{"product_id":"9781621900078","title":"All-American Redneck: Variations on an Icon, from James Fenimore Cooper to the Dixie Chicks","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn contemporary culture, the stereotypical trappings of “redneckism” have been appropriated\u003cbr\u003e for everything from movies like \u003ci\u003eSmokey and the Bandit\u003c\/i\u003e to comedy acts like Larry the\u003cbr\u003e Cable Guy. Even a recent president, George W. Bush, shunned his patrician pedigree in favor\u003cbr\u003e of cowboy “authenticity” to appeal to voters. Whether identified with hard work and patriotism\u003cbr\u003e or with narrow-minded bigotry, the Redneck and its variants have become firmly\u003cbr\u003e established in American narrative consciousness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis provocative book traces the emergence of the faux-Redneck within the context of\u003cbr\u003e literary and cultural studies. Examining the icon’s foundations in James Fenimore Cooper’s\u003cbr\u003e Natty Bumppo—“an ideal white man, free of the boundaries of civilization”—and the degraded\u003cbr\u003e rural poor of Erskine Caldwell’s \u003ci\u003eTobacco Road\u003c\/i\u003e, Matthew Ferrence shows how Redneck\u003cbr\u003e stereotypes were further extended in \u003ci\u003eDeliverance\u003c\/i\u003e, both the novel and the film, and in\u003cbr\u003e a popular cycle of movies starring Burt Reynolds in the 1970s and ’80s, among other manifestations.\u003cbr\u003e As a contemporary cultural figure, the author argues, the Redneck represents\u003cbr\u003e no one in particular but offers a model of behavior and ideals for many. Most important,\u003cbr\u003e it has become a tool—reductive, confining, and (sometimes, almost) liberating—by which\u003cbr\u003e elite forces gather and maintain social and economic power. Those defying its boundaries,\u003cbr\u003e as the Dixie Chicks did when they criticized President Bush and the Iraq invasion, have\u003cbr\u003e done so at their own peril. Ferrence contends that a refocus of attention to the complex\u003cbr\u003e realities depicted in the writings of such authors as Silas House, Fred Chappell, Janisse Ray,\u003cbr\u003e and Trudier Harris can help dislodge persistent stereotypes and encourage more nuanced\u003cbr\u003e understandings of regional identity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a cultural moment when so-called Reality Television has turned again toward popular\u003cbr\u003e images of rural Americans (as in, for example, \u003ci\u003eDuck Dynasty and Moonshiners\u003c\/i\u003e), \u003ci\u003eAll-\u003cbr\u003e American Redneck\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the way in which such images have long been manipulated for\u003cbr\u003e particular social goals, almost always as a means to solidify the position of the powerful at\u003cbr\u003e the expense of the regional.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Tennessee Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47053250887920,"sku":"9781621900078","price":51.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781621900078_p0.jpg?v=1763860864","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781621900078","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}