The first flim review I found was an article from the New York Times in July of 1972 by Vincent Canby.

He says that the flim contains many good things, such as the production, treatment of characters and crucial moments. He acknowledges that the movie was filmed in Appalachia, which he agrees was an appropriate location for the movie to be filmed. However, he does not acknowledge that Appalachians characters are depicted in a negative or stereotypical way.

In fact, Canby doesn’t mention any criticism of the movie from either an Appalachian standpoint or an outsiders standpoint. The closes thing he mentions is how the book does not give the audience a good uderstanding of what the characters are experiencing. However, when describing the most memorable scene, Canby refers to the two men that assulted and harassed the canoers as “hillbillies”. I believe this was the most memorable scene because here you can see clearly the stereotypes many people are opposed too. I think the website does not mention these concerns because they are not see an concerns to them. They are only looked at as what they believe to be the type of people, they have always been depicted as, the stereotypical hillbillie.