Think “hillbilly” and Jed Clampett, the Beverly Hills millionaire who found oil in his Ozark home comes to mind. His old, worn clothing, floppy hat, and hound dog (Duke) are classic hillbilly motif. So is feisty little Granny, Jed’s mother-in-law, the big but dumb (he graduated the eighth grade) nephew Jethro Bodine and lovely, clueless, animal loving Elly May. If “Bevery Hillbillies” isn’t the inspiration for most Americans views of what folks from the Ozarks are like, then they might think about the old comic strip “Snuffy Smith” or Al Capp’s “Dogpatch”, a long running fictional strip featuring the likes of Lil’Abner and Daisy Mae, two characters all too similiar to Jethro and Elly Mae.
Americans who have traveled to Branson, Missouri, a vacation hot spot hidden away in the Ozark Mountains of Southern Missouri, may think the hillbilly shtick comedy that is rampant in the small town is the reality. After all, theme park Silver Dollar City has made money for almost forty years with their brand of down home hillbilly humor and country themed fun.
Branson is infamous for joke outhouses, funny hillbilly teeth, postcards that portray ragged hill families in overalls and cotton dresses circa about 1930, and shows with hillbilly comedians who talk with a twang. The inherent ignorance in the hill folk is spoofed again and again throughout Branson although in more recent years, Las Vegas style shows and major attractions like the Titanic musuem have brought outside culture to “them, thar hills.
Even the Shepherd of the Hills park plays on the hillbillies of yesteryear, the characters first portrayed in Harold Bell Wright’s 1906 best selling novel, “Shepherd of the Hills”. Visitors tour “Old Matt’s Cabin” and other sites within the farm with a tour guide who plays up hillbilly history and leaves the reality wanting.
Television programs often portray hillbillies as the butt of the jokes; sit coms have been known to bring in a hillbilly cousin from way back in the hills. In one of the earliest seasons of Paris Hilton’s “The Simple Life”, Paris and her friend visited Arkansas where they played up the differences between Paris’ mega rich California world and everyday life in Arkansas where Wal-Mart reigns. “Do they sell walls or what?” Paris simpered to the cameras.
What is the reality? Are the Ozark Mountains filled with shot gun toting, bearded hillbillies who are guarding their moonshine stills and the nubile but clueless beautiful daughters? Do they live in log cabins
and say “Wal, doggies!” instead of “Way cool!”? Do children still tromp through the woods in barefeet to attend one room school houses and does “Ma” have a passel of young ‘uns hanging on her dress tails?
The answer is no. It’s 2007 in the Ozark Mountains; it’s the 21st century and the 19th century lingers here no more, no less than anywhere else. Does the culture of the region’s earliest settlers linger? Of course – but it is not the mindless, often made fun of antics that the hillbilly stereotype plays up. And while there are families whose roots lie five and six or more generations deep in the rocky Ozark soil, many of today’s Ozark residents began life elsewhere.
We don’t all go barefoot although I’ve been known to go shoeless in the hot summer months but the habit is not at all indigous to the Ozarks. And we don’t all have a long, lean, lazy hound that follows us as we go to the General Store although you may see a few hounds in the back of pickup trucks parked at the Wal-Mart Super Center.
Most of us dress the same way the rest of America does in a wide assortment that ranges from blue jeans and T-shirts to business suits and the latest haute coutre. We have Nikes and Levis and Oleg Cassini and other name brands.
While many Ozarkers still love simple old fashioned comfort foods like beans and cornbread or biscuits and gravy, our region is also filling up fast with the golden arches of McDonalds and other fast food leaders like Hardees, Burger King, and Wendy’s. Some folks may catch a few fish in the creeks but many of these are becoming polluted just like other places in the United States. Most people either get their fish from the frozen food case at the supermarket (yes, we do have those) or from either Long John Silver’s, Captain D’s, or Red Lobster. Just like the rest of y’all. Quite a few Ozark residents love fried chicken but very few start with a live bird the old-fashioned way. Instead of wringing a chicken’s neck, we buy our chicken in the store or from KFC, Church’s Chicken, or a dozen other restaurants. Many Ozark residents work in some facet of poultry production, whether that may be raising chickens, producing eggs, or working in a poultry or egg processing plant.
The only one room schoolhouses left in the region are attached to museums and there are many highly rated colleges and universities scattered across the Ozarks. At the College of the Ozarks near Branson, visitors can see and even pose for a picture in the Clampett’s old jalopy. We drive late model cars, restored vintage vehicles, and SUVS. Pickup trucks are a little more popular than in some urban areas but for the most part, we drive the same kind of vehicles as our fellow Americans.
We have radio. We have television, cable television, and satellite dish television. We have stereos and boom boxes and Ipods. The overwhelming majority of us have internet access and home computers so we’re connected. Despite the rugged terrain, most of us have cell phones as well as land lines at home.
It goes without saying that we have running water and electricity and natural gas, except during extreme conditions like the January 2007 ice storm that left thousands without power for many days.
We have hospitals, surgeons that perform cardiac surgery, and shopping malls that give us the chance to shop at JC Penney’s, Sears, Macy’s, Dillards, and many other well known chain stores. Then we have shopping centers eating up the land at a hungry rate with even more stores known nationwide, everything from David’s Bridal to Hobby Lobby and Books A Million.
We are no more the ignorant, often dirty hillbillies stereotyped in legends that most Chicago residents are Al Capone style gangsters or Georgia farmers live on plantations like Scarlett O’Hara’s Tara.
The heritage of this area is rich and these rugged, rocky hills were settled by a tough breed of pioneers who trekked into a wilderness, carved out homes and lived without near neighbors. They coped with illness, death, crop failures, natural disasters, and more but survived and the very stereotype of the ignorant “hillbilly” is an insult to these people who had much more in common with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books that with “The Beverly Hillbillies.
Our way of life in these ancient Ozark hills is not identical to hip, urban scenes elsewhere but most of us don’t want it to be. In fact, many Ozarkers have retreated from the world outside to come here, to life with a quieter pace, a sweeter flavor but a life that has the ammenties and less of the hassles.
There are crimes here but on average the crime rate is much lower than the big cities or even the suburbs.
Although I am not a native of the Ozarks, I’ve chosen to make my life here and when I see the beauty in the heritage, I can’t help but be appalled at the comic parodies of “hillbillies” that are so often the view of the area’s people.
We are people just like you. It’s 2007 here and the 21st century has reached us long ago, about the same time it caught up with y’all. The truly sad thing is that the things the area has lost through technology have been replaced with some of the less savory things from the world outside these hills. Self-reliance, neighborliness, and friendliness have been lessened by crime, by four lane interstate highways, and urban sprawl.
Hillbillies? Yes but not in a way that fits the definition most Americans have of the humble hillbilly!
