Talk:Hillbilly

Modern Usage

Re modern usage, does the term still only apply to people from mountainous areas? I haven't noticed it being any more specific in this regard than "redneck." 68.105.109.51 22:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The supporters of William of Orange were not known as Orangemen, as far as I know. I don't think that term would have come into usage until the founding of the Orange Order, in 1795.

I am not deleting any of this, even though most of it violates NPOV. That doesn't bother me so much as the extraordinary lack of knowledge on display. For suggestions, it would be good to note that hillbillies as a term is no longer perjorative, "hillbillies" can be found in Texas, Arkansas, Southern Indiana etc. Historically, in Appalachia, the role of (king) coal and mining towns cannot be overlooked. And of course, Junior Johnson, Dolly Parton and a host of others hailing from Appalachia, who have so greatly enriched modern culture, should certainly be discussed here, in context.

I'm not going to defend my writing in this case as expert, but lets look at a few things. most people still consider hillbilly to be an insult. just because alcohol is illegal, doesn't make it nonexistent. The reason that its production was popular in the mountains was exactly because it was so isolated.

I never said non-existent. Just off the top of my head I could give precise directions to the remains of a still in Scott's Gulf, White County, Tennessee, walk you right there. (From Crossville, take a left on Stringtown road, drive to the gravel road on the right leading to Virgin Falls, continue on this road past Virgin Falls to the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, call me on your cell phone from there... I will walk you in...:) The issue was occurrence and motivation.

I tended to focus on the extreme examples, but that is what is interesting to me. It probably is more folkloric than factual. If you hate it so much, then fix it or remove the parts you think are false. you have demonstrated some personal knowledge, so lets see it.

Relax. This will be as hard to write as white trash, but there is no particular hurry. Couple of things need to be done: Most of our discussion needs to move to a talk page, where anyone interested can hammer out the details. Quite a bit of what you wrote could be resurrected as popular folklore associated with hillbillies. The main subject matter needs to wikied to Appalachian folk life and customs, etc. And there surely must be links to Li'l Abner and Snuffy Smith.

Oh, and another thing. Who said the article was done? write about the damn coal mines and dolly parton.

Slow down! Stop ranting! Presenting what you wrote as "Folklore associated with hillbillies" or some such thing sounds like a great idea. It would much more accurate, and would help flesh out a better article. Dolly Parton and King Coal deserve (long) first class articles, but both subjects will difficult and time consuming to write.

I'm sorry, the quality of my judgement in writing tends to wax and wane. I was already mad about a particular argument in Osama bin Laden, so I flipped out. Please accept my apologies.

No problem. I pledge to _not_ use the word "ridiculous" to characterize an argument anymore. :) I did do some work on Dolly's page...

I think I have an old national geographic (one of many hundreds I now own I'm afraid) that details appalachian life in the 1960's, and my old college had a book on appalachian english "dialects" so maybe I'll dredge up some unique info after all. --Alan D. (not sjc)

Could someone please expand, about Hillbilly culture, it's image in american culture, etc? especially for us non-american readers. thanks.

"Hillbilly" is a pejorative applied to Appalachian Americans, generally. Its origins are with the migration of Scots and Irish and Germans to the Appalachian lands in the early 19th century. Essentially, settlement in the southeastern United States followed the forced expulsion of the American Indians, so the first settlers were along the coast ("Piedmont"), then in the uplands, and then the mountains. Thus, the coastal folks regarded the uplanders as newcomers, as poor, and as uncouth. They, in turn, regarded the mountain people as poor, uncouth, and ignorant. To some degree, this is anti-immigrant hostility. However, each wave of English language settlers also brought with it a later version of British English that was preserved as an isolate and/or a different regional selection of British English. People in eastern North Carolina, eastern South Carolina, and southern Georgia speak a different dialect from those in W. NC, W. SC, N. GA, and all of Alabama. Both of these speak yet a different dialect from those living in the Appalachain Mountains. When both of the first two waves of immigrants had grown prosperous (cotton, first, transportation and tobacco for the second group), the hill folks were still poor. They remained poor (terrible land for farming) and isolated into the 2nd half of the 20th century. When these people came down into the metropolitain areas of, for example, Atlanta, Columbia, or Raleigh, they spoke "funny," had "funny" vocabulary, and were exploited as cheap labor. They were derided as "hillbillies." Some adopted the term themselves (as, of course, some Irish would call themselves "micks," some Italians "wops," some African Americans "nigger") and attempted to redefine it as a point of pride (e.g. some types of country music will boast of being "hillbilly"). The dialect has recently been spreading (as the mid-Georgia/W. SC/W. NC dialect had, earlier) as prosperity is reaching the edges of this region. The price is, of course, that there is less and less "hillbilly" culture, because part of the spread is prosperity and travel, and those things are the negation of some of what was "hillbilly" characteristic. (Now, also, there is less "hillbilly" and more regional identification, as, for example, in West Virginia and western Virginia, where the group identifier is much less "hillbilly" than "coal folks" and "hill folks.") Geogre 01:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and let me add to that something I had forgotten. People from the Appalachains themselves migrated, and the same group that settled there settled other places. Hence, in the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas you also have "hillbillies," as these "Arkies" would later, during the Dust Bowl, migrate (along with the Okies) to California and Oregon and get called hillbillies by other economic migrants. Those Ozarks settlers were the same Scots and Germans as had moved to the Appalachains. Generally, the term is a term of abuse, and it's applied when folks leave the mountains and come in contact with other, lowland folks. The name of the dialect is, by the way, Hillspar. There are two versions of it, at least. (The West Virginia coal country mountain dialect is different from the E. Tennessee and N. Georgia dialect, and both of these are different from the Arkansas Ozarks dialect (although it is much closer to the TN and GA version).) Geogre 12:36, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Clean up

Hell everyone, I have gone over this article a bit. It still needs significant cleanup, expansion, fact checking, spellchecking, copy-editing, wikifying, etc, etc... but I think it has great potential. Let's see if we can make it a feature article. -- FirstPrinciples 13:27, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Also guys, remember to sign your talk page posts with four tildes (~~~~) so we can keep track of who's commenting ;) -- FirstPrinciples 13:29, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Could this term have orginated out of the feuds between highlander lowlander Scots?

There's a definite Ulster connection through "Billy Boy", which is still a common term back home. -- Pat Mustard 15:02, Jul 4, 2005 (UTC)

Yokel

It is a bit odd that "yokel" redirects here, but its etymology is not explained. -- Beland 21:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Barbara Shack 15:42, 25 March 2006 (UTC)Yokel has an article of its own now.[reply]

On removing Image:Cletus.gif and accusations of vandalism

I note the uncivil edit summary with which Fred Chessplayer's removal of Image:Cletus.gif was reverted by User:Abelson.[1] Abelson, please refrain from referring to obviously good-faith edits as "vandalism". That is considered a personal attack. "RTFT" is rude and uncouth and notably uncalled for, considering that the "fucking tag" on the image description page supports Fred's action, not yours. It says: ... It is believed that the use of this photograph to illustrate the person, product, or event in question, in the absence of a free alternative... qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Other use of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement.". Bolding in original. That would mean the image is fair use in an article about the Simpsons, not anywhere else. Cletus is a Simpsons character, not a generalized hillbilly. I have removed the image again, please don't put it back. Thank you. Bishonen | talk 19:21, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the tone in which Abelson's objection was expressed, I believe he/she was right. Looking at the four factors used to judge fair use [2], I find it unimaginable that a noncommercial, nonprofit, educational use of a single image from a 30-minute cartoon, in no way undercutting the market value of that cartoon (and if anything promoting it), would not qualify as fair use--unless no use of a Simpsons image would ever qualify. (The fact that this image would illustrate a page about hillbillies and not about the Simpsons would not seem to be legally relevant.)

As far as the relevance of the image to the article, I find it hard to think of a major element of the hillbilly stereotype that Cletus does not illustrate. He's as much a hillbilly as Lil' Abner or Snuffy Smith, and far more widely known to the contemporary culture, I would think.

I would strongly support restoring the image. Nareek 13:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point I was making isn't to do with market value or with the use being non-commercial and educational, but is purely about what the image can fairly be used to illustrate. What makes you think that that's not legally relevant? You say "unless no use of a Simpsons image would ever qualify" as if you think that proposition self-evidently absurd, but it isn't. No use of a Simpsons image would ever qualify for illustrating anything other than the Simpsons. If my partial quote above of the tag on the Image:Cletus.gif page doesn't convince, could you please click on the link and read the whole of it? Are you aware of Jimbo Wales' new, much stricter, policy with regard to Fair Use images? If you reinsert that image here, I would say the image itself is likely to get deleted. Bishonen | talk 17:51, 14 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

No, I'm not aware of Wales' new Fair Use policy; a link would be helpful. I am pretty familiar with the concept of Fair Use, and I don't see how--legally speaking--using Cletus' image to illustrate an article on the Simpsons would be different than using it to illustrate an article on Hillbillys. Which of the four factors would that affect? If Wales wants to use a Fair Use standard on his website that's stricter than the legal standard, that's up to him, but I hate to see people thinking that their actual rights are less than they really are. Nareek 19:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've now read Wikipedia: Fair Use, and I have a better understanding of the issues now. One point is that Wikipedia has to be careful with Fair Use because while Wikipedia itself is nonprofit and noncommercial, others who use Wikipedia's content may not be--so there is a slightly higher standard to be met. But from the description of what is and isn't Fair Use for Wikipedia, it's still clear that a picture of Cletus used to illustrate the Hillbilly stereotype would be safely in the Fair Use category: It's the use of an image for purposes of critical commentary on that image, the same standard type of Fair Use that allows book reviewers to quote passages from books without first getting permission from the publishers.

I'm not going to put the image back, but I think you ought to. Nareek 19:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for being so reasonable — I don't hate images either. I did try to find a good link for you, sorry. I realize it would help. But I'm afraid you've lost me with the "for purposes of critical commentary on that image, the same standard type of Fair Use that allows book reviewers to quote passages from books without first getting permission from the publishers" — I just don't see any similarity. Where's the critical commentary on the image? (And if there was some, what would it be doing in this article?) Do you mean the "are stereotypical hillbillies" phrase... ? That's not commentary on the image. Well, never mind, I think we've reached a plateau in any case. I've asked a user who does a lot of work in this area, Gmaxwell, to take a look at the issue. I'd like to wait for him, if that's all right. Bishonen | talk 19:33, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's using Cletus to illustrate the hillbilly stereotype, thereby implicitly commenting on The Simpsons as a program that uses stereotypes (which the show would certainly not deny--Springfield used to have a bowling league called The Stereotypes). It's similar to using, say, a still from Birth of a Nation to illustrate early 20th Century racism--part of the reason you have Fair Use is so copyright owners don't have the ability to block people from criticizing their work in this way. Nareek 20:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the song dammit

yep...down here in LA we believe in the hillbilly and the stomp whether or not anybody else does, we like it... aw hell, f*****m all if they dont like it.. I still do! KID ROCK! Love, Tren

Local Pride

Not everyone living in "Hillbilly Country" takes offense at the term. I spent my childhood in the Smokies and return there often and the term "Hillbilly" is thrown around pretty lightly. And believe it or not, some people do make moonshine and do smoke corncob pipes. An old family friend gives homemade moonshine as gifts and sometimes as payment to workermen at his house. People there take pride in their "hillbilly" life and the word only becomes offensive if it is used in a negative way from an outsider (e.g. "You're a dumb hillbilly") rather than in a general descriptive way (e.g. "Your Uncle Chuck is a hillbilly through and through"). Completely POV, but there's my 2 cents. --144.202.242.250 06:54, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It's not written correctly. I wrote "sometimes considered a pejorative" but that was removed. My grandfather was from West Virginia and he always call himself a hillbilly with pride. I was really stunned when I watched the million dollar baby and the boxer called her mother, who really was an awful person, a "hillbilly" in a very hateful way. I'd never heard it used like that. It sounded to me like the screenwriter didn't know what he was talking about. Or is that something new? Do kids use the word hillbilly in a hateful way now? --cda 12:32, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hillbilly seems to be taken as perjorative primarily by people who aren't hillbilly's. Those of us from appalachia tend to use it as a term of solidarity and heritage.DHBoggs 18:33, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm under the impression that educated hillbillies prefer the term HillWilliam. Mr Christopher 22:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hillfolk

My folks are from Izard County, Arkansas and the preferred term there seems to be "hillfolk" or "hill people". Hillbilly is okay if used with good humor but it can be misused as an insult. It's not the word, it's the intent. Even hillfolk sometimes use hillbilly to insult one another when protesting the sort of Li'l Abner stereotype behavior.

BTW, the article refers to Li'l Abner and The Beverly Hillbillies TV show as being located in the Ozarks. The BH MOVIE had the Clampetts be from Arkansas because of "Cousin Bill" jokes but the TV show repeatedly referred to Bug Tussle, Tennessee. And the Yokums of Li'l Abner were located in Appalachia, too, state unspecified, but I don't have a good source for that, it was just something Al Capp said in an interview. He based the way the Yokums talked on one trip South to Florida through the Carolinas, Tennessee and Georgia, apparently. Halfelven 05:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Naive

I added the word naive to the stereotype section because I don't think this article conveys how the majority of hillbilly portrayals in the media are child-like, innocent country folks that are usually liked by the outsiders they encounter. Ma and pa Kettle, lil Abner, the klampetts. They weren't portrayed as being ridiculed, they were often sort of envied for their innocence. Blah, I'm not expressing it well. But the article just isn't hitting the true hillbilly spirit yet. --cda 11:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Killing each other

I'm not American so I don't really know but I've become quite interested in these white, poor, rural people but it seems like they're always killing each other in pool- room disputes or in bars because of their 'rough' nature.

Also do hillbilly 'clans' still exist in any form. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.2.88.225 (talk) 18:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

No. Nothing of the sort. However, like most people around the world, the people of Appalachia were quite family oriented and disputes occasionally arose between families as they do everywhere. This might result in a fued. Occurrencnes of serious (murderous) fueds seems to have not been especially common. The most famous being the Hatfield/McCoy fued - which was largely an attempt to cheat Devilanse Hatfield out of some rich timberland. Moonshining, however, like any illegal activity, could be a very dangerous business. Some moonshiners, much like drug dealers, wanted to get rid of the competition and there were murders of moonshiners and of police officers and government officials, but it would be exaggerating to consider Appalachia as a particularly or unusually violent area. DHBoggs 12:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

pro-Union names of many rural Appalachian

I don't think this is accurate, at least as it applies to West Virginia. Grant County was created by the Wheeling government out of Hardy County, which had voted to seceed from the Union. The same is true of Lincoln County which was portioned primarily from Boone County, another Secessionist county. The people in these counties would hardly feel like honoring Lincoln or Grant. It was both an act of malice and an act of homage by Wheeling. It should also be remembered that the ex-Confederates, and anyone who supported them, were stripped of all civil rights and could do nothing to oppose Wheeling. This is discussed in Eric Foner's book "Reconstruction". I am not a qualified editor and do not want to make any changes on my own, I just wanted you to know. Bob

English dialects

I heard from someone that there are regions ("always getting smaller nowadays") where people speak a type of English much closer to what was used in the Shakespearean era. Is there any truth to this? Esn 07:54, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong term

The article says: "Many of these immigrants were of Germanic origin and were named William, a common Germanic name during that time."

Should't that be "German" instead of "Germanic"? As Germans in general, German immigrants had a mixed Germanic, Slavic and Celtic background.

And the common name is not William, it's Wilhelm. Nobody in Germany was ever called William, it's an anglo-saxon version of that name.

Modern Hillbilly Teminology (Suburban Hillbillies)

Upon reading this article I noticed that all definitive Hillbilly mention in this article was directed toward the classical sense of the term. This article fails to mention any specifics in regards to modern “Hillbilly-ism.” In modern terminology, there are many kinds of Hillbillies and Hillbilly subgroups. Hillbillies now live everywhere across America spreading Hillbillyism as they travel.

The problem I have with this article is it largely references the definition of Hillbilly by regions and localities rather than the mental mind states and personal preferences inherent in modern hillbilly lifestyles and customs.

I have made minor change to the WP article section in regards to modern usage to reflect these particular modern viewpoints. Perhaps we should build upon this addition to foster better definition of what it truly means to be considered a Hillbilly in modern society.