"Jed Clampett's Unlucky Cousins:
Hillbilly Stereotypes and Kentucky Culture"
Bruce Burris is a Delaware native who moved to Lexington about five years ago. His '' Kentuckycycle"--an ever-changing installation also known as "DIDWEDOTHISTOOYEW" deals with issues of cultural identity. In particular, Burris zeroes in on the cultural identity associated with Kentucky's Appalachian region--the eastern section of the state through which the Appalachian mountain range runs.
The artist admits that he has never strayed from the relatively affluent and beautiful central part of the state to visit the comparatively "economically depressed" Appalachian region. Rather, he has chosen to base his ideas about eastern Kentucky on mainstream materials, images, literature, and quotations that have molded the stereotypes we have today. Since he has never been to the region to experience the people and realities firsthand, the viewer can be sure that the ideas in Burris' head come exclusively from various marketers of the cultural identity he addresses.
"Kentuckycycle" is a barrage of images and words: drunken mountain men holding fishing poles and playing fiddles, fat hags with rags wrapped around their heads smoking corncob pipes and holding shotguns, and big-breasted Daisy Mae types posing and posturing. Souvenirs such as 'coon" tails,' Mountain Taffy Logs," and 'Hillbilly Shot Mugs" (made of wood and bark) line gift shop shelves. Vehicles resembling the one on "The Beverly Hillbillies" are made of wood and painted, festooned with sails and banners that say things like 'Here comes Truble." Burris also includes triangular flags that sport images of tree stumps and trophies with the words "Kentucky is O.K.
The paintings are packed full of words, most spelled phonetically so that we catch the conscious misspellings as well as the dialectical pronunciations. It's pretty insulting and degrading, overall, and that is obviously the point.
The show is heavy on irony. The twist is that Bunis doesn't just go after the sick minds that produce those 'emblems of Appalachian culture, he also points a finger at the people who find humor in those depictions. His installation mimics Kentuckv's state park gift shops and other retail outfits that profit from the "Hillbilly" image. At the same time, those stores, perhaps unwittingly, spark or reinforce the notion that such people and conditions exist. Tourists buy the items, possibly thinking they represent an actual portion of Kentucky's population.
Burris goes after the natives of Appalachia who find some kind of pride in the bumpkin identity with which they have been saddled: a pride they demonstrate by waving confederate flags and plastering their cars with self-derogatory bumper stickers. These same people, Burris alleges, are proud of their "famous feuds. " He addresses the region's academic institutions, including Berea College, where "Kentucky crafts " such as broom making and basket weaving take precedence over a broader liberal arts curriculum or the preparation for an upscale professional career. He wonders why Morehead State University (about 60 miles east of Lexington) has spent so much time, effort, and money collecting, promoting, and marketing work thought to be quintessential Appalachian art and craft: roosters made of tree branches and evangelical scenes painted on pine chests. Morehead's Kentucky Folk Art Center exhibits such items (again, reinforcing the "hillbilly" stereotype) and sends them to other states for exhibition. Burris wonders aloud why Appalshop--an organization based in southeastern Kentucky and respected for turning out documentaries about the region--never makes films about Appalachian artists who work with high-tech materials and media, produce cutting-edge art, or deal with hot political topics, relevant gender issues, or current socio-racial concerns. Burris wants to know why Appalshop prefers to focus exclusively on cane whittlers and gourd painters.
"Kentuckycycle" is a blatant parody that raises questions including why Appalachians are pictured in the collective consciousness as different from the rest of Kentucky's People and why Appalachia is thought of as a world apart from the one in which the rest of us live.
Appalachian people are generally considered disadvantaged, isolated, and somehow stuck in another era. Burris says that this conception--Appalachians being like Jed Clampett's unlucky cousins--underlies marketing ploys, research, journalism, scholarly study, and proposed solutions to social, economic, and political problems.
His installation presents the stereotype, in all of its crude glory, with all of its ramifications, as an impetus to make you, the viewer, ask questions based on your reactions to the work. Are you repulsed by the stereotyping or do you find it humorous. Does it make you feel superior, ashamed, or unmoved? Do you find it curious or take it seriously as a detrimental thing? If you are from Appalachia, do you identify with the character types shown? If you are not from Appalachia, do you believe a population like the one depicted in this exhibition really exists or ever did exist?
To reinforce his own ideas, Burris included Christina Godsey's work in the show. Godsey is a native of Edmonton, Kentucky: a town so small it doesn't have a stoplight, unless you count the flashing light at the four-way stop where the two main roads cross. Her father is from the United States and her mother is from the Philippines. Godsey calls herself a 'Philbilly'.
Her work is rooted in autobiography. In one series, she uses a photograph of her own face repeatedly in order to break down the constituent parts of her racial Identity. Each photograph is emblazoned with a percentage: "33% Japarrese," "8% Chinese," " 3% African American." Each photograph is altered with paint so that Godsey's appearance and costume can be linked to a racial stereotype. In the "33% Japanese" piece, for example, she appears as a geisha. In the work that proclaims her "25% Native American," her hair is darkened and braided and a teepee is placed In the background. You get the idea.
In a related set of works, racial slurs are used in conjunction with the artist's face. Godsey mentions that a number of slurs have been said to her, including "You know I was kidding when I called you a Chink" and "What? Ydon’t speak your native tongue?"
The third component of Godsey's work is a box filled with photographs of people from her hometown. The irony here is in the fact that the artist-subject doesn't took at all like a "typical" Kentuckian. She has cut the photographs up and rewoven them in order to make a checkerboard of her face, putting cultural identity and stereotyping into perspective.
So there you have it. One artist is a first generation "Philbilly" whose outward appearance suggests that she comes from another part of the world. The other is an outsider to Kentucky--he has painted himself as a goofy camera-toting tourist more than once--trying to examine a cultural persona and understand it through second hand information.
What both artists are calling into question is the legitimacy of any form of cultural identity. Godsey's depictions of so-called "traditional dress" or any form of traditional appearance demonstrate that racial purity is a myth and cultural identity cannot be clearly linked to racial identity. Burris' work shows the absurdity of stereotyping and raises the questions of how stereotyping is generated and perpetuated and by whom.
