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by Ed Crabtree
Throughout
the Ozarks as well as most of rural
America, those not native have portrayed
or stereotyped the locals as imposing,
crude, and illiterate uneducated louts, or
"Hillbillies". An un-politically correct
image that many of our learned native sons
and daughters have spent a lifetime trying
to dispel, while other residents of the
Ozarks have spent an equal amount of time
trying to preserve. Let's take a look at
both sides of the question.
For
nearly 200 years various authors have
reported of uneducated backwoodsmen in the
Ozarks, H.R. Schoolcraft who explored the
Ozarks in the early 1800s wrote in his
journals of "witnessing the abode of
man beyond the pale of the civilized
world" referring to the long hunters
or mountain men that inhabited the region.
In an article entitled "The Truth About
Hillbillies..." first published in the
Ozarks Mountaineer, Phyllis
Rossiter Modeland wrote about
Schoolcraft's other observations;
Although
Schoolcraft's first impression was
perpetuated for decades, he spoke of
the only inhabitants who had penetrated
the wilderness of the White River
country by 1819--hunters and trappers
who supported themselves by taking the
bear, deer, buffalo, elk, beaver,
raccoon, and other animals. Later
writers were more complimentary to the
early settlers who followed the
hunters. The pioneers of a later decade
were described as "rugged
individualists, cautious, cool, and
uncommunicative with strangers; but
with ...neighbors ...friendly,
congenial, generous, and exceedingly
cooperative." (1)
In
an article titled "The Environment Of
Work", he wrote for the 1990 Summer issue
of OZARKS WATCH, Robert
Gilmore decried the image of the
Hillbilly;
I've
always been more annoyed than amused by
the hillbilly-postcard image of the
Ozarker. You know the postcard I mean.
The one tourists buy to send back to
Iowa, demonstrating the stereotypical
lazy mountaineer, lying in front of his
falling-down shack, surrounded by a
passel of grimy and lethargic young'ns.
A slovenly wife slouches nearby,
herself too slothful to shoo the
scrawny hogs, dogs, and chickens from
the rickety porch. (2)
Gilmore
praised the work force and ethic of the
Ozark's people in this essay, presenting a
truth that stands in direct conflict with
the image preserved by the popular culture
of the world beyond the hills, an image of
a lazy sub-culture. So what has preserved
that image for so long when it is so
wrong?
In
1934 Al Capp took his idea of a comic
strip with a hillbilly as lead character,
to United Features Syndicate and Li'l
Abner was born. "Abner" was carried at
first by only eight newspapers, but the
hapless fictional residents of Dogpatch,
quickly became popular with a
Depression-era America. Within three short
years it climbed to 253 newspapers,
reaching over 15,000,000 readers. Before
long he was in hundreds more, with a
circulation exceeding 60,000,000. The
strip inspired a broadway play, a movie,
and a theme park just south of Harrison
Arkansas. Capp's concept of a foot race in
which single ladies would run down and
capture eligible bachelors, who were not
always willing to be caught and by the
rules of the race were obliged to wed the
girl who caught them, soon spun off into
"Sadie Hawkin's Day" events in the real
world. I doubt that any forced weddings
ever took place, during these just for fun
contests, that were held at community
events, but they were fun, and very
popular for many years.
Capps
ability to satirize the real world through
his hillbilly and other characters
garnered him the acclaim of fans, his
literary, peers and even heads of state.
Author John Steinbeck was not only a fan,
in fact, he called Capp "the best writer
in the world."(3)
Many
other authors have also wrote kindly of
the Hillbilly telling of the rugged
individualism, the simple wisdom of a
group of people who prefer to live
harmoniously with nature rather than to
beat it into submission. Finding a certain
degree of inspiration from the humor that
can be derived when an outsider tries to
go "toe to toe" with a native of the
Ozarks, the outsider usually ending up
with the "short end of the stick", some
writers have gained international
notoriety exploiting the comedic situation
arising from these encounters. Paul
Henning, a native of Independence
Missouri, became a much sought after
writer and producer when the various
television comedies that he produced in
the late sixties and the early seventies,
became some of the most highly rated and
viewed programs of all times. "Green
Acres", "Petty Coat
Junction", and of course the best
known of all, "The Beverly
Hillbillies" were well recieved by
the American viewing public and remain
very popular in syndication today.
Like
Capp, Henning used his fictional
characters to force us to take a look at
our society as the prime characters dealt
with and overcame adversity in seemingly
improbable situations. On the
MEMORABLE TELEVISION, THE GOLDEN AGE OF
TV website, Hennings biography
described Green Acres as;
a
flat-out assault on Cartesian logic,
Newtonian physics, and Harvard-centrist
positivism. Lawyer Oliver Wendell
Douglas (Eddie Albert) and his
socialite wife Lisa (Eva Gabor) come to
Hooterville in search of the greening
of America and a lofty Jeffersonian
idealism. What they discover instead is
a virtual parallel universe of
unfettered surrealism, rife with gifted
pigs, square chicken eggs, and a
biogenetic hotcakes--a universe which
Lisa intuits immediately, and by which
Oliver is constantly
bewildered(4)
While
Green Acres portrays the misadventures of
an outsider transplanted into rural life
and his inability to deal with the locals
who always seem to out wit him at every
move using illogical and preposterous
means, The Beverly Hillbillies features
transplanted rural Americans, who move to
Hollywood, and while totally out of their
environment they still manage to better
those more savvy in the ways of modern
society far from the secluded hill
country. Buddy Ebsen portrayed the
patriarch of the clan "Uncle Jed" and
through his remarkable acting talent he
managed to breathe life into his
character, making "Uncle Jed" a permanent
fixture in the hearts and minds of
millions. His simple wisdom, honesty, and
uncanny ability to totally confuse and
unintentionally out smart the "big city"
bankers and business men that were out to
control or sometimes steal his fortune,
made Jed Clampett a homespun hero, to the
sometimes more than sixty million viewers
that tuned in each week.
During
this year, many of our heroes of the
silver screen have departed for more
loftier roles, Ebsen left us earlier this
year, and although he was a multitalented
actor, artist, singer and writer, he will
always be remembered by most, simply as
Uncle Jed.
While
Al Capp place the location of his comic
strip in Kentucky, it should be noted that
Henning never did pin his characters to
any one geographic locale. However some
will always belief that both Capp's
creations and those of Henning's, have
ties to the Ozarks. Partly due to the
opening of a theme park, Dogpatch USA in
Arkansas that was based on Capps work, and
the several episodes of the Beverly
Hillbillies that were filmed at Silver
Dollar City, near Branson Missouri.
But
it should be noted that while Henning in
effect might have connected his hillbilly
characters to the Ozarks by filming here,
that action has helped to bring national
attention to the area. The locally filmed
episodes were some of the most watched and
made Silver Dollar City a household name,
bringing thousands of tourists to the area
and millions of tourism related dollars.
Paul Henning and his wife Ruth also gave
of themselves to the area when they
purchased a large tract of land,
subsequently donating that real estate to
the people of Missouri and creating a
conservation area just outside of Branson.
While we as Ozarkers might have been
defamed by the association of Henning's
hillbillies to our region, we have also
gained tremendously.
Although
Capp's "Lil' Abner" comic strip has been
out of circulation for nearly thirty years
and to some a fading memory, and Henning's
various productions only exist in reruns,
there are still tourists that arrive in
Branson and the Tri Lakes region hoping to
see a "real hillbilly". After asking a
local sales or motel clerk, directions
regarding the likeliest location where one
might find a hillbilly many unsuspecting
visitors are surprised to be informed that
they are indeed speaking to a "real"
hillbilly, as many of us are proud to wear
what others consider an ethnic slur.
So
while there are those that profess to be a
hillbilly, and proud of it, the Ozarks has
produced countless educators, authors,
doctors, lawyers, scientists, statesmen,
and others whose intellect and work ethic
contradict the traditional common
stereotype. The Ozarks is proud of both
groups, the self proclaimed hillbillies as
well as the native sons and daughters that
shun the image. But with the influx of
city folks and technological advances, one
wonders how much time is left until the
death of the Hillbilly.
References:
(1)The Truth About Hillbillies, Phyllis
Rossiter Modeland,
http://www.runningriver.com/truth.htm
(2) The Environment Of Work, by Robert
Gilmore,
http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/periodicals/ozarkswatch/ow401e.htm
(3) Biography of Al Capp,
(4)
http://www.memorabletv.com/halloffame/paulhenning.htm
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