Who benefits from calling the Appalachian people backwards? Well, anyone who wants to take their stuff. Or anyone who wants to write a critically acclaimed play about the worst parts of American Culture. Portraying Appalachians as having a poverty of the soul makes it easy to accept when then they indulge in fictional horrific violence on stage and screen, because it makes you believe it. “Wow, that’s really what they’re like.” These portrayals give Hollywood an easy bad guy to throw in their movies and not offend anyone(or so they think). Especially not the ever growing foreign market. Removing the the violent hillbilly stereotype from movies and TV would make their jobs harder, and as of right now there’s no real public hue and cry about it, so it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Back in the day the stereotype helped with other money making schemes. Big business. For example, by portraying Appalachians as self interested and unwilling to band together to accomplish goals and improve the life of their communities as a whole, the Mine owners were able to drive a wedge between the Appalachian Coal miners of eastern Kentucky and the rest of the UNMW, particularly during the 1922 national strike.