Svolte sbagliate? Stereotipi sociali e paesaggi della paura nella tradizione cinematografica del backwoods horror

Since the end of the nineteenth century, the inhabitants of mountain and rural areas of the South of the United States, variously called "hillbillies," "rednecks," or "hicks," have been represented, both by the media and by scientific or pseudo-scientific literature, in very stereotypical manners. To this day they are the objects of a derogatory strand of humor, referred to their alleged violent behavior, bad teeth, inbreeding and genetic deviance. Without claiming to offer a historical perspective about the genealogy of these stereotypes or understanding whether they have now evolved into a relational "figuration," this paper tries to analyze the role of popular culture in their making. Specifically, it will take into consideration a prolific cinematic sub-genre, known as "backwoods horror," where the victim is coded as urban and both the setting and the monster as rural. In the typical plot, a group of "urbanites," after taking a "wrong turn," end up in the hand of a rural family of "hillbillies" or "rednecks," not only genetically deviant and toothless, but also very cruel and sometimes even cannibals. Such a negative representation would be unacceptable if the "villains" were ethnically or racially identified, but becomes acceptable towards characters who are indeed poor and unable to speak properly, but definitely white. This raises questions about different attitudes towards class and race in the contemporary United States.