Mine Workers Union Objects to Hilbillies Reality Show

[jps]

http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=60910&group=webcast

This show, if produced, will feature a family that's been plucked from rural America (and probably had a rough go of it) and plop them in a Beverly Hills mansion to see how well they can manage. Now ask yourself, if these folks were going to fit in on Rodeo Drive, that wouldn't be much of a show, would it? Exactly the point. CBS and Viacom are conducting an exhaustive search for just the right family, hoping that their life situation - coupled with being totally out of their element-will provide many laughs for a national TV audience. Until now in the world of reality television, people have been more than happy to make fools out of themselves as individuals-or at worst, families-but to go from that to an entire class or region of people is just not right. This show would accomplish little more than to perpetuate outdated and cruel stereotypes that rightfully anger rural Americans.

I really think an intelligent show contrasting the lifestyles of wealthy urbanites and poor country folks could be very enlightening and valuable, but it doesn't sound like thats what this will be.

Should rural people be offended by this?
I do find the idea of it offensive as it does seem like it will characterize rural people as primitive and inferior to the wealthy LA crowd. The name hillbilly is in itself somewhat derogatory. If this show were done any other way there would be a significantly bigger outcry. For example, if a family on welfare in LA was moved to Beverly Hills for a who called "beverly hills welfare mother" it would likely be a similiarly large contrast, but would never be tolerated.

 

[Mystech]

Why not just let the show go through and laugh at it, I say. I mean, if rural folks think that it's just city folk trying to laugh at 'em, they can always point at something like the Anna Nicole smith show, which depicts a city woman who's completely unfit for life anywhere, and her hilarious misadventures in the comedy of errors and stupidity that is her life.

One reality show, though, that I do have a problem with is the Osborne’s (sp?) which features a family of mental retards living in a mansion, and their own comical struggles with even the simplest of matters, especially when it comes to interacting or relating to any other human being.

 

[CounslerCoffee]

I've already said everything that I needed to say in this thread:

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20979

I created it a little over a month ago:

Let me go into why Im offended. First of all, you cannot call me a hillbilly because I live in a rural part of Kentucky. Im all for a belly laugh, and being poked fun of every now and then. But this just fuels that stereotype that we don't drive cars, we don't wear shoes, and we aren't rich. In other words, they want to portray us as dumb rednecks, who have never seen the outside world. Well, screw them. They have absolutely no right to say that people from Kentucky are dumb rednecks (Which is what there practically saying)