by Amanda Ann Klein
about Amanda Ann Klein
Amanda Ann Klein is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the English Department at East Carolina University. She is the author of American Film Cycles: Reframing Genres, Screening Social Problems, and Defining Subcultures and co-editor with R. Barton Palmer of Multiplicities: Cycles, Sequels, Remakes and Reboots in Film and Television. She is currently working on a new book: Millennials Killed the Video Star, a study of MTV’s reality programming.
Buckwild
Abstract: Throughout the 2000s, MTV released a series of reality programs focusing on identities like Jersey Shore’s guidos and the young mothers of Teen Mom. In this essay, Amanda Ann Klein argues that MTV’s Buckwild, which focuses on the antics of working-class, white, West Virginia youth who identify as “rednecks,” illustrates the importance of whiteness as a performative identity category in contemporary America. The series provides a venue for white audiences to offer resistance against a perceived, symbolic loss in white hegemony.