Description
Book SynopsisThe Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture: All Too Familiar studies how the mythology of the primitive rural other became linked to evolutionary theories, both biological and social, that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. This mythology fit well on the imaginary continuums of primitive to civilized, rural to urbanormative, backward to forward-thinking, and regress versus progress. In each chapter of The Rural Primitive, Karen E. Hayden uses popular cultural depictions of the rural primitive to illustrate the ways in which this trope was used to set poor, rural whites apart from others. Not only were they set apart, however; they were also set further down on the imaginary continuum of progress and regress, of evolution and devolution. Hayden argues that small, rural, tight-knit communities, where everyone knows everyone and everyone is related came to be an allegory for what will happen if society resists modernization and urbanization. The message of the rural, close-kni
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Rural Primitive in American Popular Culture
Chapter 2: Inbreeding, Cousin Marriage, and the Rural Primitive in Nineteenth Century America
Chapter 3: Inbred Horror and the Rural Primitive in Twentieth Century American Popular Culture
Chapter 4: Inbred Horror Revisited: The Rural Primitive in Twenty-First Century Horror Films
Chapter 5: Murder Comes to Town: The Rural Primitive on True Crime Television
Chapter 6: Not So Familiar: Thinking Beyond Rural Stereotypes
