Backwardness

There are a variety of reasons throughout history that motivated outsiders to portray Appalachia as backward. Early in history of Appalachian exploration the prime reason to convey the people poorly was convince other outsiders to exploit the resources and land Appalachia had to offer. As time went on the motives adjust. According to Gurney Norman in his essay, “Notes on the The Kentucky Cycle,” Schenkkan was to portray a sense of “liberalism” and “progressive” spirit upon the greater United States in order to convince them of the established and continuing issues in Appalachia. People and organizations like Schenkkan create movements and projects to “fix” Appalachia even though it’s not broken.

All in all, the key reasons across the board in which outsiders and media embarrass the Appalachian region and people fall under specific political agendas. It is important to the media to depict the region in bad light to project the nations problems on America’s problem child region. Many scholars have come to the conclusion that Appalachia is the punching bag for rising issues of race, environment, etc. Without Appalachia taking the fall, who would we blame for our countries global negative stereotypes? It is easy for an American to tell a European that our nation is not full obese hillbillies, only a certain, unclaimed region is responsible for such a stereotype. Appalachia allows our mainstream media to scapegoat issues in order to maintain a facade to the rest of the world and ourselves.