When anyone gets on the topic of why certain culture is portrayed in a negative light, tempers and opinions will certainly flare up. But when someone mentions mountain folk being portrayed in the media negatively, things seem to never escalate past “Somebody should do somethig about that” followed by indifferent laughter. However, I wonder why it is so fine to constantly poke fun at these “backwards” people, who are, in reality, just as forward as the rest of us. The answer, from a business major perspective anyway, is simple: MONEY.

People will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, for money. Media executives from an early age, saw an easy chance to make money off of the preconceived notion that people from Appalachia  are stupid or backward. After all, if they are in fact stupid and backward, then they won’t be able to raise complaints. It’d be shocking if they even had television to watch the programs that poked fun at them. American households love the notion that there are simple folk in their own country, because it’s just another person to poke fun at and then forget about.

So why does this continue, and more importantly how does it stop? It continues because let’s be honest here, most people from Appalachia are white protestants, so there is no chance of argument in racism or religious intolerance. Also, deep down, anyone not from Appalachia still thinks mountain people are stupid and backwards. The only way that I see this stopping is for someone to step up and make it known. However by this point, it would take a small miracle to sway public opinion this way, but maybe that’s just me.