Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film

by Meredith McCarroll, Matthew H. Bernstein (Editor), R. Palmer (Editor)

Appalachia resides in the American imagination at the intersections of race and class in a very particular way, in the tension between deep historic investments in seeing the region as “pure white stock” and as deeply impoverished and backward. Meredith McCarroll’s Unwhite analyzes the fraught location of Appalachians within the southern and American imaginaries, building on studies of race in literary and cinematic characterizations of the American South. Not only do we know what “rednecks” and “white trash” are, McCarroll argues, we rely on the continued use of such categories in fashioning our broader sense of self and other. Further, we continue to depend upon the existence of the region of Appalachia as a cultural construct. As a consequence, Appalachia has long been represented in the collective cultural history as the lowest, the poorest, the most ignorant, and the most laughable community. McCarroll complicates this understanding by asserting that white privilege remains intact while Appalachia is othered through reliance on recognizable nonwhite cinematic stereotypes.Unwhite demonstrates how typical characterizations of Appalachian people serve as foils to set off and define the “whiteness” of the non-Appalachian southerners. In this dynamic, Appalachian characters become the racial other. Analyzing the representation of the people of Appalachia in films such as Deliverance, Cold Mountain, Medium Cool, Norma Rae, Cape Fear, The Killing Season, and Winter’s Bone through the critical lens of race and specifically whiteness, McCarroll offers a reshaping of the understanding of the relationship between racial and regional identities.

Genres: Nonfiction

172 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2018

Reviews

[Jessica Newton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. There was a bit more repetition to this author's writing than I cared for, and I wish she'd have included the information from the appendix into the actual text, but the subject was quite thought provoking.

As someone from NC like the author (granted I'm from the foothills and not the mountains), I also chafe and get upset over the stereotypes and dim view the media expouses about Appalachia and the people who live here.

Some are true and many more are false. The insight into racial tropes in film was also enlightening and I would love to read more about that.

I enjoyed this book even though it took a minute to get into it...and definitely recommend reading the appendix because there's great deal of good information hidden there that helps the argument of the book.

I plan on recommending this to a friend.