An Appalachian Heritage Interview: Sally Rubin

Abstract

An Appalachian Heritage InterviewSally Rubin Emily Masters (bio) and Sally Rubin hillbilly, the new documentary film directed by Sally Rubin and Ashley York, is an examination of images and stereotypes about Appalachia and its people. The film works to combat stereotypes of Appalachia as a homogenous region, using the 2016 presidential election as a window for examining how the region is portrayed in the national media. In the film, Rubin and York work to contextualize [End Page 51] and humanize Appalachians, showing images that contrast with the often abused depictions of whiteness and poverty that have pervaded the national consciousness about the region. Rubin and York hope to challenge such prevailing, narrow views of Appalachia and the people who live here, prodding those with a limited understanding of the region and its history to pause and think before making jabs about class and otherness. The film debuted on the film festival circuit over the summer, winning the Documentary Award from the LA Film Festival and the Special Award for Documentary Filmmaking from the Traverse City Film Festival, and being mentioned as a "significant Oscar contender" in the Best Documentary Feature category. But in an honor that perhaps even surpassed these accolades, hillbilly received the endorsement of Appalachian icon Dolly Parton. "I'm happy to see somebody trying to cover us as we really are and not what some people think we are," she said. "It's wonderful, the attention (the movie) paid to so many areas that are so important to all of us. I'm proud to have been mentioned in the film a time or two." hillbilly is now showing in select cities nationwide. Following a recent screening of the film at Berea College in September 2018, co-director Sally Rubin spoke to Appalachian Heritage about some of the trials and successes she and York had in making the film, developing an on-screen balance during the polarization of the 2016 presidential election, and providing a diverse perspective of an often simplified and stereotyped region. [End Page 52] Click for larger view View full resolution Sally Rubin [End Page 53] EMILY MASTERS: What was the most challenging part of the documentary process when you were making hillbilly? SALLY RUBIN: We had a couple of major challenges with the production of hillbilly. I think in some ways the breadth of the ideas in the film is certainly a strength; the film ranges wide in its coverage of psychological and sociological humanities themes that are complex and highly compelling, such as notions of regionalism, othering, code switching, co-option, stereotyping, and more. Simultaneously, the film deals with the 2016 presidential election and [includes] scenes with co-director Ashley York and her family. But this broad, sweeping look at the history of various cultural elements of the Appalachian region, including the region's reliance on coal, as well as the survey of media representations of the region over the last century-and-a-half, combined with all of the content described above, sometimes felt like more than we could really chew while producing the movie. We tried to do so much with this film. I hope we succeeded—I think we did—but it made production overwhelming and difficult at times, and long. It took four-a-half years to make this movie. And there were times when even I, as the film's co-director, had a hard time describing what this film was about. Another major challenge with the production of hillbilly was working all of the threads described above into one cohesive movie. The film evolved substantially over time, as American society, politics, and culture evolved, and we had to work hard to keep up. When we began researching this film back in the fall of 2013 we were primarily aiming to make a film about the history and evolution of the "hillbilly" stereotype over the past century and a half. But as we got into making that movie, it became clear that if we were going to tell a story about what Appalachia isn't, we also had to include [End Page 54] what Appalachia is. At that point we began to work in the alternate...