I’ve lived in West Virginia my entire life. I speak intellectually, I don’t like cornbread, and yes, I wear shoes. And this may come as a shock to all the outsiders who either don’t recognize us as a state (“western Virginia”) or stereotype us as incestual hillbillies, but I have all my teeth, and they are white and straight. These same facts apply to almost everyone I know, so where did these stereotypes come from?
Let us first review some of the many crude stereotypes that my beautiful state endures. Incompetent speech: all ya’ll city-slickers think we talk like fools. We don’t. Severe poverty: almost every girl in our school carries a Coach purse. I’m not a fan, but regardless, they don’t come cheap. Music consists of hammer dulcimers and fiddles: I am in a classical string orchestra, and our school band is performing in the Rose Bowl in 2013. Everyone mines coal: I don’t even know a coal miner. Turn or burn Christianity: one of my best friends is Muslim, another close friend Buddhist, and a few don’t believe anything at all. As for the inbred characters depicted in “Wrong Turn”, that was just plain mean.
‘How strange’ you say, then where did these vivid, not to mention wrong, stereotypes come from? Hollywood. No matter where you go, if you dig around, you will find strange things. Every state has a freakish family where everything stays in the family, every state has uneducated, bumbling fools, and every state has poverty. And yet, movies such as “Beverly Hillbillies” put the pin for every backwards behavior this side of the Mississippi in Appalachia. We are the Mountain Martyrs.
However, I will step off my soap-box for a moment. Stereotypes are often exaggerated truth… you mustn’t misunderstand me, if you go far enough down state, you will find people who speak in the classic slurred speech, you will find people whose lives are coal, and you will find poverty. But believe me when I say that that is not Appalachia as a whole. Just like how cowboys aren’t the Midwest as a whole. The point I’m trying to make is that anywhere you go will have people with strange habits, and if we can see pass the strange minority in other places, why not in Appalachia?
Appalachia is beautiful. The rolling mountains that melt into deep valleys, the explosion of chlorophyll in spring, the wild flowers in summer, the deciduous forests in fall, the evergreens laden with snow in winter…it’s all breathtaking. Focus on that. Not on meth labs and overalls.
-C
1 comments:
I agree the news always focuses on the bad and the media needs a scapegoat for rising problems, so West Virginia seems to be the best place for them to place the blame. It seems to be easiest, since we have a small population and no one plans a great family vacation to Fairmont or Elkins or Mingo County. I also agree that a lot of stereotypes are based in truth. I love cornbread. I go barefoot at work (it an exceptional circumstance).
However, I do need to say one thing: the Beverly Hillbillies came from oil country, Texas or Oklahoma.
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