Discussion about this post

User's avatar
No Use For a Band/Name's avatar

"The orientalizing discourse around this film is that rural folk are violent, godless, sexually deviant savages. Urban folk are civilized, honorable, good-natured, and innocent."

To this I would add: Urban folk are *deserving of sympathy* while Rural folk are blamed for their own circumstances, despite having less power and resources to change their situation than Urban folk generally speaking.

Maybe this is just an extension of blame the poor and celebrate the wealthy, too.

Tangent: the history of Hookworm in the American South and the stereotypes of poor Southerners as lazy morons needs to be put on blast: https://www.vice.com/en/article/southerners-werent-lazy-just-infected-with-hookworms-stereotype/

Edit: Vice link seems to be crapping out, so here's another: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-south-a-bad-name/

Expand full comment
Graham (baba gbb)'s avatar

This is so totally spot-on, over-target real-world work AND academic analysis. Rare these days. Thank you for doing what you’re doing. It’s pretty awesome.

Expand full comment
6 more comments...

No posts