Hollywood and the Scotch-Irish

When someone uses the word “American”, what image pops into your head? Are Americans people who live within the United States? Does it revolve around citizenship? If someone lives in another country, but subscribes to our values, is s/he an American? In the South and Midwest, especially in Scotch-Irish cultural areas, folks tend to think of Americans as “people like us”.

The Scotch-Irish, or Ulster-American, story is explained well here, but the important parts for this article are that lowland Scots had migrated to Ulster in the north of Ireland during the 1600’s and then many migrated again to America during the 1700’s, settling mostly along the Appalachians. During the Revolutionary War, the vast majority took the side of the Patriots and because their heritage is a warrior culture, taking a side meant engaging in battle.

So, they spoke English, had migrated from Ireland and their ancestors were from Scotland. They tended to speak of themselves as Irish early on, but during the 1840’s Catholics from Ireland began to immigrate to America, mostly to the large cities in the North. Besides being “Papists”, these new Irish were poorer, fleeing the potato famine, and many of the “old” Irish wanted not to be associated with them. Hence, they coined the term “Scotch-Irish”.

But with so many “old countries” to choose from and a complex heritage, they tended to identify with America, a land with freedom of religion and plenty of opportunity for whites like themselves. In fact, I’d say they tended to wrap themselves in their American-ness. The southern branch was not loosened from this identity even after fighting for the Confederacy.

As Ulster-Americans led the push west into the Ohio Valley and the Upper South, they mixed with few immigrants, except for a healthy number of Germans, usually Protestant. When they encountered Native Americans, they battled and/or married them. There were some slaves (although more in the Deep South), but for the most part they had Middle America to themselves and other Protestant descendants of British peoples, so ethnic markers were less important.

They were even more “American” than the Puritans, since New England tended to be chummy with old England during the early years of the Republic, when we fought two wars against the British. And in all conflicts, from the Revolutionary War to Iraq, these descendants of a warrior culture have served in the military disproportionately to their numbers. Some of the Scotch-Irish knee jerk patriotism is xenophobic, but much of it has been earned.

Enter Hollywood. Here’s how Thomas Frank described the situation in What’s the Matter with Kansas?:

The “Middle Americans”, after all, are the people the ads and sitcoms and the movies warn us against. They are the prudish preacher who forbids dancing, the dullard husband who foolishly consumes Brand X, the racist dad who beats his kids, the square cowboy who is gunned down by the alternative cowboy, the stifling family life we are supposed to want to escape, the hardhat who just doesn’t get it.

How did it get this way? Why do “Middle Americans”, disproportionately Ulster-American, bear the brunt of Hollywood’s opprobrium, especially when the media tends to be very sensitive to issues of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.

I think there are two reasons. The first is that southerners, especially, have been a little behind the curve on some values Hollywood holds dear-- like sensitivity to issues of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.

The second is that I think Ulster-Americans have convinced not only themselves that they’re the average Americans. They’ve also convinced Hollywood. When Hollywood wants to criticize America, the antagonist is cast as a Middle American with a British last name. That probably seems authentic. When Hollywood creates a bad guy, there’s a danger in making him ethnic or foreign. That might be seen as insensitive.

So there you have it. Hollywood is insensitive toward Ulster-Americans mostly due to the high value it places on sensitivity to diversity issues and Ulster-American cultural heritage was squandered due to the anti-Catholic bigotry of their ancestors.