Movie-Made Appalachia

While Hollywood deserves its reputation for much-maligned portrayals of southern highlanders on screen, the film industry also deserves credit for a long-standing tradition of more serious and meaningful depictions of Appalachia's people. Surveying some two dozen films and the literary and historical sources from which they were adapted, John C. Inscoe argues that in the American imagination Appalachia has long represented far more than deprived and depraved hillbillies. Rather, the films he highlights serve as effective conduits into the region's past, some grounded firmly in documented realities and life stories, others only loosely so. In either case, they deserve more credit than they have received for creating sympathetic and often complex characters who interact within families, households, and communities amidst a wide array of historical contingencies. They provide credible and informative narratives that respect the specifics of the times and places in which they are set. Having used many of these movies as teaching tools in college classrooms, Inscoe demonstrates the cumulative effect of analyzing them in terms of shared themes and topics to convey far more generous insights into Appalachia and its history than one would have expected to emerge from southern California's "dream factory.

Given scholarship warning that dehumanization of the region's inhabitants likely exacerbates and accelerates American acceptance of suffering in Appalachia - including the suffering of poor, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, AppalAsian, queer, disabled, and other stigmatized residents - Inscoe's effort to draw students and readers into sympathetic conversation about the people of the region is a valuable addition." - The Journal of Southern History , Inscoe spent many years discussing these films with students, and this book shares those conversations to add a beneficial perspective to scholarship in this area. Though the scope may be narrow, the analysis is deep and rewarding."--CHOICE , This book is an engaging tribute to the role of film in the portrayal of Appalachia. Moving beyond the stereotypes, the author finds those examples that explore the culture in an honest and forthright manner. Recommended forstudents of film and Southern history as well as general readers interested in the subject."--Georgia Library Quarterly

John C. Inscoe is the Albert B. Saye Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Georgia.