Firstly, I don't think it's a fair argument to "know" how people would respond to a hypothetical situation (especially since execution and context is extremely important to these types of things) and I also don't think anyone here is likely to accuse people with those labels just for defending a movie.
To be clear, that wasn't part of my "argument" whether this film in particular was dealing in stereotypes and the efficacy thereof. Given the noticeable lack of criticism here of the white stereotype at play in the sequence in question, I was simply expressing my ire with the hypocrisy of the politically correct double standard that tends to be applied in assessing stereotypes. If you're not willing to acknowledge that there is ANY such double standard - not just on this board, but elsewhere - then we simply disagree.
I could understand the complaint if every Texan in the movie was portrayed this way, but it's only two of a vast cast of characters we meet, so I don't understand your analogies of portraying the "only" person of a race/gender/sexuality.
I clearly referred to RURAL Texans - not EVERY Texan. Outside of the sequence in question, the entire character set in Boyhood is drawn from Houston, San Marcos, Austin, and a college campus (i.e., "city folk"). For the record (and you can go re-read my first comment), I'm not the one who attempted to characterize Boyhood as - and nor do I agree that it is - somehow a distinctly TEXAS film just because it happens to be set in Texas. From my experience, Mason and his dad could have been visiting in-laws in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, etc. in the sequence in question - the same gun-toting-bible-thumping stereotype is applied throughout "backwoods" of the southern red states. And if you noticed my earlier reference to the Texas map sequence in Bernie, as somebody who had lived and traveled throughout Texas for 15 of the last 25 years, I don't think being a "Texan" means much of anything given the very real differences in demographics between, e.g., Orange on the east entry of the I-10 and El Paso on the west.
Furthermore, it strikes me that Linklater's portrayal of the grandparents-in-law is overwhelmingly affectionate. He's not condemning them for their beliefs or lifestyle, and Mason seems to like them and enjoy his time there.
I don't agree with that rosy characterization of Mason's reaction, but then again, he's not the most convincing actor in terms of emoting (but that's another issue). More to the point, let me get this query straight in terms of the actual argument I made (and have always been making) about this sequence: if I as a filmmaker appeal to a couple of the most obvious stereotypes all at once, it shouldn't be perceived as lazy and uncompelling storytelling as long as I'm "affectionate" and "[non-]condemning"? Um, no, not in my book anyway. Frankly, I could care less about how nice a filmmaker plays with his fictional characters, and that was not a part of my argument except in so much as humanized characters are generally more interesting and/or engaging than walking stereotypes. (Distinction should be made between the terms "humanized," "interesting," and "engaging" and attributes like likable, agreeable, etc.)
I guess to put it in another light, if you are making a movie steeped in the culture of black men or homosexual men, is it more or less disingenuous to include characters that fit the stereotypes of those groups?
Sorry, but your "other light" is not comparable to Boyhood or my examples because, once again as I see it (and always have), the relevant subculture at play in exploiting perceptions/prejudices is not "Texans" (as explained above). That is, if anything, Boyhood is "steeped" in urban/suburban culture - we only get one notable representation of a RURAL Texan couple, and they bear gifts of bibles AND guns.
Bottom-line: If you (and everyone else except, by my count, one), in all intellectual honesty, think that bible-and-a-gun sequence is NOT played PRIMARILY for a cheap laugh at the expense of those silly country bumpkins, but is PRIMARILY there to convey a fundamental truth, enrich the narrative, or or achieve whatever other lofty "humanist" agenda Linklater is pursuing, then there is really nothing more to discuss - we just fundamentally disagree.