This is important, not because of Appalachia but because of art itself.
As a history buff, I have a difficult time watching many "based on a true story" movies or movies claiming to represent some important person or event in history. It's for the same reason: people consume information through narrative, and narrative forces reality into predefined tracks. This means that any art form claiming to represent a people, region, person, or event must necessarily be lying to you. The better the art the more likely the lies are big ones.
And so storytellers are forced to lie, both by drastically-reducing scope and by smoothing out the edges. Then they consolidate characters, generalize over things that are not part of the narrative. They find a hero. They bump the contrast up a bit to make the narrative consumption more enjoyable.
I love this, I love art and storytelling, but it means that there are great masses of people who don't know jack squat about a ton of topics that they think they do.
I grew up here. I've traveled all over, spending quite a bit of time in SF and other very cosmopolitan places, but this is home. If I were forced to scope it down, I'd probably start with the mountains, then the coal mines, then the Scots-Irish cultural backdrop. The writer made an astute point when they mentioned all the outsiders passing through and screwing us over in various ways for their own selfish reasons. That's been a persistent theme, but it is slowly dying off. There's also the tent revival culture, but that's also going away.
The only other generality I'd add if I were scoping down a story about this place is the stereotype of the ornery eccentric. This character has been played up for comic relief over the years, many times making them out to be simpletons. Instead, there are a lot of PhD-level folks who just don't give a damn about society and don't want to. They're nice enough. They just want to be left alone. You find that plenty of other places as well, but Appalachia has a long history of those folks and we tend to cherish them, even if we're making fun of them.
Andrew Jackson almost beat a man to death with his cane after he tried to assassinate him (His gun misfired. He grabbed a backup. It also misfired. Jackson commenced to beating on him and had to be pulled off). After the Civil War, Ewell went back to his home, picked back up his law practice, and started writing books about what a bunch of jackasses all those people who misunderstood the war were. We always wave at people here: the best way to tell if people are from far away is when they don't wave. Had a neighbor once that when I waved at him he would make various obscene gestures and curse. He just wanted to be left alone.
I wouldn't live anywhere else, and it's not because I haven't tried out a bunch of other places. There's something about the mountains that keep calling me back. I don't know what.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I've never visited Appalachia, and I'm afraid my views are filtered through popular media. But even if a TV show like "Justified" (I've seen the first 3 seasons) bends to narrative constraints, I felt it took its setting and the people living there seriously. I'm sure I'm missing a lot though.
Another piece of media that I felt was a strong statement about Appalachia is Ever South[1] by Drive-by Truckers.
I think the saddest thing about Appalachia is the fact that much of the really interesting parts are disappearing. Everything in the country, including Appalachia, is WalMart-i-fied. It's all strip malls and chain stores. Everybody listens to the same music, surfs the same sites, and buys the same swag. As a species we are homogenizing everything.
I have fond memories of walking into a country store in Grundy, Virginia where I bought a coke. The guy behind the counter spoke in a language I couldn't understand at first. Then I realized it was English. I have another fond memory of walking into a startup where they were on their way to making billions. These memories happened only several dozen miles from each other. There's a lot of cool stuff going on here. I can guarantee that whatever media you've consumed about it misled you in many ways.
I had a eerily similar experience in the Pikeville, KY WalMart: Stopped in to pick up some last minute groceries for a weekend excursion to the Russell Fork. While walking around I heard a voice over the intercom that I literally could not understand a word that was said. I looked at my wife (both of us born and raised in KY) and said, "What was that?". She also had no idea what was said. It was a different language, not really English.
Being from Kentucky, Justified was a laugh-a-minute for us ... it's very authentic, if authentic means filmed in California with the best looking hillbilly's and rednecks anyone has ever seen.
As a history buff, I have a difficult time watching many "based on a true story" movies or movies claiming to represent some important person or event in history. It's for the same reason: people consume information through narrative, and narrative forces reality into predefined tracks. This means that any art form claiming to represent a people, region, person, or event must necessarily be lying to you. The better the art the more likely the lies are big ones.
And so storytellers are forced to lie, both by drastically-reducing scope and by smoothing out the edges. Then they consolidate characters, generalize over things that are not part of the narrative. They find a hero. They bump the contrast up a bit to make the narrative consumption more enjoyable.
I love this, I love art and storytelling, but it means that there are great masses of people who don't know jack squat about a ton of topics that they think they do.
I grew up here. I've traveled all over, spending quite a bit of time in SF and other very cosmopolitan places, but this is home. If I were forced to scope it down, I'd probably start with the mountains, then the coal mines, then the Scots-Irish cultural backdrop. The writer made an astute point when they mentioned all the outsiders passing through and screwing us over in various ways for their own selfish reasons. That's been a persistent theme, but it is slowly dying off. There's also the tent revival culture, but that's also going away.
The only other generality I'd add if I were scoping down a story about this place is the stereotype of the ornery eccentric. This character has been played up for comic relief over the years, many times making them out to be simpletons. Instead, there are a lot of PhD-level folks who just don't give a damn about society and don't want to. They're nice enough. They just want to be left alone. You find that plenty of other places as well, but Appalachia has a long history of those folks and we tend to cherish them, even if we're making fun of them.
Andrew Jackson almost beat a man to death with his cane after he tried to assassinate him (His gun misfired. He grabbed a backup. It also misfired. Jackson commenced to beating on him and had to be pulled off). After the Civil War, Ewell went back to his home, picked back up his law practice, and started writing books about what a bunch of jackasses all those people who misunderstood the war were. We always wave at people here: the best way to tell if people are from far away is when they don't wave. Had a neighbor once that when I waved at him he would make various obscene gestures and curse. He just wanted to be left alone.
I wouldn't live anywhere else, and it's not because I haven't tried out a bunch of other places. There's something about the mountains that keep calling me back. I don't know what.