Tuesday, February 26, 2008

"..some of these 'holler' people..."

I offer the following without comment, from The Pittsburgh Gazette:

A movie about to be filmed in Pittsburgh is casting Gothic characters -- including an albino-like girl and deformed people -- to depict West Virginia mountain people.

"'Regular-looking" children need not apply.

That's the gist of an open casting call for paid extras for "Shelter," a horror film starring Julianne Moore that will begin shooting in Pittsburgh in March.

The casting call scheduled for Sunday invites "men and women of all races, 18 or older," to try out as extras, according to the announcement from Downtown-based Donna Belajac Casting. But the extras wanted for the West Virginia scenes evoke images of "Deliverance" and "The Hills Have Eyes."

"It's the way it was described in the script," Belajac said Monday. "Some of these 'holler' people -- because they are insular and clannish, and they don't leave their area -- there is literally inbreeding, and the people there often have a different kind of look. That's what we're trying to get."
Click here to read the rest.

8 comments:

Tess said...

Oh please. Have these people ever even been to Appalachia? It's surprisingly civilized.

Anonymous said...

Let's face it. This is the legacy of the War on Poverty and every "documentary" filmed by a Kennedy descendant.

Anonymous said...

How disgusting. To think that Julianne Moore works with Save the Children in Appalachia, and then is part of a film like this promoting such stereotypes about the very people she supposedly wants to help! How typical for Hollywood.
http://www.savethechildren.org/newsroom/2008/julianne-moore-valentines-day-campaign.html

Eric Drummond Smith said...

Repugnant. I am literally sickened.

Michael Tod Ralstin said...

And anyone would wonder why we also have a reputation for violence? (the fact that our region has the lowest crime rate not withstanding)

After fighting through Eric's same wave of illness, the next emotion brought on by reading this post is that of violent rage. I so want to stomp a mud hole in someone's ass.

Anonymous said...

I say we accept it as a compliment and in invitation for those folks to politely stay the hell out of here. We don't want you here and don't give a flying damn what any group of hollywood weirdos and freak shows think about us.

Anonymous said...

The smartest person I ever met was a rural West Virginia native. An absolute genius.

Unknown said...

It seems rude to point out to these movie people that they certainly know how to make a good first impression. These are not the sort of people that I would want to have anything to do with, much less spend any money to get to watch their view of my homeland in the form of a motion picture.
It saddens me that they have this view, but aren't they simply repeating the propaganda that they were taught by the very media that they are a part of? You have to love a good irony.
I wish them good luck with their movie, I plan on being somewhere, doing something utterly useless instead of going to see it. I wonder if they won't be poisoning a new generation to the strange and inbreed hillbillies. Thank you for your kind attention.

Doug Raines, Norton, VA