Journalism 310

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Exam 2
- Average = 82%
- Including bonus question
Exam 3
- In three weeks (May 5)
Final exam (May 19)
- Thursday of finals week
- Anyone with an "A" average is exempted; list will be made available following third exam

The hillbilly & media

Hillbilly: Origins with North American immigration
- As whites settled colonial regions from Europe during 1700s
- Elites noted behavior of people later identified as hillbillies
  - One example
But not defined widely until later
- A reaction to modernity, the second industrial revolution
- Late 1800s-early 1900s, technological advancement, urbanization, industrial labor
  - Late 1800s: Mass transit, mass newspapers, color printing (cartoons), city lighting, skyscrapers, typewriters, telegraph
  - Early 1900s: Radio, recorded music
- "Hillbilly" came to represent those left behind in societal advancement
  - Rural, agrarian labor, lacking technology, mobility
  - Continues to define the hillbilly today
Defined in 1900 (New York Journal)
- "a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him."
Common characteristics
- White, drunk, living in mountains (usually in South), spoken dialect, promiscuous, barefoot, lazy, uneducated, unwashed
- The "white other" (Harkins)
  - The other: a term used in cultural studies to identify individuals distinguished and sometimes excluded from mainstream culture
  - The other was initially conceived as female in a patriarchal society, though the term has been applied to other minority cultures
- Negative associations: Backwards, outdated culture; individuals labeled with derogatory terms
  - Physical appearance: "redneck," "wool hat," "lint head"
  - Diet: "corn-cracker," "clay eater," "rabbit twister"
  - Animal-like: "brush ape," "ridge runner," "briar hopper"
  - Impoverishment: "poor white," "poor white trash"
- Some celebrate these associations: "guardians of rugged individualism and traditional ways of life"
  - Traditional ways: religion (Baptist, evangelical), patriarchism, patriotism, technological
- Media image often became only portrayal of Southern mountain people for many
- Term has not lost its use: Google representation
Print: Cartoon portrayal

Due to negative associations, the hillbilly was, and continues to be, a subject of satire in media
Newspaper comic strips featuring hillbillies became widespread and popular during 1930s
Snuffy Smith (hillbilly archetype)
- Originally Barney Google (1930s), the strip's creator looked to nineteeth-century examples of mountain language, spellings
  - Southerners portrayed as impoverished ("estate" = shack), ignorant (no school), culturally isolated (characters have never seen movie)
  - Smith's character embodied hillbilly image -- makes living by moonshining, stealing chickens and horses, always has rifle
  - Women are overworked, caretakers of irresponsible men
Another: Al Capp's Li'l Abner
Political cartoons have associated Southern politicians (Carter, Clinton, etc.) with the hillbilly image

Television portrayal: Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1970)
- Theme song introduces concept -- poor mountain folks strike it rich, move to Beverly Hills
  - A "comical study in cultural contrast" -- cosmopolitan Southern California with mountain folk
- Immediately successful -- first broadcast watched by 50 percent of TV viewers
  - Critical reception: "At no time does it give the viewer credit for even a smattering of intelligence."
  - Largely attacked as worthless form of culture
- Does move slightly away from hillbilly stereotypes
  - Clean and wholesome image
    - Hands washed, beards shaved, no outhouses or shootouts
  - In part due to medium (television) and plot (status as millionaires)
- More recent, Blue Collar TV, Simpsons (Cletus), The Real Beverly Hillbillies
Film portrayal: Deliverance (1972)
- Less friendly or innocent portrayal
  - Southern mountain folk contrasted with urban dwellers as untamed savages
  - Music (bluegrass), language, dress and technology
  - Most provocative scene depicts sodomy at gunpoint
- Reaction
  - Critical praise
  - Shot in North Georgia, locals both hoped to boost tourism (Jimmy Carter: "This is good for Georgia...I hope")
    - North Georgia Journal: "Deliverance did for them what Jaws did for sharks." (Following summer release of Jaws, beach attendance dropped considerably)
  - Some involved with the film began to fear retaliation from locals after word of the movie's content spread
    - James Dickey, who wrote the story based on personal experiences, was disturbed by the portrayal: "souls were being stolen here"
  - Deliverance "syndrome": Tourists followed canoe route in movie; littered, squealed when reaching rape scene
    - Many died (often drunk): from '72-'75, seventeen people drowned
- Others films based on hillbilly archetype in fictional settings
  - O Brother, Where Art Thou?
  - Dukes of Hazzard
- Deliverance screening
Film portrayal: Borat (2006) and Bruno (2009)
- Contemporary portrayals of white southerners by Sasha Baron Cohen
- Cohen's characters provoked behavior from those depicted as ignorant southern whites
  - Racism, homophobia, misogyny
- Cohen's method may be called "gotcha" -- he is invited to a circumstance under a misleading guise before delivering his performance.
  - This method has brought criticism for both its message and treatment of those in his film.
  - Participants have mixed reactions, though most seem negative
  - Kazakhstan, the fictional character's home country, bought full-page advertisements in the New York Times to counter the film's impression of the country.
- Scene: Rodeo
  - Filmed in Salem, North Carolina during a rodeo
  - Subject: patriotism in the South
  - Borat sings the Kazakhstan "national anthem" after wishing that "George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq"
  - The result was a confused and angry audience
- Scene: Mr. Jesus
  - Filmed at the United Pentecostal Church camp in Mississippi
  - Subject: religious practices in the South
  - Pentecostals, who are known for speaking in tongues, consider themselves within the Evangelical Protestant tradition, which is more common in the South
  - To non-practicers in urban settings, the portrayal is an eye-opening depiction of rural Evangelicals
Music and the hillbilly
- Perhaps most representative of Southern mountain culture is the "hillbilly music" that has entered mass consciousness
  - Traditional country, western, bluegrass
- Recorded and broadcast music both were introduced in the early 1900s, the same period when the hillbilly was defined
- Country music first recorded in 1923
  - The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers -- founders of country music -- and others came from the surrounding Appalachian hills to Bristol, Tenn.
  - These recordings laid the foundation for much country and roots music that followed
- Content of early hillbilly music wide-ranging
  - Religion, God, love and relationships, hard labor (coal mining, etc.), geographic location
  - Content reinforces associations elsewhere
- Following introduction, new strains of country music
  - 1939: Bluegrass music
    - Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys "invent" the bluegrass style
  - Bluegrass characteristics: "High Lonesome" vocals, banjo, mandolin, guitar picking, complemented with backing rhythm
  - 1945: The Blue Grass Boys add Earl Scruggs
    - Scruggs' banjo style central to bluegrass "sound"

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The hillbilly & media

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