Quote Originally Posted by Shuteye View Post
Just finished watching the movie, Winter's Bone. No kilts, but it is about modern life in the Ozarks, no punches pulled. It is saturated with the (sometimes perverted) code of the highlanders - outside of mainstream privileged society, very clannish. Nothing cutesy. I have not had a movie move me so much in a long time. Please don't let this one pass you by! Gonna buy it 'cause I have to own it.
I'm not sure it depicts all modern life in the Ozarks, but it certainly depicts the ongoing problem of Meth that plagues many rural communities here. I haven't seen the movie yet, so I won't pass judgement on it, but I hope it doesn't add to the unfair stereotypes that have been perpetuated over the years against this region. When I taught an Ozarks culture class, I had my students read Ozarks Baptizings, Hangings and Other Diversions, by the late Robert Gilmore, a member of the Southwest Missouri State University Theatre department (that produced John Goodman and Kathleen Turner) -- Gilmore's research into 19th entertainment activities dispelled a lot of the notion that Ozarkers were an Andy Capp strip come to life.

Most of the original settlers around here were Ulster-Scots, not Highlanders.

TJW