Controversial Johnny Knoxville Documentary Stirs up Old West Virginia Stereotypes: West Virginia Hillbillies “Most Debauched” Hillbillies in Appalachia

Glenn Closes’ Damages: Hollywood Reinforces Negative West Virginia Hillbilly Stereotypes, Paints State as Ignorant, Backwoods Hillbillies Beholden to Polluting “Big Energy” Coal Company

The Liberal’s “Fascination” with Appalachian Hillbillies

The reviews for Glenn Close’s new series Damages, with Close getting rave reviews as a tough-as-nails-attorney, and a purportedly “sharp” storyline seemed good enough reason to watch the show. In season two the storyline diverted to West Virginia where a new villain emerged, Walter Kendrick, the head of “big energy” corporation, Ultima National Resources, and an old “stereotype”: the denizens of West Virginia, who were painted by the show as “backwards hillbillies”.

Who could forget the rather idiotic series of West Virginia scenes where Damage characters Ellen and Tom traveled to West Virginia to gather evidence against Ultima. Scenes such as Ellen and Tom’s “horror” when they came across nightlit “bonfires”, which the two discovered were West Virginians destroying farm stock that had been poisoned by Ultima’s illegal release of chemicals into local water sources. Even more incredulous, the scenes were Ellen and Tom feared for their lives when obtaining a water sample snagged by a local reporter at a “coal” plant-Get it? Coal plant? Hollywood’s latest designated form of “evil” in America. Ellen and Tom were then accosted by the local cops who were “in cahoots” with Ultima.

Those scenes plus some rather obnoxious anti-West Virginia stereotypical jokes in the script was enough for me to tune out the series. For good. I’m not a native of West Virginia so detractors can’t claim these views stem from some sort of West Virginia native “outrage”. Instead, I’m an observer who has traveled the state, plus I dislike inherently lame story plots that stoop to using worn-out stereotypes and incredibly untrue story devices. Devices such as the transparent dumb as dirt “hillbilly” West Virginia stereotypes under the thumb of the “evil” “big energy” coal company.

The irony is that it was apparent the scriptwriters had no working knowledge of rural people who raise livestock, or, of West Virginians’ inherent distrust of authority. Not only would West Virginians-who have firm belief in the right to bear arms-not “burn” their livestock under the cover of darkness, they’d be front and center in demanding an investigation as to the cause of death then demand “damages” in West Virginia or federal courts, instead of building bonfires and burning their cows to cover for a coal company. Which leads us to Johnny Knoxville’s controversial documentary The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia which some have labeled an “exploitative, disgusting piece of shit”.

Here’s an excerpt from Movieline’s review:

The night before Tribeca’s world premiere of The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia, a festivalgoing friend tipped me off to the controversial film with all the magic words I needed: something or other about an “exploitative, disgusting piece of shit” documentary executive produced by Johnny Knoxville. Sold! Less than 24 hours later I’d had a scorching look for myself, with Knoxville and director Julien Nitzberg on hand to help put the debauched hillbilly spectacle in perspective. Or at least as much perspective as one can attain on the drug-scarfing, gas-huffing, rifle-toting, child-endangering exploits of America’s most unapologetically dysfunctional family.

Here’s the documentary trailer:

Judging from the comments at the Movieline site, typical Boone County residents were outraged that the White family is viewed as a “typical” southern West Virginia Boone County family. Ironically, the Boone County commenters share the same “disgust” as those who live in Orange County, California, or, Atlanta, Georgia-ground zero for Bravo TV’s Real Housewife series. Orange County residents are incensed that Bravo uses “Botoxed, shop-a-holic” women in artificial scenarios whom OC residents feel are not “representative” of “real” OC housewives. They share the same feelings of Atlanta residents who complain the Real Housewives of Atlanta “ho’s” are an unfair representation of real Atlanta “housewives”.

While Bravo’s Real Housewives series are television “reality” series where the participants are paid up to $150,000 per season, the “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” is a documentary film where it’s unknown whether producers Johnny Knoxville and Jackass genius Jeff Tremaine paid the “Whites” for their time spent in front of the cameras.

I’m not going to dispute whether the scenes filmed by Knoxville’s crew were “staged” as families such as the Whites do exist, not just in West Virginia, but across the country. Even so, both the film and the review reinforce the negative West Virginia “hillbilly” stereotype that West Virginia “hillbillies” are the most “debauched” “hillbillies” in Appalachia:

Less than 24 hours later I’d had a scorching look for myself, with Knoxville and director Julien Nitzberg on hand to help put the debauched hillbilly spectacle in perspective. Or at least as much perspective as one can attain on the drug-scarfing, gas-huffing, rifle-toting, child-endangering exploits of America’s most unapologetically dysfunctional family.

It’s not just West Virginians but the entire Appalachian area which has been labeled as full of “backwards, “uneducated”, hicks from the sticks . And it’s not just filmmakers of television and tv, or the mainstream media who are guilty of perpetuating the negative label, but also Barack Obama, when he ran for President:

The stereotype of an Appalachian as a backward, uneducated, xenophobic bigot is an insult that came from Obama himself when he told a gathering of well-heeled liberals in the San Francisco area that the people in rural Pennsylvania won’t vote for him because they cling to guns and their religion.
Don Surber, The Charleston Gazette

The quote from Surber originated from Surber’s: Don Surber: The hillbilly stereotype strikes again.

Surber wrote about the movie “The Express”, a film about Ernie Davis, the first black Heisman winner who died from cancer before he could play in the NFL, and where WVU fans were upset over a scene in the film that never occurred:

WVU fans are upset with a scene that depicts Davis fighting racism at a game in Morgantown in 1959.

It never happened.

There was no game in Morgantown between his team, Syracuse, and WVU that year. They played in New York. The next year, they played in Morgantown.

In February, Newsweek published Hillbilly No More, “West Virginia’s governor is launching a massive campaign to liberate his state from ugly and unyielding stereotypes. He’s got his work cut out for him”.

Born and raised in central Appalachia, Shawn Grim is a walking hillbilly cliché. His mother has no teeth, none of his relatives graduated from high school and there’s a gun rack on the wall of his family’s ramshackle trailer. But he was still shocked last year when his brother, “Little Man,” was caught in flagrante with his half-sister. “That is really disgusting in my book,” said his mother of the incident, apparently not a one-off.

Newsweek reported on Manchin’s efforts to “rehabilitate” West Virginia’s stereotypical “hillbilly” image and to keep West Virginia’s “best and brightest” from packing up and moving out of state.

Newsweek also reported on ABC’s recent documentary “Children of the Mountains”, “shot on the Kentucky–West Virginia border, where the poverty rate is three times the national average, decay-ravaged “Mountain Dew mouth” is widespread and the life span is shorter than almost anywhere in America”. And, that West Virginia would most likely be “tarred” more than it’s neighbors due to “West Virginia’s perceived backwardness has been one its most durable cultural memes—an unshakable label for a state that lacks a big city, a famous musical heritage or championship team to offer as an alternative”.

That last sentence was a hoot and proof that the Newsweek journalist who wrote this article is either misinformed, or “backwards” on the “famous musical heritage” of country music whose roots sprang from the hollers of Appalachia, or country western star Brad Paisley who hails from Glen Dale, WV.. Or WVU, a championship winning university. Once again, Newsweek is busy perpetuating the West Virginia stereotype as, in the sixties, Newsweek was front and center in publishing “hillbilly” horror stories.

And then there was the Kennedy’s “fascination” with the “poor” with Rory Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, and her 1999 documentary “American Hollow”. Kennedy spent a year filming a “dirt poor” family in eastern Kentucky, a “poignant”, “matter of fact” documentary where Kennedy “explored family life and poverty”. One can’t help but wonder if Rory, who grew up in an upper-upper-class politically connected home, whether her year long exploratory odyssey in Appalachia filming a “dirt poor” family could be compared to an evolutionary psychologist documenting a tribe of Bonobo monkeys in Africa.

One doesn’t have to wonder if the Kennedys would have allowed a “dirt poor” documentary film maker to live with, and film them for a year. A “Kennedy Compound” documentary when Uncle Teddy was in his heyday. It never would have happened. Instead, the public has been allowed tiny glimpses, when, in 1991, Kennedy nephew William Kennedy Smith was on trial for alleged date rape while partying in Palm Beach at the Kennedy’s Compound. Also at the residence, Ted and son Patrick, where Ted was allegedly walking around, drink in hand, sans his pants. Or Ted’s “Adventure in Chappaquiddick” where film crews were turned away from the court proceedings.

As for the West Virginian Whites, yes, they’re a particularly dysfunctional family, but then again, as someone who’s familiar with stories of dysfunctional families from across the U.S., I’ve come across quite a few that originate, not from the “backwards” hollers of Appalachia, but from the hallowed halls of Ivy-Leagued hamlets, and, the suburbs of “progressive” cities. Cities such as Chicago where the city itself is “dysfunctional”, where black honor students are shot or beaten to death by their fellow classmates. Where an unintentional or accidental detour through the wrong area can sometimes leads to the tragic outcome of the wayward traveler accosted, and, in some cases, losing their life. Meanwhile, the citizens of the entire state of West Virginia, where “hillbillies” such as the Whites “run amok” seem to be lacking these types of large city “perks”.

By LBG

Image – Hillbillies
Image – Ted Kennedy Sailing