Are Hillbillies the next offensive stereotype to get the axe?

[Brandon Pierce]

I was having a chat with Matt the other night (no, not Matthew Hunter, Matthew Pierce), and he told me that he got in trouble for bringing a video tape to the math class' day off party, which was a comedy about Hillbilies. Apparently the teacher complained about the movie being offensive and ordered it to be shut off. That's when Matt sent me an e-mail with a theory. "What if Hillbilies become to next offensive stereotype to get the axe?" What if several of the classic cartoons with hillbilies get banned? Matt commented that maybe the cartoon A Fued There Was is rarely shown, not because of the violence, but because of the sterotyping of Hillbilies. THEN this got ME thinking. Should we expect Hillbilly Hare to be extracted from next year's June Bugs? Maybe it's already been sent to the incinerator. I haven't seen this cartoon broadcasted since June Bugs 2001! Whatta you guys think? Is this just a nasty theory? Or can we expect it to happen?

BTW, I think the "hillbilly" movie that Matt brought to school was the Disney movie "Pete's Dragon".

[PorkyandDaffy]

I sure hope not!

[Geezil]

Well, hadn't you ever heard that the Hillbilly Anti-Defamation League first got rolling after the release of Deliverance in 1972? Leave it to Hollywood to trip itself up every time! ;)

On the other hand, maybe Matt's teacher just has a problem with Disney...

[Pilmedium]

One question: Are there hillbillies watching these cartoons? If not, why would people be concerned? :confused:

[Gossamer]

Interestingly enough, on the subject if "hillbillies", according to the late Manly Wade Wellman, a writer who hailed from the hills of one of the Carolinas, if you called someone from the Appalachians a hillbilly, if you didn't get away first, your family would be in mourning over your demise. I rather doubt they'd be overly sensitive about a cartoon-but face-to-face, that would bother them greatly. But they wouldn't picket you or call a lawyer, they'd shoot you.

[chuckamuck43]

No matter how P.C. the country becomes, it'll always be open season on White Males. As long as those "hillbillies" are white boys, they're fair game for the most vicious satire.

[Cartman]

Originally posted by Brandon Pierce
I was having a chat with Matt the other night (no, not Matthew Hunter, Matthew Pierce), and he told me that he got in trouble for bringing a video tape to the math class' day off party, which was a comedy about Hillbilies. Apparently the teacher complained about the movie being offensive and ordered it to be shut off.
BTW, I think the "hillbilly" movie that Matt brought to school was the Disney movie "Pete's Dragon".

That's so ridiculous. When will all these God-awful PCness end? Even my old school that I went to (both elementary and high) wasn't that PC.


BTW, I find Pete's Dragon to be a classic Disney movie.

[J Lee]

I wouldn't worry about hillbillies, since the focus of the jibes at them are based on lifestyle/economic standing instead of cultural/ethnic, which is the bugaboo the PC crowd targets when looking for scenes to slice and whole cartoons to burn.

The next big cuts coming (actually which already have started) are any scenes with smoking involved. Cartoon Network already has edited out part of the lunch break scene from "A Sheep in the Deep" because Ralph and Sam are obviously enjoying the drags on their cigs a little too much, but there are so many, many other scenes for the censors to still get at in order to hack more cartoons into incoherence.

After that, drinking scenes are next. After that, I'd say guns, but that situation actually has gotten a little bit better in the past 20 years, compared with what CBS was doing to the cartoons they had in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

[Cartman]

I know most of us are aware that the Disney feature Make Mine Music had the "Martins and the Coys" segment deleted. Some people say it was deleted because of the hillbilly caricatures, but I would have to disagree. I am pretty sure it was deleted becuase of all the killing at the beginning.