Intro:
The rule of law and justice are themes that are often played upon in television series set in rural America. Southern and rural crime has been sensationalized since the original genre of the western and cowboy legend. Whether on the big screen or on television, television has sought to understand many of the problems that flow through the fabric of America, and specifically Appalachia.
The “Good Ol’ Boys” of blue-collar Appalachia are often juxtaposed with the corrupt police force or dangerous criminals who pervade their small towns. By dealing with crime, on top of issues of socio-economic status, these shows create and reinforce several stereotypes about what it means to be a good hillbilly in Appalachia.
The Dukes of Hazzard:
CBS: 1979-1986
The Dukes of Hazzard debuted on CBS in 1979. Inspired by the 1975 film, Moonrunners, the show follows cousins Luke and Bo Duke of Hazzard County, GA. To this day, The Dukes remains a pop culture staple, sparking fandom and praise just as much as it has garnered criticism. Like it’s predecessors, the show draws many generalizations about what it means to live in the south. Similarly, it offers a watered down version of southern living as it sought to “pull in viewers nationwide for a story about the South without touching anything that inflamed people a decade or a century before.” Few series during this time period tackled the issue of race in the south. Instead, superficial conflicts and storylines sought to represent an entire population of the blue-collar south. Along these lines, race is not an issue or focus in Dukes of Hazzard.
The show’s debut opens with the cousins in a car chase with local police, as the title ‘One Armed Bandits’ floats across the screen. High paced banjo music overwhelms the scene and both vehicles, in some form or another, feature the confederate flag. This is Hazzard County, GA. From the moment the show begins, we know the Duke cousins are unabashedly southern and proud of their roots. However, their use of the confederate flag and their embodiment of the trope of ‘Good Ol Boys’ goes without any historical recognition. The characterization of the cousins as crime fighters who simply fly the confederate flag, follows suit with many of the modern arguments in support of the stars and bars. The Duke cousins are not political, but rather stand for hard work and ancient traditions, the traditions supposedly embodies in the confederate flag.
Outside of their southern drawls and small-town roots, the boys epitomize many other traits that have become characteristic of “Hillbilly” characters: they are white and without a college education. Another one of these traits is their complicated relationship with “the man”. In the pilot episode, Bo and Luke are immediately described as at odds with the law. They had been sentenced to probation for illegal transportation of moonshine. Beside their own trouble, the plot line of the subsequent episodes of the series follow various acts of crime or scandal in which the Duke boys must clear their names and fight against the corrupt police force. The Duke boys stand for old ways and traditions, but also the long standing notion of fighting the system that has not done them any good. They represent the anti-government individualism that has come to define the viewpoints of many Appalachian constituents. Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco Coltrane represent unlawful southern corruption while the Duke boys represent hillbillies on the side of justice. This is seen clearly in the foolish actions that the police force and other criminals fall into when in pursuit of the Duke cousins. Good is lawful, while evil is foolish and ill intentioned.
Their representation suggests that there is a clear distinction between good and evil, and evil almost certainly meets its demise at the hands of those on the side of good in Hazzard County. The fascination with rural crime seen in The Dukes of Hazzard is nothing new. Dukes premiered during “the Carter-era pop fascination with Southern good-ol-boy stories and at the edge of “the post-Watergate era, in which the suspicion of The Man became mainstream”. Many of the most popular cinematic heroes of the time were those who broke laws enforced by corruption. They Duke cousins are no different. (http://time.com/3944668/dukes-of-hazzard-tv-land-confederate-flag/)
Dukes of Hazzard champions a sense of anti-government individualism while also characterizing the rural south as a place of simple people and simple lives. In this way, Dukes “considered the South to be a land of freedom, moral valued, and simple people rather than encapsulating the truth of the south at this time”.
Justified:
FX: 2010-2015
In 2010, a new cowboy named Raylan Givens made his way into a less crowded arena of “hillbilly’ television. By this time, the trend of sharing stories of the “simple south” was not as popular as in the 60s and 70s. Rather, Television more often grappled with the modern social issues of the time during the second “Golden Age of Television” beginning in the 2000’s. Shows like Breaking Bad, Orange is the New Black, Modern Family, among a plethora of others, offered diversified and easily obtainable storylines for any type of TV viewer. Rather than being dominated by three major networks, television started becoming more accessible across various producers and digital platforms. However, the western or hillbilly saga did not cease to exist.
FX tried their hand at the classic genre when Justified debuted in 2010. Written by novelist and screenwriter Elmore Leonard, Justified offers a socially conscious version of the hillbilly dramas of years past. Justified continues many of the traditions set forth by shows like The Dukes of Hazzard but offers modern layers and realistically complex storylines that were not featured in the first generation of southern television. The show tackles economic and racial issues that have come to define Appalachia.
In the first episode, Raylan’s actions in what he called a “justified” shooting in Miami, ultimately force his bosses to relocate him back to his hometown of Harlan County, KY. This is fitting because Raylan does not fit in in Miami. His southern charm, accent and overall way of life are at odds with the city atmosphere he is forced to work in. He is clearly a cowboy. Similarly to the Duke cousins, Raylan Givens represents a clear distinction between the southerner on the side of justice and the southerner against the law. Givens, similar to the Duke cousins, has his own ways of upholding justice that often conflicts with the criminals he pursues and even his bosses within the U.S Marshals service. There is a clear tension between Raylan’s desire to uphold the law and his natural pull to do things “The Harlan Way”. Unlike Dukes, Justified, however, does not brush over the historically complicated race relations of the south. In the first episode, we meet Boyd Crowder, the series anti-hero. Raylan and Boyd are longtime friends, who first met while mining coal as teenagers in Harlan County. Both are the sons of disenfranchised former coal miners turned criminals. After conflicts between executives and minors reached a high as companies pulled out of the county, violent crime and riots came to define the setting of the series as “bloody Harlan”. (https://encompass.eku.edu/etd/431/).
Immediately, the storyline of Justified is already considerably more complex and realistic than The Dukes of Hazzard. Like other texts we have viewed this semester, Justified too tells the tale “of the white working class’ social dysfunction in the hills of Appalachia”. Similar to J.D Vance in Hillbilly Elegy, the character Raylan Givens represents an individual who has escaped the coal mines of Kentucky and the poverty of Appalachia to make something of himself. Boyd, on the other hand, represents what can happen if one is influenced too heavily by the negative aspects of a place like Harlan County, KY. Boyd holds white supremacist values and deeply bases his believes in his interpretation of scripture. In the first episode, we are exposed to just how far his views go. Sporting a swastika tattoo, Boyd sets a rastafarian church as his first target. This crime is already more complex than any featured in Dukes of Hazzard. It is not inspired by a corrupt need for money but by a hatred, one that is becoming increasingly more relevant in our country.
Similar to criminals in Dukes, Boyd and his clan of neo-nazi sidekicks are represented as less educated and foolish, often falsely citing scripture or speaking in broken english. They are all white and have only ever lived in Harlan County. They spend their time in run-down trailers or abandoned buildings. They embody many of the stereotypes that have come to define the hillbilly in television.
The U.S Marshals service (including a female black officer) and Raylan Givens are represented as clearly more educated and show that these views are not held by everyone in Harlan. Even Raylan, who was born and raised in Harlan, offers a nuanced skepticism to the problems and structures that define the county. Justified offers what seems to be the modern rebuttal to a show like The Dukes of Hazzard. For Raylan and many other characters, there is a shared sense of nostalgia for home and history” which is tempered “with necessary skepticism.”