Hillbilly

Hillbilly is a pejorative term for people who dwell in remote, rural, mountainous areas. In particular the term refers to residents of the Appalachia and later the Ozarks in the United States. Usage of the term "Hillbilly" generally differs from Redneck and Cracker, because Rednecks/Crackers reject or resist assimilation into the dominant culture, while Hicks and Hillbillies theoretically are isolated from the dominant culture.

History

It is believed that the term "hillbilly" originally referred to Scots-Irish immigrants of mainly Presbyterian origin, who brought their cultural traditions with them when they moved to the United States. Many of their stories, songs and ballads dealt with the history of their Ulster and Lowland Scot homelands, especially relating the tale of the Protestant King William III, Prince of Orange, who defeated the Roman Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Supporters of King William came to be known as Orangemen and Billy Boys (Billy being an abbreviation of William; the term "Billy Boy" is still used today, mainly in Northern Ireland). When considerable numbers of these Scots-Irish immigrants settled in hilly regions during the early 18th Century, they were nicknamed "hill billies" by the occupying British soldiers.

Others have speculated that this "Billy" refers to William Wallace, a Scottish national hero.

Alternatively, it is also speculated that the term emerged as a derogatory nickname given by the coastal plain dwelling Anglo-Saxon Southerners for the hill-dwelling settlers of eastern Tennessee, western Virginia and Kentucky, many of whom were ambivalent to the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Billy Yank was the common term for Union soldiers, the nemesis of the Confederate Johnny Reb.

The use of the word was probably most apt (and relatively inoffensive) during the period between the western expansion of the early-to-mid nineteenth century and the post-war period of the 1940s. The advent of the interstate highway system and television brought many previously isolated communities into mainstream United States culture in the 1950s and 1960s, but many communities with relatively traditional lifestyles remain throughout the region.

Strangely enough, early editions of Websters Dictionary include a definition of hillbilly as "a Michigan Farmer".

Historically, there were conflicts between "hillbillies" and the planters who lived on the coastal plains. During the American Civil War, many residents of western Virginia were pro-Union in that they generally did not own slaves and resented the political dominance of planters who did. This resentment was a contributing factor to the creation of the state of West Virginia. This affiliation may also be observed in the pro-Union names of many rural Appalachian areas, e.g. Lincoln County or Union County.

Country and Western music was originally called hillbilly music, even by its fans, until the late 1950s. However the older name is now deemed offensive (and silly) and is hardly ever used. The first tune that contained the word "hillbilly" was "Hillbilly Boogie" by the Delmore Brothers in 1946. However, in 1927, the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana, made a recording of black fiddler Jim Booker with other instrumentalists; their recordings were labeled "made for Hillbilly" in the Gennett files, and marketed to a white audience. By the late forties, radio stations broadcast music described as "hillbilly", originally to describe fiddlers and string bands, but was then used to describe the traditional music of the people of the Appalachian Mountains. The people who actually sang these songs and lived in the Appalachian Mountains never used these terms to describe their own music. Popular songs of the early 1950s whose style bore characteristics of both "hillbilly" and rock-and-roll genres was referred to as "rockabilly". The versatile (to put it mildly) Elvis Presley was a prominent member of that genre. When the Country Music Association was founded in 1958, the term "hillbilly music" gradually fell out of use. However, the term "rockabilly" is alive and well. [1]

Characteristics

Characteristics of hillbillys as portrayed in popular media.

Smoke a corncob pipe.
Are often moonshiners with a still in their front yard. Often drink from traditional moonshine clay jugs marked "XXX".
Hillbillys don't buy clothes - they just pass them around between family members. Therefore their pants never fit and they are forced to make belts out of pieces of rope. Their pants are usually too short and are often frayed on the hem. Sometimes hillbillys wear suspenders or overalls over a pair of red prospector's underwear.
Often seen wearing a worn out floppy hat.
Hillbillys usually have a shotgun, often with a bell-shaped barrel. They use the shotgun in social situations when they believe a male hillbilly has had sexual relations with a female hillbilly - they will force this male to married the female to either save her status among the hillbilly clan or to insure that the male remains responsible to any offspring from this relationship. This is termed a "shotgun wedding."
Hillbilly clans often fight each other. This is known as a "feud." A historically important fight between hillbilly clans was the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
Hillbillys are often barefoot.
Hillbillys are not motivated by money or attempt in any way to improve their social status in comparison to the outside world. They are content with their lives. They do not generally leave their clans to see other parts of the world or get an education.

Modern usage

Today, "hillbilly" has increasingly insulting connotations - especially as knowledge of the word's fairly harmless origins are forgotten.

To the people of the Appalachian Mountains, the term "hillbilly" carries a negative connotation which has been greatly emphasized by how Hollywood movies and films portray the "hillbilly" as impoverished, ill-educated, toothless, shoeless, unstylish, inbred, etc. While such stereotyping is generally offensive, socio-economic realities have left much of the Appalachian region impoverished, although the economy has been steadily improving since the 1990s.

Because hillbillies are stereotypically assumed to lack footwear, Appalachia and places like it are sometimes referred to as the "Barefoot Nation".

In mock formality, hillbillies are sometimes referred to as "Mountain Williams".

Hillbillys in advertising

The American soft drink, Mountain Dew, had pictures of hillbillies on the bottle until 1973.

Notable Hillbillys

Devil Anse Hatfield

In fiction

Hillbillies have often been characterized as ignorant hicks.

The hillbilly lifestyle of the Ozarks was gently parodied in the comic strip Li'l Abner, which inspired a Broadway musical and movie by the same name.
Ma and Pa Kettle were very popular characters in comedic movies of the 1940s and 1950s.
In the 1960s American sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, the Clampett family were supposed to have come from near the Ozarks.
Festus, a prominent character on the TV series Gunsmoke, belonged to a hillbilly clan.
An episode of The Dukes of Hazzard saw Bo and Luke rescuing Daisy from being forced to marry into a family of sociopathic hillbillies.
A recurring character on The Simpsons, Cletus Spuckler and his family are stereotypical hillbillies.
The 1960s American sitcom The Andy Griffith Show has two contrasting stereotypes of recurring hillbilly characters: The ignorant but kindly, impoverished but generous Darling family, portrayed by bluegrass band The Dillards and Denver Pyle; and the belligerent, paranoid, frankly violent buffoon, Ernest T. Bass, portrayed by Howard Morris.
In 1970 the author James Dickey published the novel Deliverance. This plot of the novel is four men going for a canoe-trip on a river in the mountains of Georgia. They run into several sociopathic hillbillies who attack, capture, torture, and rape the canoers.
On Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show, starring Amanda Bynes, a recurring skit titled "Hillbilly Moment" would be featured. Amanda Bynes and Drake Bell would appear as stereotypical hillbillies and behave accordingly.

References

Hillbilly, A Cultural History of an American Icon by Anthony Harkins