For some reason, we have accumulated an embarrassingly extensive collection of everything hillbilly. For some reason, we put a group of our three-dimensional hillbillies together against a graduated seamless background and photographed them.  This was to advance a book project which is as-yet unpublished. Naturally when more schooled writers than we’uns hold forth on the subject we pay attention.

In an August 15 post, “Playing the Stereotype,” Steve Wiegenstein borrowed an early photo of jazz guitarist Les Paul performing hillbilly music as “Rhubarb Red” from Thomas Peters Facebook post. Dr. Peters is working on a book on the Ozark Jubilee and Springfield’s radio station, KWTO (“Keep Watching the Ozarks”). It “for some reason” reminded Professor Wiegenstein of the crazy Cohen Brothers film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.  Under the photo of Buster on horseback playing a guitar, he wrote of that scene where Buster sings, “Cool Water,” the joke being that that song isn’t a cowboy song, but a 1940s pop hit:

What follows is a series of ghastly/comic episodes that both play on Western-story stereotypes and embrace them, just as the “hillbilly” image both mocks, uses, and embraces that stereotype as well.

We make art where we find it, with the materials at hand. Sometimes those materials include simplified versions of ourselves, and then we must decide whether to challenge the stereotype or play with it. I think either decision can work, as long as the stereotype is approached with conscious intent. It’s when stereotypes are presented unconsciously and uncritically that they harm. The rural rustic, the hayseed, has been with us since Greek comedy, and we will probably never get rid of it. So, we might as well play with that image as we move toward the larger points we are trying to make in our literary and creative work.

It’s encouraging that scholars like Drs. Peters and Wiegenstein are looking into the complexities of the hillbilly trope. It’s gratifying that Wiegenstein believes that “The rural rustic, the hayseed, has been with us since Greek comedy, and we will probably never get rid of it.” Perhaps the time and coin we’ve put into this vast study collection are justified.

“Whether to challenge the stereotype or play with it,” as Wiegenstein so nicely states, is one challenge we faced working on our publishing project. Should we be amused or outraged at these rustic embodiments of ignorance and earthiness? Are white primitives cool or even allowable? We’ll have to check with Rousseau.