood and then gossip about Horace with the neighbor ladies. Hank Hill would introduce him to everyone on the block and then remind him that the block charter states that quiet hours are 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. Surely Hank’s love of lawn care is a simpler desire than power or wealth, but if you hurt his yard in any way he is just as likely to stab you (metaphorically) as would a power-hungry senator. Hank would like to be left alone by the outside world, but he hates to be defined by it. In his own words, “Dang it, I am sick and tired of everyone’s asinine ideas about me. I’m not a redneck, and I’m not some Hollywood jerk. I’m something else entirely. I’m…I’m complicated!” (“A Rover Runs Through It”). And he is complicated! Hank, like all of us, contains multitudes, and I reckon Horace’s mistake is assuming that the grass is greener in the countryside. It is actually the same grass, Hank Hill just takes better care of it.

“Lupe’s Revenge” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 6, episode 3, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2001.

“Pilot” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 1, episode 1, Deedle-Dee Productions, 1997.

“Reborn to Be Wild.” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 8, episode 2, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2003.

“Rich Hank, Poor Hank” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 8, episode 8, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2004.

“The Incredible Hank” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 8, episode 4, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2003.

Works Cited

Horace. “Satire 1.1” The Satires and Epistles of Horace: A Modern English Verse Translation , translated by Smith Palmer Bovie, pg. 33, U of Chicago P, 1959.

Horace. “Satire 2.6” The Satires and Epistles of Horace: A Modern English Verse Translation , translated by Smith Palmer Bovie, pg. 139-42, U of Chicago P, 1959.

“A Rover Runs Through It” King of the Hill , created by Mike Judge, season 9, episode 1, Deedle-Dee Productions, 2004.

“Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby’s Saga” King of the Hill ,