TV historian and former executive Tim Brooks said something notable about the concept of rural America and the “hillbilly” which was created and captured by Hillbilly TV during the 1960s, which Bullard referred to in The Bitter Southerner: “Rural America was like true America, simpler, without all the problems of big city life, technology, the Russians, and that kind of stuff.” Thus, the popularity of Hillbilly TV in the 1960s speaks to the nation’s uncomfortableness about modern urban society—according to the book “Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon.” The stereotype itself of the “hillbilly” served at times of soul-searching for many Americans, according to Anthony Harkins.
Prior to the casting of “Beverly Hillbillies,” producers and directors set out on what they called a “hick hunt” in order to find a family who would accept money in order to go live in Beverly Hills. The viewers of these audiences also had to have the means in order to watch these shows, but by the early 1970s, the way TV viewers were measured had become more sophisticated—and the audiences of Hillbilly TV appeared to be mostly old and mostly rural.
The Rural Purge was almost an embodiment of the fans of these eventually cancelled shows feeling like the silent majority—who felt inferior and voiceless in the presence and existence of the elite.
While there were stereotypes created and utilized as entertainment by CBS of the “hillbilly” there were also representations and ideas of the audience which took form. Traits that were displayed in these shows which were often embraced in the south were viewed negatively elsewhere, and this also triggered the association with the “hillbilly” to right-winged political views.
In the 2000s, when reality “hillbilly” TV hit, “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” and shows similar dictated a spectacle in which audiences of any social class could peer into the life of the “hillbilly” for a designated amount of time, and also laugh at the various norms which played a role in the “reality” of the show.
In 2012, Duck Dynasty premiered:
The correlation between fandom and percentage of viewers who voted for Trump was higher for “Duck Dynasty” than it was for any other show in 2016. The show carries layers of paternalism and religion with it, among other things, which sways viewers who do not identify with these notions away from the show, where as other reality TV was less serious. In the 2000s, in times of shows like “Justified” and “Duck Dynasty,” fans of hillbilly TV were largely made up of people with these sorts of political views, from rural and southern areas, and of this certain class.
On the contrary, the “Game of Thrones” audience depicts a fandom map in which popularity surges in the Northeast and urban areas (during the same time period).
The demographics of hillbilly TV and its audience has evolved over time, due to familiarity, expression and relation of one’s own way of life, fear of urban life, and an escape to simplicity. The idea of the spectacle is also important here.