Paddle Faster, I Hear Stereotypes: Breaking Down “Violent Appalachia”

“Paddle faster, I hear banjos.”

In the early 2010s, this phrase felt like it was on a t-shirt in every store I walked into. Usually, it was accompanied by stick figures or silhouettes of people in a canoe. Other times the shirt inexplicably featured popular TV characters like Family Guy’s Brian and Stewie. Regardless, the phrase showed up enough that 15-year-old me took notice. And despite never having seen the film these shirts referenced, I could sense that they were mocking someone - someone who kind of felt like me.

The reference, if you haven’t guessed, is to the movie Deliverance. But more than that, it’s a reference to an age-old stereotype about Appalachia: that its culture inherently produces violence and barbarity. While researching media portrayals of Appalachia at MIT, I realized that although this trope might be deployed less frequently (and less recently) than some of the others, it likely remains one of the most iconic images of Appalachia out there. And for that reason, I think it’s important to dig into the use of this stereotype throughout history.

Violent Appalachia: Violence, Murder, and Sexual Barbarity 

While the stereotype of Appalachian violence hasn’t been around for quite as long as that of degradation, its history in media is still quite extensive. In fact, the notion of Appalachia as an exceedingly violent and dangerous place likely grew out of these pre-existing stereotypes. As Meredith McCarroll writes in her book Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film, the logic goes something like this: “The isolation of the hills leads to a depravity – often sexual in nature. Without the presence of a civilizing force, monstrous mountaineers are given reign to hone their self-serving cruelty.” Appalachia’s supposed backwardness and isolation thus naturally led to claims of violence, creating the impression of mountaineers as something so primitive and brutal they’re almost less than human.

Images of Appalachian violence have existed nearly as long as the film medium itself. In fact, the very first silent film set in the mountains portrays Appalachians as deadly. The Moonshiner, a 13-minute short released in 1904, tells the story of an illegal whiskey trade in the mountains and a violent conflict between a family of moonshiners and the revenuers searching for the still. After being discovered, the moonshining family engages in a deadly shootout with the revenuers; the film ends with the moonshiner’s wife shooting the lone surviving revenuer in the back, cradling her husband in her arms as he dies. Produced by Biograph, The Moonshiner was a massive success - so much so that the company was still advertising it four years later as “the most widely known and most popular film ever made.”  

With such interest in moonshining plots, many subsequent silent films of this era focused on violent altercations in Appalachia. In addition to battles between moonshiners and revenuers, popular plotlines included feuds and love triangles which pitted mountaineers against city-dwellers, nearly always involving at least one death. Violence and death are so common in films set in the mountains during this era that historian Anthony Harkins, in his book Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, is able to quantify it: “[T]he amount of violence in the nearly 500 mountain films released through 1929 is staggering—over 200 murders, 500 assaults with guns, axes, or hand-to-hand combat, and 100 attacks on women.” 

One such film made famous during this period is the 1921 Tol’able David. Set in the mountains of West Virginia, the film centers on young protagonist David, who must protect his home and sweetheart from a trio of mountain brutes on the run from the law. After killing David’s dog, maiming his older brother, and indirectly causing his father to suffer a fatal stroke, David faces off with the trio in a horrific battle from which he emerges victorious, though injured, after killing all three foes. David was an indisputable success, garnering nationwide rave reviews (one Illinois exhibitor touted it as “beyond a shadow of a doubt, the greatest picture of mountain life ever made”), winning best picture in a 1922 issue of Photoplay Magazine, and making a star out of its lead actor, Richard Barthelmess. Tol’able David made famous the image of the mountaineer who was not simply violent, but truly, in McCarroll’s sense, monstrous.

It’s worth noting that while these films were clearly fictional, they were often taken by critics and audiences – and intended by writers and directors – to represent the real circumstances of life in the Appalachian mountains. This is well exemplified by the reception of the 1927 film Stark Love, directed by Karl Brown. The film itself is a coming-of-age story of a young man named Rob who wants to escape his mountain life but must first defeat the living symbol of mountain barbarity itself: his own father. When Rob’s mother dies, his father marries Rob’s childhood sweetheart, Barbara, basically acquiring her like property with her father’s permission. Rob attacks his father when he discovers him attempting to have sex with Barbara against her will, but is thrown out the door and into the river. Barbara threatens her captor with an axe and saves Rob from the river, allowing the two to float to safety, finally free from the mountains. While the theme of escape from the mountains was not uncommon in this time period, director Brown insisted that his film moved beyond clichéd storylines, telling one writer, “I want to show these people as they are. As they really are. As human beings, not caricatures.” Although the film was largely unsuccessful in its original run, it was nevertheless accepted as an accurate portrayal of mountain life by critics and reporters, with one reviewer labeling the film “a picturization of the actual life and customs of the most primitive people of America” and another comparing it to three highly influential documentaries of the time – Nanook of the North (1922), Grass (1925), and Moana (1926) – pronouncing the film “as important sociologically and scientifically as the illustrious trinity which preceded it.”  

Easily one of the most instantly recognizable portrayals of Appalachian violence is the 1972 thriller Deliverance, directed by John Boorman. From the moment the film’s urban protagonists meet their soon-to-be captors in the woods, a threat hangs in the air, one which McCarroll explains is derived distinctly from the villains’ mountain isolation and backwardness:

The pair of men who emerge from the woods in Deliverance, guns in hand, are the daguerreotype: physically repulsive, more animal than human, with overgrown hair and long utilitarian fingernails caked with dirt and oil. […] The monstrous mountaineer type, at least in Deliverance…exists apart from the white southerners, who are shocked to come across him, and because he has no access to the civilized white world that surrounds him at the foot of his hills.  

Themes of Appalachian backwardness, brutality, and sexual deviance come to a head in the film’s most infamous scene, in which Bobby, one of the urban canoeists, is sodomized at gunpoint by his captors. The horrific scene, in which one mountaineer orders Bobby to “squeal like a pig,” has become synonymous with the movie. Interestingly, though, these allusions to bestiality were not present in the far more ambiguous novel, written by James Dickey, on which the movie was based – they were added in for shock value and to accentuate the mountaineers’ utter repulsiveness. Even James Dickey’s son Christopher, who worked on the movie, was disgusted by his experience filming the scene, correctly predicting that it would overshadow anything meaningful that the film had to say. But despite its horrific portrayal of mountain culture, Deliverance became an instant hit, nominated for awards in several categories at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes in 1973 and parodied on nightly talk shows, in cartoons, and on Saturday Night Live for years after its release. Over 50 years later, the film has retained staying power, with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 89%, an induction into the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress, and a perhaps permanent slot in the American cultural lexicon.  

Thankfully, the Violent Appalachia trope is fairly rare in modern media, although the success of the 2012 History Channel mini-series Hatfields & McCoys points to a renewed interest in the real-life altercations that occurred in the region. And images of violence in Appalachia - from feuding hillbillies to the monstrous mountaineers of Deliverance - remain some of the most recognizable representations of the region.

The Helpful Hillbilly: Speaking Back to the Monstrous Mountaineer Trope

Clearly, some reports of violence in the Appalachian mountains are true. But for every instance of violence and crime, I can think of a thousand ways I’ve seen Appalachian communities reach out to one another in times of need. Here are a few examples of stories, created by me and submitted from the community, that show just how loving and kind Appalachian culture can be. 

Paul tells about the 1957 flood which devastated Southeastern Kentucky, and all those who helped his family as the water flooded his home. 

J. Wayne reminisces on the importance of owning a jackknife as he grew up – and as it turns out, they didn’t use them to hurt anyone! 

And as a producer for Kentucky Educational Television, I created a short film documenting how communities across Eastern Kentucky came together to rebuild in the aftermath of devastating floods in July 2022. 

Stories like these are some of my favorites to share, because the culture of care and community is one of my favorite things about being Appalachian. With time and effort, I hope this type of image - maybe we’ll call it the “helpful hillbilly” - becomes as instantly recognizable as any monstrous mountaineer or feud you’ve seen before.