This week, one of the central themes of our readings has been that although Appalachians have been seen as backwards, ignorant, and illiterate, most areas of the region have been quite open to the culture surrounding them and deeply involved with texts, commerce, and culture. In other words, most of the region is in fact not backwards at all. So, what do our chapters say about whose interests are/were being served when Appalachia is depicted this way? Why was/is it important for the media to portray the region in such as way?
Text aside, it just seems right that the media take it upon themselves to correctly depict Appalachia instead of perpetuating the stereotype. I would like to think that the purpose of the media is to educate and inform the people, and in keeping with that responsibility they should have the integrity to properly portray people. No matter, the stereotypes of Appalachia are ongoing and Dwight Billings writes in the introduction of Back Talk From Appalachia that to our unconscious desire to have a concrete example for “everything that is wrong with America” (7). The Appalachians are not the only victims of this witch hunt to identify lesser peoples. Categorizing people as different and eventually treating them as such is a catharsis for our human tendencies to cope with anxiety, frustration, and anger as well as for the projection of these emotions onto innocent others” (1). So outsiders seem to perpetuate the hillbilly stereotype in order to maintain a perceived outside group that they can reassure themselves they are not part of and therefor make themselves feel more comfortable with their own lives. perhaps one of the most well known ideas of the Appalachian accepted and internalized at a large scale are William Frost’s accounts. Frost romanticizes the imagery of the Appalachian mountains as a physical geographic feature but it also becomes a metaphor for the isolation of the peoples too.