 Outside of Tennessee, Binford by the 1940s had already established a reputation in Hollywood and nationally as "the toughest censor in America".Disgusted by "The Southerner", he condemned the film as a "slur against Southern farmers" and for its characters being portrayed as nothing more than "'common, lowdown, ignorant white trash'".The Ku Klux Klan also condemned Renoir's film and advocated boycotting it at theaters elsewhere in the South.