Lessons Learned From Honey BooBoo, Duck Dynasty and Moonshiners: The Intersection of Popular Culture and Southern Place
Type of Presentation
Individual presentation
Brief Description of Presentation
This paper examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of southern people as either clowns or social deviants. Ultimately, these stereotypical portrayals reinforce the myth of meritocracy, but more importantly, they should force us to consider the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with television's one-dimensional representations of southern people and southern culture. The ways in which these images lead to generic, and generally negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of people living in the South is worthy of consideration.
Abstract of Proposal
Within the context of an examination of popular media conceptions of the South, a southern mythology emerges; myths about the South and southern identity. Southern mythology provides a place to begin to explore how images from popular culture can be used to promote a critical consciousness of how the relations between race and class as well as power and politics intersect with hegemonic forces. These relationships and the forces attached to them are often portrayed as mainstream American values, and thus, little effort is made to encourage a re-consideration of how popular culture and media images (both positive and negative) promote stereotypical notions of official knowledge and do little to deconstruct situated knowledge as a tool of oppression. While an appreciation for diversity and lifestyle differences could be used to justify the proliferation of hickality programming, there are few challenges to the hegemonic forces that value economic gain over principles and values that might promote a critical examination of the ethics involved in stereotypical presentations of the South and southern people.
Start Date
3-26-2016 8:10 AM
End Date
3-26-2016 9:40 AM
Recommended Citation
Blair, Eleanor J., "Lessons Learned From Honey BooBoo, Duck Dynasty and Moonshiners: The Intersection of Popular Culture and Southern Place" (2016). International Critical Media Literacy Conference. 24.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/criticalmedialiteracy/2016/2016/24
Lessons Learned From Honey BooBoo, Duck Dynasty and Moonshiners: The Intersection of Popular Culture and Southern Place
Within the context of an examination of popular media conceptions of the South, a southern mythology emerges; myths about the South and southern identity. Southern mythology provides a place to begin to explore how images from popular culture can be used to promote a critical consciousness of how the relations between race and class as well as power and politics intersect with hegemonic forces. These relationships and the forces attached to them are often portrayed as mainstream American values, and thus, little effort is made to encourage a re-consideration of how popular culture and media images (both positive and negative) promote stereotypical notions of official knowledge and do little to deconstruct situated knowledge as a tool of oppression. While an appreciation for diversity and lifestyle differences could be used to justify the proliferation of hickality programming, there are few challenges to the hegemonic forces that value economic gain over principles and values that might promote a critical examination of the ethics involved in stereotypical presentations of the South and southern people.