In Hillbilly: A Cultural History, Anthony Harkins writes:
[T]he portrayal of southern mountain people as premodern and ignorant ‘hillbillies’ is one of the most lasting and pervasive images in American popular iconography, appearing continuously through the twentieth century in nearly every major facet of American popular culture from novels and magazines to movies and television programs to country music and the Internet. (Harkins, 3)
Can you name an example from your own exposure to American popular culture that supports Harkins’ characterization of the hillbilly stereotype? Harkins argues that the hillbilly stereotype serves as a negative counter-example to hegemonic middle-class culture. How might your example support Harkins’ argument?
February 20, 2019 at 2:23 pm
Question #5:
An example of my own exposure to American pop culture that also supports Harkins argument of how hillbillies are stereotyped is the lyrics of country songs and their references to the way they live, or how they lived before their fame. Country music was popular among the peers I grew up around (in Middlebury, VT) and I attended two country concert with my friends when I was younger. A song that sticks out to me as a stereotypical portrayal of the hillbilly, or redneck, lifestyle is called Hicktown by Jason Aldean (one of the country sinegers I saw growing up). His lyrics go,
“We let it rip when we got the money, Let it roll if we got the gas, It gets wild yeah, but that’s the way we get down In a Hicktown. Well you can see the neighbors buttcrack nailing on his shingles And his woman’s’ smokin’ Pall Mall’s watchin’ Laura Ingles And Granny’s getting’ lit she’s headin’ out to bingo Yeah my buddies and me are goin’ muddin’ down on Blue Hole Road”
These lyrics stuck out to me because he is describing a very vivid image in this song that is not seen as proper or respectable. Talking about a man who is doing manual labor with his pants falling down, while his wife is smoking cigarettes outside could be seen very negatively by many people because that is not how the “middle-class” should behave. If they are the hegemonic middle-class, they should be more poised and well-mannered. Harkins speaks about this in his writing and says that hillbillies can be defined by their clothing as well as many other factors, but their physical appearance is very specific, which Jason Aldean alludes to in his lyrics. Another lyric that stuck out to me is,
“We hear folks in the city party in Martini Bars And they like to show off in their fancy foreign cars Out here in the boondocks we buy beer at Amoco And crank our Kraco speakers with that country radio”
This was interesting to me because he is a very famous country singer speaking about how wealthy people live differently than him and his community. He almost pokes fun at how people in the city live and much of a disparity there is in the “boondocks”. I think it is ironic that he is othering himself from the wealthy people in the city, when he has become a hugely successful musician who has surely made a fortune but still identifies with the lifestyle of living in the boondocks rather than the city.
A difference between Aldean’s lyrics, and the point made by Harkins is that Aldean is referencing how he lives because he is proud of his roots and where he came from. Activities such as getting their hands dirty and performing hard manual labor, going mudding in their trucks, buying beer at the local convenience store when they have the money to do so, are all examples of how they spend their time- all of which are spoken of because they enjoy it.