To people in the US is the deep south really like this?

on one of our British programmes Top Gear, 3 presenters went through the deep south of America, Alabama i think it was, and painted their cars with things to see who would be the mostly likely to be killed, it was just a joke really but kind of backfired. basically one of the presenters wrote on his car ' Man Love is Great' Gay Rights etc. another had Hilary for president, and another saying some kind of drag racing that they do there, sucked. they pulled up at a gas station and all these people went mad and one woman phone up her 'boys' to come and sort them! they had to stop filming. it was only a joke, but is the deep south of America really that backwards? you know like, phobic, racist bigots? it got really nasty and they obviously have no sense of humour!