Hillbilly - in Fiction and Popular Culture

In Fiction and Popular Culture

The stereotypical hillbilly has inspired many fictional accounts in a variety of media, from novels and comic strips to movies and television. These accounts introduced the hillbilly to the general American public as a uniquely American type. Comic strips such as Li’l Abner and Snuffy Smith, and radio programs such as Lum and Abner brought the stereotype of lazy, simple-minded hillbillies into American homes.

Film and television have portrayed the hillbilly in both derogatory and sympathetic terms. Films such as Sergeant York or the Ma and Pa Kettle series portrayed the hillbilly as wild but good-natured, and television programs of the 1960s, such as The Real McCoys, The Andy Griffith Show, and especially The Beverly Hillbillies portrayed the hillbilly as somewhat backward but with a wisdom that always outwitted more sophisticated city folk. The popular 1970s television variety show Hee Haw starred several well-known country and western singers and regularly lampooned the stereotypical hillbilly lifestyle. A darker image of the hillbilly is found in the film Deliverance (1972), based on a novel by James Dickey, which depicted the hillbilly as genetically deficient and murderous.

In the Appalachian and Ozark regions, the hillbilly stereotype formed the basis for financially lucrative commercial interpretations of traditional culture through theme parks and theaters, such as Dogpatch USA in Arkansas, and Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.