I found an article published in garden and gun magazine that offered an interesting perspective on the movie as it included interviews of people with of perspective even some that knew the author James Dickey. some accounts were positive and some were very negative. I seemed that those that didn’t actually live in Appalachia liked the movie and thought the book was an expert literary work. Those who lived in Appalachia however were really pissed off . One such person stated “You can go up to the mountains with my people and we may kill you, but we’re not going to f*** you.” (gun and garden). The Appalachians are mad because Dickey is an outsider and he basically calls them stupid brutish and even predatory, which they know isn’t true. He brought really negative stereotypes about Appalachians into the theaters and homes of millions of Americans who would have no reason to think negatively of Appalachians otherwise. It seems that the most memorable and most horrifying scene for Appalachians in deliverance was the rape scene as it portrayed them as rapists which is absolutely false. while this scene is probably the most memorable scene but those who do not live in the mountains seem to remember the cliff scene and the banjo scene the best.

The first article was about the Kentucky cycle and basically just stated that although the play was very popular in the west it was largely unpopular in Appalachia. Among other stereotypes it underplayed the amount of people that wanted to strike in 1922 which was basically all the coal miners and the injustices they had to fight.

In response to the play “The Kentucky Cycle” a columnist from the Courier Journal of Louisville John Pearce Said that the play was a literary equivalent of a drive by shooting. Many people outside of Appalachia find this confusing because Schenkkan did his research and genuinely cared about the plight of the Appalachian people. While his intentions are good stereotypes in Appalachia are like unwanted nicknames at home while your friends might not have any ill intent everyone still hates being associated with that nickname. Essentially what that play did was showcase all the negative stereotypes about Appalachia to people outside of the region. it portrayed them as unintelligent, primitive and poor. that made a lot of people angry  because they were being unfairly judged by an outsider, even though his message was to help the people of the region the people are so independent and don’t want to look weak or receive help from outsiders which only strengthens the stereotypes of standoffish, mean, and violent people. many from the region say that it was a very Hollywood tacky version of reality which only amplified the stereotypes. In short they believe the way in which they were portrayed was was too dark violent and mean and reflected poorly on them to the rest of the nation.

The people that benefited from keeping the Appalachian culture down were usually businesses. These industries suck as coal and timber benefited from having an uneducated labor force which kept them from rising up and forming unions against them.  This allowed the area to be exploited for its resources without much resistance from the simple hillbilly. This allowed the eastern businessmen to keep wages low and make huge profits. It also benefited the psychs of easterners in general an allowed them to feel superior. But all of this was simply propaganda, as with every time a certain portion of the population is oppressed. You make one group look inferior and the population stats to believe it and eventually those people will start to believe it and it will make them more submissive and easier to exploit for labor and resources. I think that with the study of Appalachia in university today will help turn the tide and erase some of the propaganda the has falsely portrayed the area as backward. People are beginning to realize that Appalachia is very modern and that those stereotypes are largely un true. we must continue to talk about the important intellectuals that cone from Appalachia.

Help Received: Urban Dictionary lol

So what are hillbillies and what are rednecks? Are there any differences between the two? Both are generally regarded as relatively uneducated white people but the difference is in location. Hillbillies are typically only from the Appalachian region and are considered unsophisticated. Rednecks on the other hand can be from anywhere they are typically belligerent, drunks, gun owners and conservatives.. at least according to the left rednecks are known for being politically active on the right for anti abortion and gun rights organizations. this is in stark contrast with hillbillies who are historically a silent political group and feel left behind by american politics until recently. When trump ran for president he ran on the platform of bring jobs back to the forgotten people, and by the “forgotten people” he was referring to Appalachians. He wanted to move back to coal energy and wanted to enrich the extremely poor areas of Appalachia. this is the reason I think Trump got elected because the Appalachians were a largely forgotten people. Some other stereotypes of these two peoples are that Hillbillies are all moonshiners and anti government the “south will rise again types” and of course they sleep with their cousins. rednecks are a little more generic: Own an arsenal of firearms, exclusively shop at Walmart, overweight, ect.

Help received: The reading

McDonald’s is a representation for american society in a bunch of different ways. The one that comes to mind for me is the atmosphere of the restaurant. It is geared toward the blue collared american much in the same way that ford’s model t was in the early 1900s. McDonald’s represents America’s mass production economy and sometimes that can be a negative thing especially in foreign countries. Kincheloe even said that some McDonald’s locations in Sweden were bombed because the Swedes viewed them as American imperialism. But think about when you enter a McDonald’s restaurant nobody is wearing fancy clothes, Table manners are not a thing, and Everything is relatively cheap. It is the Walmart of the fast food world. Americans want it fast cheap and greasy and McDonald’s delivers, and is the epitome of american fast food. This can be linked to Appalachian society because many in Appalachia are poor so they do not have the means to afford much else other than McDonald’s so it could be viewed by some as a resturant for “Hillbillies” however I do not thing it is limited the Appalachia as it caters to low income populations of all types in the city or the country.

Patrick Keller

HR Stienburg article

To be completely honest I really have no idea why this was included in the course. The connection between Barbies and the scripture is already shaky, but I have absolutely no clue what this has to do with studying Appalachia. My best theory would be that people from Appalachia do not conform to society’s ideas on how people should look, act, live and that they are unfairly compared to things like barbies. this could negatively affect the stereo types of the region. When a young girl looks at a barbie she sees perfection and any part of her that doesn’t look exactly like the barbie she hates. This could be the way Appalachia feels about the rest of society. As a result of living in harsh conditions the Appalachians have sometimes a rougher appearance and maybe do not have the big house boats and cars that “barbie” ( the rest of society) has and this could cause them to feel inferior or even be embarrassed about their heritage. The point is is that being a “Barbie” or living the life of a barbie is impossible, the barbie itself is a Utopia that is not feasible in real life.

HR:articles

A book people may want to use critical discourse analysis on is Mien Kamph. This was brought to my mind after watching the movie “Operation Finale” today about the capture of Adolf Eichmann the quote on quote “architect of the final solution”. I think that the holocaust was probably the worst manifestation of racism in history and it was partially caused by this book so I think it would be worth using critical discourse analysis on so it does not happen again. For example critical discourse analysis studies the behaviors of groups as a whole. The discourse at the time was very negative in the Nazi Party. This was a result of antisemitism being spread by unstable leaders this just goes to show that individuals can indeed affect a groups tendencies towards racism. The groups discourse once established was very limited and censored. For example the Nazi party would hold rallies where there really was no discourse and was just antisemitic rants by the leaders of the party so when discourse breaks down in a group and everything becomes one sided there is a high likelihood that the groups will start to breed racism when it comes to issues of race.

HR: articles

I think that frost described the situation best in a modern sense. He said that it isn’t necessarily that the people are rugged and inhospitable, it the land that is inhospitable and the land that has made the people of Appalachia a strong, resilient and independent people (Frost 311). The other side of this sword is that because of the lack of communication the society seems backward and stuck in time to many on the outside, and sometimes we even forget they exist, for example frost said “These people form an element unaccounted for by the census, unreckoned with in all our inventories of natural resources.” This is especially relevant because of the last election, Trump had promised to bring power back to the forgotten people, the coal miners, loggers and people of Appalachia and the people certainly spoke. It surprised a large segment of the population that such a large segment of society could just simply be forgotten. The independence that Mountain people have developed negative connotation in modern society. The people seem standoffish and harsh and are not friendly to outsiders. The other paper by Harney explains some of the more historical aspects of why Appalachians are the way they are and why certain things like blood feuds still exist today  however for the purposes of this prompt I think that Frost Goes more in depth with the modern perception of Appalachians

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