Buckwild
by
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.
This essay may be found on page 117 of the printed volume.