Last week we watched the movie Deliverance, one of the most criticized films about Appalachia from our textbooks. For this week’s prompt, I want you to look at how people talk about the movie online. Find a website, social media site, blog, etc. and see how the writer discusses the movie. Do they mention the criticism of the movie from an Appalachian standpoint? Do they discuss the fact that the movie was filmed in Appalachia and that most of the time Appalachians are negative, stereotypical characters? Do they acknowledge that the movie is stereotypical in any way? Why do you think the website does/does not mention these concerns? What seem to be the most memorable parts of the movie for people? Why?
For example, I found the Wikipedia (a website that is constructed by everyday people) site for the movie, and it didn’t mention anything controversial about the depiction of Appalachians at all. This means that no one has added this to the Wikipedia site.
Bilings made the observation that criticism of The Kentucky Cycle almost never discusses the portrayal of the people of Appalachia. The lack of consideration over the implications of the playwright’s depiction of Appalachian people is part of the problem that perpetuates the stereotypes of them as “hillbillies” and so forth. One reason that critics may not have mentioned the stereotypical nature of the playwrights work is that the portrayal of the people of Appalachia was in keeping with their preconceptions of Appalachian people and therefore the critics as well as the rest of the ignorant masses would not be inclined to point out the stereotypes that the characters throughout the movie Deliverance’s adhered to similarly to The Kentucky Cycle’s adherence to the stereotypical hillbilly.
Simply considering the