Mom and Dad are not happy about the History Channel's Hatfields and McCoys.

[snarp]

We live like half an hour from Pikeville, Mom was born in Mingo County, and Dad has represented at least two McCoys. The mildest of Mom's remarks was, "That is the flattest Appalachia I ever saw."

Dad, who had been looking forward to it: "You know, this is actually kind of offensive."

Mom, indignantly: "It's incredibly offensive. They've got every single stereotype."

I declined to sit through it, but 1) the people making this seemed not to be aware that the average angle of the ground in this area is like, 45 degrees, and 2) why do all these southerners have midwestern accents? Kentucky and West Virgina are not located adjacent to the fucking Shire, you can't just make everyone talk like the Cincinnati Ren Faire and shrug your shoulders.

Comments

[niqaeli]

When I saw Inglourious Basterds, which was a terrible film that I hated¹, I was excited about one thing: they actually coached Brad Pitt into a decent, genuine Tennessean accent. As opposed to the Texan, Georgian, bad attempted approximations of those by people who speak with Broadcast Standard, and who knows what the hell all else besides, that I've heard in popular media that is theoretically set in Nashville. Seriously I think it was the first time I'd ever heard a genuine Tennessean accent in popular fictional media. (As opposed to, like, PBS shit made in Tennessee.)

Which is to say, I'm absolutely unsurprised that the accents are completely shit and bear no resemblance whatsoever to the actual accents of the region. Or that they did not represent Appalachia geographically remotely accurately. (Okay, I livedin just the foothills of the Appalachias, really, where I grew up in Middle Tennessee. That ground, it ain't even a little flat.)

¹Aside from it being a Tarantino film and thus filled with completely awful and unsympathetic people (seriously there's all of two characters I wanted to watch at all) it was also fucking awful structurally/narratively.

[dorothean]

Kentucky and West Virgina are not located adjacent to the fucking Shire

I once dated a Kentuckian who was very fond of the theory that J.R.R. Tolkien had actually modeled the Shire on Kentucky.

[havocthecat]

I am both highly disappointed and entirely unsurprised to hear that. I mean, I grew up in north central Illinois and I could figure out from a couple family road trips/vacations (and also reading books) that Appalachia is awfully different than the Midwest.

Much sympathy on the frustration, believe me.