Page 31 - Community Living Magazine 34-3

clASSIc ImAgES

DUEllINg bANJoS AND studies which ‘proved’
that criminality, retardation,
rETArDED rEDNEcKS chronic disease, alcoholism
and mental illness were
all caused by their
Simon Jarrett discusses a disturbing feckless in-breeding.
1970s film classic which peddles some The families produced
ever-growing armies of
very old ‘retardation’ myths. useless humans.

Discredited
These ostensibly scientific
Film: Deliverance (1972) studies (since widely
Director: John Boorman discredited) began with
The Juke Family in 1877,
he film Deliverance, which was then followed by
T by the English The Hill Folk, The Nam
director John Boorman, Family and, most
and starring amongst notoriously, The Kallikak
others Burt Reynolds Family in 1912.
and John Voigt,
is a 1970s Several years later,
Hollywood classic. the mass call-up of World
The boy plays to an incredibly high level of skill. For many minutes,
they duel, each outdoing the other with their playing, until the boy War I was used to carry
It tells the disturbing story of finally triumphs. out the world’s first
four Atlanta businessmen mass IQ testing programme.
who decide to make an It came to the alarming
adventurous and perilous against one of the men by helplessly, strapped in a conclusion that 37 per cent
canoeing trip down a river two rednecks. The second is makeshift wheelchair, of white Americans and
in the remote Georgia known as ‘Duelling Banjos’. itself strapped to a rickety 89 per cent of black
countryside of America’s pick-up truck. Americans were
Deep South. The four men encounter a feebleminded morons.
strange family of rednecks. Isolation
Soon they realise the river is One of them, noting that Redneck territory is All of this was nonsense of
not the only danger they a young boy has a banjo, retarded territory, caused by course, with distortion of
have to face. They are tries to engage with him by generations of in-breeding evidence to prove the
chillingly pursued and bringing out his own banjo and isolation from the rest researchers’ theories,
attacked by white ‘rednecks’, and starting to play. of the world. They are and IQ tests designed
the pejoratively named The boy responds, contrasted with the smart, simply to prove the
insular and inbred rural playing to an incredibly middle-class interlopers pre-existing assumptions of
inhabitants of the area. high level of skill. from the urban the testers. But it was
For many minutes, sophistication of Atlanta, dangerous nonsense,
Disturbing they duel, each outdoing whose entry into the and it lives on.
When the film ends only the other with their playing, bizarre world of the
three of the men remain until the boy finally triumphs. redneck brings only Deliverance proved that,
alive. Their experience has It is a mesmerising scene. humiliation and horror. even in the heart of
been so horrifyingly liberal Hollywood,
disturbing they vow to The next day they encounter The belief that the poor demeaning racialised
keep it a secret for the boy again and he is white inhabitants of the theories about intelligence
the rest of their lives. hailed and invited to play Deep South are retarded always bubble below
The suspicious sheriff the banjo once more. runs deep in the American the surface.
whom they meet at the He gazes back at them, psyche. To this day ‘poor
end of their journey has expressionless and white trash’ is the label
no evidence of how their motionless, showing no attached to them, from all Do you have a good story
companion died, recollection of meeting the sectors of United States from the past that would
so eventually he simply tells visitors at all. society. It has its origins in interest the readers of
them to leave the area for the eugenic scares of the Community Living?
ever. This, they willingly do. Retarded territory late 19th and early 20th
The implication is clear. centuries. Academic social Contact the
The scene contains two The boy is, in the American scientists carried out Arts Correspondent
scenes which have become usage, retarded. Many other lengthy surveys of Simon Jarrett
iconic in film history. hints of retardation appear. particular Deep South email:
The first is a horrifying male In the background of one families, producing simonj@jarr.demon.co.uk
rape scene perpetrated scene, another child lolls graph and chart-laden

28 Vol 29 No 4 | Summer 2016 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk