The characterization of a hillbilly as an uneducated backwoods person from rural hill country didn’t start with “The Beverly Hillbillies” on TV. But the launch of the 1962 television show that highlighted the antics of a fictional backwoods family in Hollywood certainly didn’t help. Neither have the exaggerated hill people characterizations found in Branson shows and theme parks — although that’s been reduced in recent years.
Fast forward to an award-winning fictional book and film, “Winter’s Bone,” with themes based in the harsh realities of our community. And the hit Netflix series “Ozark,” whose very name, not to mention fictional hillbilly characters, conjured less than flattering impressions of our region’s people.
None of those convey the rich cultural depth of the true Ozarks and its people, which is why so many are excited for this year’s Smithsonian Folklore Festival. “The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region,” one of two festival programs in 2023, is an incredible opportunity for hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers to learn more about the Ozarks, providing alternative impressions to those fictional portrayals.
“People have an idea of what the word Ozarks means and most of the time that's wrong, or at least if it's not wrong, the subject is far more complex than they think,” said local historian Kaitlyn McConnell, who founded the story preservation site, Ozarks Alive, in 2015. “They think about the hillbilly postcards or ‘Ozark,’ the TV show, and think everyone's like that, and so I hope that when people stumble into this festival, or if they plan to be there, they can at least see that they need to spend more time trying to understand what this is. Because it's a much more rich, diverse place than they realized.”
The festival is a way to remind people of the older folk traditions that stretch back a couple hundred years.
“It’s the re-creation of things that have died out,” said historian Dr. Brooks Blevins, an Arkansas resident and Missouri State University faculty member.
It also celebrates the new infusion of people into the Ozarks that folks don’t expect to find here.
“I can guarantee you the fact that there are Marshallese involved in the Folklife Festival is going to throw some people off,” he said. “But if it sends them somewhere to read and learn more about the Ozarks, that’s a great thing. If it influences people to come visit the Ozarks, I’m sure folks in the tourism industry will be delighted with that. So all in all, it’s a good thing for our region.”
Still, we shouldn’t be too concerned about impressions left by fictional media.
“I used to worry about that kind of stuff a lot more than I do now,” Blevins said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t get a full picture of anywhere, anytime, unless you spend a lot of time somewhere. You can’t grasp the complexity of a place. And we can’t expect TV shows and movies to do that. They are what they are. They’re art, and they represent a certain storyteller’s perspective. I love ‘Winter’s Bone’ — I love the novel and the movie. And ‘Ozark’ — I watched the entire series. They are just telling a story.”
McConnell takes a practical view.
“I think in general, as we know, for something to sell in the entertainment world, it has to have drama, it has to have a problem,” she said. “And so I think that most of the top level impressions of the Ozarks are tied in with that. There aren't shows about the wonderful people of the Ozarks. It's all about the things that are suspenseful and dramatic. And so, I don't know that there are a lot of really authentically accurate impressions of the Ozarks.”
We also have our own real challenges, so it's not necessarily wrong to have some of those addressed on a national scale, McConnell said. “But I think that this (festival) is a chance to be able to show the positive sides, and I would love it if there was more positive impressions of the Ozarks out there.”
