These past few days have not been good for the image of northern Appalachia, from where I hail.
A recent episode of the TV police procedural drama " Criminal Minds" took place near Wheeling , West Virginia. the writers & producers of that show have clearly never been to the West Virginia Panhandle, based on their interpretation of the culture & people of that region. We Northern Appalachians were portrayed as inbred, meth-making, drug-addicted incest-practitioners.
This is a HORRIBLE Stereotype of West Virginia in particular & of Northern Appalachia in general. One: Wheeling is much closer to the Ohio & Pennsylvania borders than most of " downstate " West Virginia. If the CM writers wanted to make a mockery of West Virginians, they could not have chosen a less accurate town in the state. Wheeling is in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, and the accents used by the actors in this episode were more of a Kentucky/Tennessee hill variety. If the writers had done their research, they would know that we have more of an Uplands Plateau accent .
Also, the subplot of incest was inaccurate and cruel to my friends in West Virginia.
there are many problems in the part of the nation from which I hail. But incest is not one of those problems & meth-making is a nationwide problem that is NOT confined to we " hillbillies".
That's all.
