Up From CBS
Comes Bubbling Crudity
By Rudy Abramson
This column originally appeared in the Los Angeles
Times op/ed page December 1, 2002.
Considering the general inanity of the stuff that
network television successfully foists off as family entertainment,
CBS' plan to resurrect the "Beverly Hillbillies" of the 1960s with
real-life hillbillies in the role of Jed Clampett's brood should be a
big hit and a gonzo moneymaker -- and another swipe at rural America.
Auditions underway in Appalachia and the rural South are
in search of new "stars" who will soon hie off to Southern California
to be settled in opulence, furnished with undreamed quantities of cash
and set loose to explore strange and wonderful new circumstances.
Naturally, they will be followed by cameras recording their slack-jawed
amazement and grateful appreciation of Beverly Hills' (read modern or
enlightened) civilization, culture and amenities.
 A new generation
will be as amused as the last one was when old Jed, awash in money from
oil discovered on his land in the Ozarks, moved Granny, his buxom
daughter, Elly May, and cousin, Jethro, to Beverly Hills. The saga of
the Clampetts attracted as many as 60 million viewers each week. In
spite of CBS' solemn assurances that the forthcoming "Real Hillbillies"
will be rich with social insight, the setup assures that the production
will be offensive. In the original, the actors left no doubt that they
were engaged in outlandish buffoonery. This time we shall see real
rural people put on display in circumstances reeking of condescension.
Young urbanites and recent immigrants unfamiliar with Jeb, Granny, Elly
May and Jethro will be left to conclude that the bumfuzzled new
hillbillies are more or less typical of rural Americans, who constitute
20% of the nation's population.
If the production comes to pass, this social commentary
will no doubt enjoy huge ratings in the very areas being scoured for
its unwitting stars, but a great many activists, academics and proud
ordinary folk regard the prospect with revulsion. They have not been in
such a snit since Robert Schenkkan was awarded the 1992 Pulitzer Prize
for "The Kentucky Cycle," an epic play sodden with violence, greed and
depravity, and presuming to offer profound insight.
To be sure, Southerners and mountain folk are somewhat
culpable for their region's image as Dogpatch incarnate. Entertainers
from the region have eagerly promoted the hillbilly image. Across the
region, hillbilly motifs are on exhibit nearly as prominently as Old
Glory.
But there is quite a difference between self-deprecation
and being manipulated, stereotyped and commercialized by outsiders. The
plan to use real-life Clampetts for mass amusement is more than a cute
scheme to cash in again on a weathered target of ridicule. Rather, it
is a symptom of the mass media's lack of regard for rural America, a
detachment manifest not only in sitcoms' affinity for Southern
hillbillies, hicks and rubes but in urban news organizations' general
disinterest in rural issues.
The point was well made by novelist Gurney Norman after
"The Kentucky Cycle" fizzled on Broadway (after an enthusiastic West
Coast opening). The essential problem with the play, Norman wrote, was
not that it dwelt on stereotypically violent, cruel, greedy and
ignorant people but that it willfully omitted positive images that were
equally relevant.
CBS has not heard the last protest against the reality
hillbillies. Rural Strategies, a new nonprofit organization created to
give voice to rural America, will soon undertake a national campaign
featuring paid ads to shame the network for perpetuating negative rural
stereotypes.
Appropriately, the group is based in Whitesburg, Ky.,
home of the late Harry Caudill, author of the saga "Night Comes to the
Cumberlands." Caudill's chronicle of central Appalachia's
impoverishment by corporate plundering of the region's mineral and
timber wealth provided important political stimulus for the War on
Poverty and passage of federal legislation on strip mining and mine
safety.
Ironically, Caudill's stark portrayal of mountain people
provided the fodder for the dark characters of "The Kentucky Cycle" and
for television producers who continue to find nonurbanites quite funny
and altogether irrelevant.
Rudy Abramson is co-editor of a forthcoming Encyclopedia of Appalachia and
serves on the advisory committee of the Center
for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.
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