One of my favorite genres of film is Redneck Cinema. It's got everything a man could ever want in a movie: car chases, senseless violence, Honky Tonk Heroes, girls in cutoff shorts, and maybe even a hairy swamp creature of some kind. They come in many flavors: low-budget Hicksploitation (AKA Hixsploitation and Whitesploitation), Hillbilly Horror, and all those trucker movies. I am particularly fond of the term "Hick Flick", coined by Scott Von Doviak, author of Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema, to encompass all these subgenres - "Redneck Cinema" doesn't quite capture them all.
What exactly is a Hick Flick, you ask? Well, that requires a rather lengthy explanation. To understand it fully, you need to really acquaint yourself with the mindset of the 70's, a time when lowbrow was cool - it was an extension of the hippie mentality of living free and not taking orders from "the man" (see my post Lust for Lowbrow for more on this subject). Case in point: there was a lot of overlap between hippie/stoner films and redneck cinema - Cheech and Chong smuggling hash across the border while being pursued by Stacey Keach wasn't all that different than Burt Reynolds smuggling booze while being pursued by Jackie Gleason.
Currently, there's a slight increase in redneck cinema (i.e. The Dukes of Hazzard remake, The Devil's Rejects, and various Larry the Cable Guy projects), but it's not the same. I want to be Philo BeDoe (Every Which Way But Loose) - to kick ass and answer to nobody. When I'm at work, every bit the white shirt office worker, I want to be Gator McKlusky (White Lightning) and smuggle moonshine and drive a muscle car. You just don't find this sort of blue collar idealism today.
There also seemed to be a great deal of fear of the backwoods in the 70's. Movies like Deliverance, I Spit on Your Grave and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tapped into audience's primal fears of life far, far from the suburbs. Living off the land and back to nature (i.e. "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo") was the hippie ideal, but there was also an element of danger in abandoning the city. A sociologist would have a field day examining the 1970's mindset of deriding shopping malls and urban sprawl ("scars upon the land", as John Denver once sang), and at the same time being scared to death of rural life.
What exactly is a Hick Flick, you ask? Well, that requires a rather lengthy explanation. To understand it fully, you need to really acquaint yourself with the mindset of the 70's, a time when lowbrow was cool - it was an extension of the hippie mentality of living free and not taking orders from "the man" (see my post Lust for Lowbrow for more on this subject). Case in point: there was a lot of overlap between hippie/stoner films and redneck cinema - Cheech and Chong smuggling hash across the border while being pursued by Stacey Keach wasn't all that different than Burt Reynolds smuggling booze while being pursued by Jackie Gleason.
Currently, there's a slight increase in redneck cinema (i.e. The Dukes of Hazzard remake, The Devil's Rejects, and various Larry the Cable Guy projects), but it's not the same. I want to be Philo BeDoe (Every Which Way But Loose) - to kick ass and answer to nobody. When I'm at work, every bit the white shirt office worker, I want to be Gator McKlusky (White Lightning) and smuggle moonshine and drive a muscle car. You just don't find this sort of blue collar idealism today.There also seemed to be a great deal of fear of the backwoods in the 70's. Movies like Deliverance, I Spit on Your Grave and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tapped into audience's primal fears of life far, far from the suburbs. Living off the land and back to nature (i.e. "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo") was the hippie ideal, but there was also an element of danger in abandoning the city. A sociologist would have a field day examining the 1970's mindset of deriding shopping malls and urban sprawl ("scars upon the land", as John Denver once sang), and at the same time being scared to death of rural life.
Given the significance of the Hick Flick and its level of popularity, you'd think there'd be a good comprehensive list out there somewhere.... there's not. In my next post, I will attempt to get as close to creating a definitive list as I possibly can - and will ask for your assistance to fill in the gaps. Check back in tomorrow!
End Notes:
1. I should also mention that 70's television also had its share of hick programming -BJ & the Bear, Concrete Cowboys, Dukes of Hazzard, and Sheriff Lobo to name a few.
2. For further discussion on this subject, you may want to check an earlier post: When Truckers Were Cool and Lust for Lowbrow
3. What movie marks the end of the Hick Flick heyday? I think that honor goes to Stroker Ace.
