<p>The Beverly Hillbillies seemed too cartoonish to count in this discussion. It was never meant to be any kind of true to life portrayal and I don’t think anyone took it as such. That’s like saying that Gilligan’s Island makes millionaires look bad.</p>
<p>Well, I never looked at it as a documentary 
But even cartoonish portraits help to promote a stereotype - especially those that were widely watched. There is a reason why calling someone from the south “Jethro” was meant as a slight.</p>
<p>I googled a little for some background and ran across this Diane Sawyer series . . . I am still in the middle of watching it but so far it just breaks my heart. I wrote on the ‘check your privilege’ thread about a client who does exclusively pro bono pediatric dental care and recently gave a talk about treating kids who are living in poverty. To actually see the video really brings it home. :-< </p>
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<p>“The Beverly Hillbillies” - not so bad, but don’t get me started on “The Dukes of Hazard.”</p>
<p>Quite an interesting discussion. Things I never knew!</p>
<p>Funny, when I watched the Dukes of H when it was on first run I guess I was young enough to just think generalized south and not Appalachia in particular. How do you feel about the new breed of reality shows, @scout59? I see ads for them and read a piece on Buck Wild either in Vanity Fair or The New Yorker I think. Somehow I knew that the young man had been killed and that’s the only way I can think that I would have known. Do you think that they do people a disservice, are neutral or (as I’m kind of wondering) glorify the lifestyle a bit? Again, this is impression based on ads but it seems like they are all ATVs and good times and regional pride without so much of the down side. </p>
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<p>Funny. As a “northerner” I really enjoyed the Beverly Hillbillies. A single dad, raising his two kids, with the help of a gun carrying grandma. He had to fend off the people who were trying to take advantage of him, but oh, he was too smart for them. What’s not to like.</p>
<p>But I seriously doubt I ever saw a full episode of Dukes, as a young guy, even Daisy Duke couldn’t get me to watch.</p>
<p>And for those interested in trivia, I thought this was astonishing:</p>
<p>“Rose to #1 in the ratings faster than any other show within the first three weeks since its debut. This is a feat that is still unmatched to this day. It remained #1 for two years. The eight episodes that aired following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are the most watched half-hour shows in television history.”</p>
<p>I don’t know, saintfan - I can’t stand to watch ANY of those reality shows! Maybe some one else can weigh in on them, but I for one won’t watch "Honey Boo Boo and “Hillbilly Handfishing,” I did see an episode of “Moonshiners” once - I didn’t see anything glamorous about that one.</p>
<p>If “Moonshiners” were in my neck of the woods they would have to change the name to “Meth Cookers”</p>
<p>Here is a better, all in one version of the 20/20 episode. I am watching this one from the beginning now.</p>
<p>Bestfriendsgirl, DH is retiring this week and we are moving back to my point of origin where others talk just like me…yah.</p>
<p>@lookingforward - I’m not talking about being true to one’s roots. I’m talking about a tradition where family members are resented for living any other way than how they were brought up. I know it’s not unique to Appalachia, but it is common here. And there are strivers here too.</p>
<p>Has that always been the case, @Bestfriendsgirl or do you think it’s changing? It seems like it would be harder to leave and go home again the more different home is from the outside world. Appalachia has always been isolated, but maybe not always as poor relative to other places (don’t know just a thought). My husband came from a mill town and his parents very much resented his leaving to do something different. It caused a rift. His younger brother never left, never moved out and worked in a restaurant until he was killed in a car accident. His dad forgave him for leaving a few months before he died and his mother never did. </p>
<p>It was interesting in that 20/20 piece the divide between the coal miners and everyone else. I see how as bad as mining seems those are the good jobs that do take more education and come with better pay and benefits than anything else. However, the mine owner who they interviewed said he can’t find enough guys who can pass the drug screens now.</p>
<p>I always liked “Beverly Hillbillies.” I’m from the south, and I always enjoyed seeing Jed ultimately get the better of the city slickers. I had a similar reaction to “The Andy Griffith Show.” The one I hated was “Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.” I thought the main character was an idiot who made the south look bad. Never watched “Dukes of Hazzard.”</p>
<p>Yes, I will say that for BH. Andy Griffith is the prototype of all that is good in Appalachians, IMHO.</p>
<p>Except the Andy Griffith show takes place in the Piedmont.</p>
<p>So there was talk about ‘strivers’ and in that video piece there was a story about a kid from the way, way wrong side of the tracks who graduated and got a football scholarship to what looks like a D2 school (with lots of support and mentoring from his HS coach) but flamed out at school. The social, academic and economic pressures were too much for him and he ended up back at the family trailer chipping coal out of the hillside along the highway. I was thinking about the Tennessee tuition thread and the challenges of propping those kids up who are strivers and may have a chance but have the deck stacked seriously against them. It seems like the knowledge of options and the realistic hope of something better is what can help kids to climb out of desperate situations. Again, though, when well meaning people are putting programs together it would seem like it would be really important to ‘walk a mile in their shoes’ to try to understand that the barriers are. Speaking for myself, I’m sure they are things that I cannot possibly imagine.</p>
<p>I was watching that piece and thinking about the soda pop consumption. Adults were putting it in baby bottles! It seems just ignorant and backwards but then I am fortunate to live in a place where I turn on the faucet and good, clean, good tasting water comes out. The only concession I make is to run it a minute or 2 first thing in the morning so I’m not using what has been sitting in the pipes over night. If I had no running water or tainted well water my “Why don’t they just . . .?” would be different I’m sure.</p>
<p>Oohh, I forgot about “Gomer Pyle” - I hated that program too. And Hunt is right, “The Andy Griffith Show” took place in Mayberry, right? (Wasn’t that supposed to be Mt. Airy, NC?) I did love Andy Taylor and the music that was played on the show. </p>
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Coal mining has been a blessing and a curse for West Virginia since the day we broke away from Virginia on June 20, 1863! It is one of the very few good jobs one can get in the southern part of our state without a lot of extra education and training. (I think they do require a diploma or GED, plus a safety course now.) And they make as much or more than many college-educated professionals - when they work. That is key. Between injuries and layoffs, mining jobs can be scarce. But the hopes of getting back in the mines to make that good money keeps a lot of men (yes, virtually all coal miners around here are men) from persuing any other line of work. And that good money keeps a lot of women from persuing careers - they marry expecting to be supported by their husbands (I’m stating a fact, not making a value judgement here.) When the injuries or layoffs come, they may take a minimum wage job, if they are lucky enough to be able to snag one. When the hubster recovers or gets called back to work, they quit and return home. And the cycle continues - very different from life in most other parts of the country.
As far as the drug screens go - a mine in Kentucky posted an ad saying they wanted to hire 100 miners - only eight passed the drug test. This is an outgrowth of mining too. Injured miners recieve a lot of potent pain medication, such as Oxycontin. It’s laying around the house and and people, usually young ones with a lot of time on their hands, have access to it. They take it out of boredom and sell it to make money, and there are pill mills all over the place.
And putting soda pop in baby bottles is ignorant and backward, no matter how once slices it. My job involves making and monitoring grants to organzations that serve and try to educate the very people who do this kind of thing. The organizations do as much outreach as they humanly can, but that doesn’t mean people act on the information. I’d say 95 percent of parents know better, but their parents did it and they figure they turned out OK. The same thing holds true for smoking, especially during pregnancy. Women say things like “My mom had nine kids and smoked with every one of us and we were all fine.” Another reason many women smoke during preganancy is to try to keep the baby small, so labor will be easier … I swear I’m not making any of this up!</p>
<p>I don’t know why this is so interesting to me . . . I have no dog in the hunt . . . but I was doing dome more reading of responses to the old 20/20 piece along with new articles and whatnot. The responses to the original video were almost uniformly negative and very similar to the post that got this conversation started. They skewed towards the idea that the piece showed only stereotypes and dwelled on the negative making the region and population look bad. As a total outsider I took in that Sawyer pointed out that very close to the poverty are regular, middle class homes and that not everyone lives that way.</p>
<p>Some interesting points from another article:
The writer said that the cases of pop are used as a currency as they can be purchased with EBT cards then sold back at a discount for cash to be spent on non-food items (often narcotics).</p>
<p>The writer noted that as people with better economic and educational prospects have moved away the poverty has become more concentrated. Grocery stores, movie theaters, car dealerships and other town features closed as the economic base skewed lower losing even more jobs. The people who remain are increasingly the people who really do have no other options.</p>
<p>The young man in the piece who received the football scholarship but didn’t stay was offered others after the piece aired but ended up turning them down. He is married with 2 kids (about 1 and 3) and his wife just graduated last year. It does seem like a defeat as he had some opportunities to get out however he and his wife both graduated from high school and are both working from what I can tell. While not great, he has improved his situation compared to his family of origin. Maybe their kids have a chance for even further advancement. Some local posters said that he wasn’t really prepared for college work so plucking a kid out of poverty and sending them to college without mentoring and strong academic and social preparation is not necessarily the answer. Hmmmmm . . .</p>