What's with all the redneck "reality" shows?

[johnpost]

y’all watching low brow stuff.

Rocket City Rednecks rules.

[Fubaya]

I’ve wondered this too, rednecks are getting a little too popular for my taste. But, in their defense, a lot of those shows are more like “Deadliest Catch” that just happen to follow around rednecks because city folk ain’t wrasslin’ no alligators or prospecting for gold, while there are shows about models and rich housewives that are all about drama and fighting. From what I’ve seen (which is very little), Swamp People falls in the first category. Those are the most redneck people I’ve ever seen, but I don’t think it’s very drama filled is it? It’s just Deadliest Catch with more teeth on the animals and less on the humans.

[missred]

@Icarus

This is my favorite also. If you’re looking for the “Goober actin’ a fool” show, you won’t see that with Duck Dynasty. Once you get past the visuals - beards, camo clothes, outdoor activities - they are a rather solid group of people.

I’d have to agree with both of you about this particular show. These are folks who could carry on an intelligent conversation.

[Simplicio]

@Human_Action

Using black people for this is unacceptable to modern tastes, but rural people are fair game. There aren’t many groups that still considered acceptable to prejudge and mock in our society, hence the concentration of “redneck” shows.

Eh, its not really isolated to rural people. Its the same basic concept as “Jersey Shore”, which is pretty far from rural, and “Real Housewives of Wherever” which is both up-scale and generally urban.

[Max_Torque]

You forgot Call of the Wildman. YYIYIYIYIYYIYIIYIYIIIYIII!

[blondebear]

What, no mention of My Big Redneck Vacation yet? Who wouldn’t love to take a trip with them?

[elmwood]

Old thread, I know, but I was reminded of it when I stumbled on these NPR stories a while back.

On ‘Hicksploitation’ And Other White Stereotypes Seen On TV: http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/05/10/178791792/on-hicksploitation-and-other-white-stereotypes-seen-on-tv

Still, there are plenty more places to see blatant stereotypes of white subcultures, beyond the hicksploitation served by Buckwild. Over on VH1, Mob Wives are the cliche in-your-face Italian Mafia matriarchs. TLC has backward, barely educated rural kids wandering around New York City in Breaking Amish. And barely legal prospective brides brag about marrying their cousins in My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, also on TLC.

That’s a big pile of the worst stereotypes about white, working-class people around.

And here’s the thing: There aren’t nearly as many new shows like this about African-Americans or Latinos, especially if they are working class. Shows like Real Housewives of Atlanta and Love and Hip Hop Atlanta show off more lavish lifestyles and have been around longer.

Late last year, the Oxygen channel tried to create a new one, developing a pilot featuring rapper Shawty Lo bragging that he had 11 kids by 10 different women. It was supposed to be called All My Babies’ Mamas.

The backlash against this travesty was immediate and powerful. Radio personalities complained on-air, harsh coverage came from CNN and Fox News, and more than 30,000 protesters signed a petition against the show on Change.org.

It worked. Oxygen announced it wouldn’t develop the series.

So why haven’t these other shows stereotyping white people seen protests just as strong?

I suspect it’s because too many folks see stereotypes as a problem mostly for people of color.

We’ve got lots of practice criticizing degrading images of black and brown people. Activists know how to gather the news stories, book the media appearances and assemble the petitions to press their case. Advertisers get nervous and programmers think twice.

Disappointing ‘Redneck’ TV Shortchanges The American South: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/12/07/142861568/disappointing-redneck-tv-shortchanges-the-american-south
I think it’s a phase. It’s happened before, in the mid- and late-1970s, when the country had a collective fascination with hillbillies and Southern culture. Dukes of Hazzard, Hee Haw, Family Feud, BJ and the Bear, a cavalcade of trucker movies, the popularity of Southern rock, etc. This was also a time when much of the United States was in a deep recession, but cities in the South were booming.

[madmonk28]

Another vote for modern minstrel show. I have a theory that fans of these types of shows are only one or two clicks higher on the social ladder, and like having someone they can look down on.

[Justin_Bailey]

@elmwood

I think it’s a phase. It’s happened before, in the mid- and late-1970s, when the country had a collective fascination with hillbillies and Southern culture. Dukes of Hazzard, Hee Haw, Family Feud, BJ and the Bear, a cavalcade of trucker movies, the popularity of Southern rock, etc. This was also a time when much of the United States was in a deep recession, but cities in the South were booming.

Family Feud?

…

The Ghost of Richard Dawson: Out of 100 people surveyed, name me someone who has never watched Family Feud. What do you think Grandma?

Grandma Smith: Elmwood?

Smith Family: Good answer! Good answer!

The Ghost of Richard Dawson: SHOW ME Elmwood!

Elmwood … 56
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[[[[[[[[[[ 4 ]]]]]]]]]]
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[Hampshire]

I suppose it was the natural next step after Jerry Springer became a hit show.

“I know! Let’s take the cameras… to their house!”

[Antinor01]

Eh, these things go in cycles. There’s all the cooking competition shows, Hells Kitchen probably an early one. Loudmouth helps failing business shows, kitchen nightmares, bar rescue, etc. throw a bunch of people together shows starting back with the real world. We’re just in a stretch of redneck shows.

[Simplicio]

The NPR article seems to take it for granted that these people are disadvantage. The “Duck Empire” people are rich and college educated (the patriarch had a tough time several decades ago, but well, that was several decades ago). But the NPR article uses “working class” to describe them several times.

I’ve only seen a bit of “Buckwild”, but the kids there seemed to have a pretty expansive abundance of toys. I have trouble believing their families are scraping by in the coal mines.

I’m not sure what I’d characterize Staten Island Mafioso’s as, but “working class” probably wouldn’t be in the running. Ditto the Amish, they certainly live a fairly hardworking lifestyle, but I’m not sure there part of America’s “white working class”. Their abstemiousness is due to religious preference, not economic conditions.

As for American Gypsies, I don’t think the US really has a “gypsy stereotype” for TLC to exploit, beyond maybe a vague recollection of crystal balls and curses.

TLDR: The NPR article doesn’t really make a very convincing case that there’s a trend of making shows about stereotypical “working class whites”. None of their examples really fit a pattern (except Honey Boo Boo? I’ve never seen it, was her family lower income before the show’s success? )

[Dogzilla]

@madmonk28

Another vote for modern minstrel show. I have a theory that fans of these types of shows are only one or two clicks higher on the social ladder, and like having someone they can look down on.

I think fans of these shows are on the same rung of the social ladder, but would desperately like to think they are one or two rungs higher. So they have someone to look down on.

[KRC]

In my case I was in the hospital and it was either stare at the incinerator outside my window all day or watch the rednecks on TV build moonshine stills. I simply decided that rednecks and revenuers were more interesting than smokestacks.

[Max_the_Immortal]

@jayjay

You missed Honey Boo Boo.

And as far as I can tell (understanding that I don’t watch those shows), the purpose is to give people something they can laugh at and feel superior to. “Man, we may be losing the house and in debt up to our eyeballs but at least we’re not like THOSE people!”

David Wong over at Cracked (sorry for the weird link, can’t find a normal version of the page) had an interesting take on the show:

@David Wong

Because society is in the process of leaving people like the Shannon family behind, and we as a people are going to have to get to where we’re OK with that – it’s going to be too horrible to watch otherwise. This is what the election was actually about, if you knew how to read between the lines – when politicians talk about the 47 percent of Americans who are leaching off the system, they want you to picture 150 million Honey Boo Boos.

People like the Shannon family aren’t new, of course, but there was a time when uneducated fuckups could make a good living by working in a coal mine or on an assembly line, or by marrying somebody who did. But those jobs are gone forever, and society has absolutely no solution for what to do with all of its millions of uneducated fuckups who will never go to college or learn the kind of high-tech jobs the future will be based on. Society doesn’t have the money to support them, and they can’t produce anything society wants. There is no market for their continued existence.

But exist they will, and as low-skill jobs continue to vanish and government checks dry up, they’re going to be left to scrounge in the junkyards and scrape up roadkill to eat. Well guess what: Here Comes Honey Boo Boo portrays the Shannons doing both of those things, and doing it happily. That’s why the show exists.

We need to believe that all low-income, low-education working poor are as cheerfully irresponsible, shallow and repulsive as the Honey Boo Boo family, because only then would they deserve what’s about to happen to them. And only the belief that they deserve it will absolve us from actually doing anything to help. Why raise taxes just to benefit people who’ll blow it on Red Bull and beauty pageant entry fees and pump out a bunch of babies out of wedlock? The show is not a conspiracy; the producers don’t even know that this is why it exists. All they know is that there is a need among the audience to hate this category of people, and so they are giving us something to hate.

So thank you, Honey Boo Boo. You’re going to make it way easier for them to cut the budget for Medicaid and food stamps over the next couple of decades.

[Sister_Vigilante]

Hey, I’m from the South and I love Family Feud.

I don’t watch the other shows but sometimes I’ll catch one (hubby watches them; he’s Mexican and is amused by them), and I hate when they subtitle someone speaking English.

[ralph124c]

Is there really a guy named Levi who runs a goon squad (that runs drinking parties, boxing matches, etc.)? He also keeps non-Amish from running Amish pie stands and knicknack stands?
The premise is pretty funny-how come Levi doesn’t drive a horse buggy?

[elmwood]

@Justin_Bailey

Family Feud?

The Ghost of Richard Dawson: Out of 100 people surveyed, name me someone who has never watched Family Feud. What do you think Grandma?

No shit it’s a game show, Sherlock. With a bluegrass theme song and bumper music, hootin and hollerin’, set with kountry kitschy design, allusions to the Hatfields and McCoys, etc. Started in the mid-1970s. Just saying it reflects the zeitgeist of its time.

[llcoolbj77]

@Dogzilla

I think fans of these shows are on the same rung of the social ladder, but would desperately like to think they are one or two rungs higher. So they have someone to look down on.

Shit. I wish I was a rung or two higher than the Duck Dynasty crew. I sure as shit wouldn’t still be slogging away at the Public Defender’s office. I’d be reppin’ monied individuals, white-collar style… and makin’ it rain!

[elmwood]

@Simplicio

I’ve only seen a bit of “Buckwild”, but the kids there seemed to have a pretty expansive abundance of toys. I have trouble believing their families are scraping by in the coal mines.

In many rural areas in the US, middle to upper-middle class blue collar families – general contractors, tradespeople, collision shop owners, whatever – tend to have a lot more “toys” than their more urban peers. When I’m driving through rural Pennslvania, the number of boats, jacked up trucks, classic muscle cars, ATVs, dirt bikes, and Harleys I see crowding driveways is staggering. Folks of means in the boonies aren’t spending their disposable income on rare comic books and Star Wars figurines.