The film (= movie) "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" is listed among my favorites. It was one that probably outraged some people but seemed to be a rare sympathetic portrayal of a section of American society usually held up to ridicule. The hero was shown to be clever, resourceful, dynamic, honourable, honest (well, almost), well-groomed .... and very lucky!
Many of us, outside the United States, grew up with the old Hollywood stereotype of Hill-Billies: lazy, deliberately ignorant, singing loudly but not particularly well, illiterate, racist, always drunk on illegal spirits (= moonshine), incestuous, dishonest, following all manner of weird fundamentalist cults and all-in-all rather stupid ....... not a very nice picture at all.
During my service with the Australian Regular Army in the Viet-Nam War, I had to spend several weeks in a U.S. Army camp, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of Yanks, among whom were quite a few Hill-Billies. There were indeed a few Hill-Billy soldiers whose interests did not go much beyond booze, fast cars, slow women and not much else above the belt but these were very much in the minority. The rest of the Hill-Billies seemed quite intelligent, perceptive, full of curiosity, brave, hard working, neat and tidy, open-minded, progressive, utterly reliable, interested in classical music and in serious literature, keen to use their GI Bill Of Rights to go to College, friendly to all regardless of race, with a good sense of duty and and a good sense of humour.
Years later, passing through a few "Hill-Billy" states in the United States, the rural poverty in some parts was obvious but I just didn't see anyone with two heads, unshoed, swigging whiskey out of rough jars; nor did I notice any child-brides with a herd of kids, dilapidated houses, rusty rifles or any signs of laziness and stupidity. There were houses kept in good repair with hard work and no money; there were vehicles still running well but years and years past their trade-in date. But not a stereotypical Hill-Billy in sight, not even one.
So ..... just what is the origin of this very unfair and nasty stereotype of Hill-Billies? What is its purpose? Why does it persist? Why aren't, say, Cajuns or residents of Brooklyn or members of specific Native American first-nations subjected to similar negative stereotyping? Is it anything to do with the Civil War of 140 years ago? Is there something shameful way back in history about which everybody knows but nobody speaks?
Just wondering, that's all.
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7 comments:
"Why aren't, say, Cajuns or residents of Brooklyn or members of specific Native American first-nations subjected to similar negative stereotyping?"
But they are Graham. Brooklynites are always there to cop a pasting by New Yorkers ec. Deservedly so i may add, seeing that say some of these Brooklynites are 3rd generation italian and still behave as though they're straight off the boat guineas.
Nearly everyone cops their fair of pastings in the US, or at least those outside of the 4 to 5 big cities.
Red necks deserve the pasting they get becasue of the way some of them speak. They have a horrendous accent and most lose it when or if they go to college.
Red necks are about the only legit group who can cop a pasting in the US without fear of being called a racist. The rest are pasted quietly.
Even wasps get laughed at.
Red necks are scots Irish by the way and the best damn fighting men in the world. The US military could not even begin to be as good as they are without these dudes. But boy they sure sound dumb.
Good movie post by the way. keep it up.
The worst offenders here are obviously Marxists. In just three countries, Russia, China and Cambodia mad Marxists out Holomodored the actual Holocaust. They killed millions more ' hillbillies' or poor peasants, than even the famous Shoah - and they did it in even worse ways!
I think it's a large part of the Marxist psychology to look down on the peasant and even see them as less than human.
This is the wickedest and most dangerously malignant political philosophy on earth. Just look at the giant Gulag that is the DPRK.
I mean I was agin the Vietnam war but I never was any Leninist UT.
You gotta believe me!
I think you'll find something similar happens in Australia, too. The targets are called 'bogans' or 'rednecks', and the stereotypes - allowing for differences across nationality - are often the same. The whole Hanson blow-up is a classic example of the genre.
You would enjoy this, well worth reading. Its author is running for the US Senate.
Andrew Elder:
Thanks for the link. Webb sounds like the fellows I met - give them an opportunity to improve themselves and they'll take it - just the opposite to the Hollywood stereotype
ScepticLawyer:
Some of the Aussie-bashing committed by the new media duing the time Pauline Hanson was politically active was lifted straight from the Hollywood stereotype of Hill-Billies. Lurid stuff but untrue. Hate to spoil a good story but .... We sit on out verandahs, not porches; we might argue and abuse someone rather than hit them with "our"(??) baseball bats; nobody here chews tobacco, dipping is unknown .... and so on, ad nauseum.
JC:
It's interesting that the Australian news media lit onto the term "Red Neck" to call Australian nationalists and anyone they didn't like living in rural Australia.
Naomi:
Negative stereotyping of poor whites definitely predates the opening of the Appalachian Trail to tourism; you are probably right in taking it back to the 19th century and the rise of eugenics.
The usual reason given for the differentiation of Hill-Billies - that they were non-slave-owners who sided with the Union side in the Civil War - just doesn't hold water.
What that Cajun fellow said to you about military service in the U.S. being a path out of povery is correct; this was a consistent story I heard from Chicanos, urban Black former gang members and similarly disadvantaged blokes [in Australia military service became a path for social mobility too - downwards - but that's another story].
I had noticed myself the natural ease with which Cajun and Hill-Billy soldiers ["southerners"] mixed with Black soldiers. Race and civil rights issues did come up in conversation but with an amazing lack of any rancour and absolutely no subservience or arrogance whatsoever. So much for the "racist" stereotype.
Sometimes the origin of white trash stories is obvious - the "stupid Pole" stories are almost certainly direct translations of what was said among another immigrant group which did not enjoy being in too close a contact with vigorously nationalistic and Catholic Poles back in the old homeland [the "Stupid Pole" stories don't work in Australia because of our very different migration history].
Sometimes such stories make no sense whatsoever to me. Anti-Irish sentiment inside the former British Empire was ugly but understandable, given the fear of Fenians, Irish terrorists and assassins and given too the fear of the Empire being taken over by Irish Catholics and run by the Pope. Similar attitudes to the Irish in the United States are inexplicable, given that the U.S. has always been a haven for Irish nationalists and given the tremendous work the Irish inmmigrants did in building the United States into a world power.
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