MovieChat Forums > Eaten Alive (1977) Discussion > Why does rural United States look like t...

Why does rural United States look like the third world?


I mean, in all redneck-slasher flicks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes etc., whether it be rural Texas, West Virginia, Louisiana or New Mexico, these places look like they're pre-1945, with 1940s-looking gas stations, no phones, 1920s shacks etc. etc. Does it actually look like this?

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It does. There is such an economic disparity in the US, with that gap increasing exponentially the past seven years. (Take a look at Republican economic policies and you'll understand why) Last year, on average, incomes for the top 1 percent of households rose by $465,700 each, or 42.6 percent after adjusting for inflation. The incomes of the poorest fifth rose by $200, or 1.3 percent, and the middle fifth increased by $2,400 or 4.3 percent. This is according to the Congessional Budget Office (CBO). You can Google it yourself, or check out: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/business/15rich.html.

You've got to love those Republican tax cuts.

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And aren't those states more Republican than Democrat? I guess Texas at least must be, we gotta thank'em for Dub'ya.

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Exactly.

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Actually, the South was solid Democrat for over 100 years after the Civil War which helps account for it's general squalid state during the period. Google a map of the electoral votes for Jimmy Carter in 1976, the same year this film was released, and the South is solid blue. Ronald Reagan won the South for the party of abolition, and things have been looking up for them ever since.

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hmservent, your post is ironic considering Texas is financially successful, one of the best in the US, while liberal sh-tholes like California and Detroit are struggling economically. Detroit just went bankrupt, and 3 major cities in Cali are bankrupt (Stockton) or on the verge of bankruptcy.

You've got to love those Democratic run states!!

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Thank you, Rex. Detroit is a festering, rotting, and rusting example of Democrat policies run amok for fifty years. Want third world? Go to Michigan. First stop, Detroit.

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You have my word as an inveterate cheat.

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"(Take a look at Republican economic policies and you'll understand why)"

And yet here we are, a mere six years after Obama's first election and the "steal everyone's money and then use that money to make the government bigger so it can stomp everyone down and steal even more of their money" has made even the most hyperbolic of Regressive Democrat attacks on Republican economic policies look like Utopia in comparison.

You wanna see "Third World"? Go to the Lefty strongholds of Detroit, Chicago, New York, San fran and Los Angeles.


"You've got to love those Republican tax cuts."

You mean those across-the-board tax cut you Regressives have dishonestly maligned as being "just" for the Evil Rich Boogeymen you wish to scapegoat for all of your ruinous government policies? The idea that the poor economic downturn is due to the government NOT stealing every penny the citizenry has and using that money so that the ruling Democrat regime can continue to illegally spy on us and drop bombs on Yemeni weddings in one of Obama's many unauthorized wars.

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You have no clue at all, hmservant. I live in the rural U.S., it looks nothing like the movies described or the political bs you have posted, and people don't live in rural areas primarily because they are poor. Most people live out here because it is quiet, beautiful, and we have a lot of land to use, as opposed to a small lot in suburbia. We don't have to be dependent upon Walmart, city water, and restrictive covenants.

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Absolutely. You can help support an Applachian child. And don't even look at Native American reservations.

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Have you ever been to Louisiana? It is almost like going to Mexico.

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Are you guys dolts?

I live in Louisiana and it doesn't look like *beep* Mexico.

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Yes. It does.

RIP Heath Ledger 1979-2008

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I don't know if you've ever seen Gummo by Harmony Korine, but in this movie, rural Ohio realy looks like the third world, with people looking like freaks and living in filth; that's pretty disturbing...

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Vivre, c'est s'obstiner à achever un souvenir.

René Char

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Fun fact - Even though Gummo takes place in rural-Ohio, it was actually shot in the poorest parts of Nashville, TN.

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hah i've seen rural places all over that definitely look like that.

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I am from the rural south and I have seen worse areas in the cities of America.

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I'd suggest that one could find equally depressing areas in just about every state.

~LjM
Step on it! And don't spare the atoms!

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Let's not forget that these are the majority of people that voted for Bush, so that would explain the uneducated abysmal setting that is the South and Mid West

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Yeah, you guys are so smart, huh. The fact that most of them voted for Bush, must obviously mean that they are uneducated. Oh, and I suppose that taxes that were imposed by Bush are to blame totally for the way thing's are considering this movie was made in the 70's and things have been this way even when Democrats have the power. If it's taxes that you think are to blame than you better hope that Obama doesn't get elected because taxes will just get a hell of a lot worse for everyone.

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Republicans believe in trickle down economics. The rich people are the ones that get the breaks and it's the rest of us that have to pay for it.

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that's way better than believing universal health care and hand-outs to the poor are gonna help the economy any. The more the Democrats want to give handouts to people who can't afford insurance or something of that nature the higher everyone elses taxes become.

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Moron

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The rich people are the ones that get the breaks and it's the rest of us that have to pay for it.


You're a pathetic liar. The Bush tax cuts were across-the-board and applied to every workign American. The Left still clings to their "Big Lie" tactic, so they attempt to villify every tax cut as being "just" for the rich, because their entire political dogma revolves around the idea that the government needs to control everybody and everything and they can only do that by stealing your paycheck.

The Democrats learned long ago they can turn their gullible, low-information voterbase against ANYTHING by preying on their petty jealousies. That's why literally every single word out of their mouths is either about how (non-Leftist) rich people are responsible for everything and Big Government is the magical cure-all for what ails ya. And for added irony, they claim anybody NOT voting for higher taxes and more intrusive, authoritarian government is somehow :voting against their best wishes". The American Left is straight-up using 1984 as a playbook.

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If it's taxes that you think are to blame than you better hope that Obama doesn't get elected because taxes will just get a hell of a lot worse for everyone.


It's even more idiotic and despotic than that. They blame the LACK of taxation on poverty. they think that the government taking (literally) every dime you make will somehow make you happy and propserous. Call it "Trickle-Up Poverty".


The Left Wing's politics are essentially nothing more than feudalism wrapped in a flimsy vermeer of "We're doing this for your own good!"; they just want the serfs to sit still, shut up and plow their fields. Course, it's easier to rule the serfs when you're simulatenously stealing every penny they earn and using that money to trample their rights and push them towards abject totalitarianism, precisely what the Obama admin has been attempting since his first inauguration.

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America would go down the tubes like European countries? Last time I checked the Euro was doing amazing and the dollar is becoming increasingly worthless by the day. Bush caters to oil companies and puts them before the American people, and that is a main reason for our economy falling apart. Instead of forcing the oil companies to drill on all of the acres they currently own the the US, Bush wants to just give them more land along with ten billion in tax cuts. Hmm that makes perfect sense you tool. Go ahead and endorse a party that champions xenophobia, homophobia, and overall intolerance for anyone who doesn't look like they do.

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Don't be stupid avalco, Bush does want the oil companies to drill on the land they own. But we have all these other reserves in Alaska and the Dakotas that have oil, not to mention our off-shore reserves. But what do the liberals want, not to touch any of them because of the environmental problems they may cause. Now I'm not one to say just throw your trash anywhere, but if isolated environmental problems are a bigger deal than what the American people are paying for their gas than I say liberals are wrong. Not to mention that we just gave permission to the Russians and Chinese to drill in our off shore reserves, but we still can't use them. Does that make sense I ask you? No. If we could drill what we have things would be way better for the American people.

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Answer me why he is not forcing them to drill on the land that was already given to them and not being used, and why he is giving them 10 billion in tax breaks.

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Cause he's a dumbass. Not once in my posts have I ever said I love Bush. I'm a conservative and a republican, but Bush is definately a horrible president. I totally agree we should drill on the lands we already have. That's a problem both parties are gonna have to work out. We need to start drilling our own stuff and stop relying so much on over seas oil and our gas prices might go down. I'm merely pointing out to you that we should not overlook the oil we have elsewhere in our country just because of the environmental problems it might cause.

By the way our last few posts have really gone off topic. I mean I'm totally down for a political discussion, but this post is for Eaten Alive the most horrendous piece of crap I've ever seen.

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lol. You have a good point mwhite. I totally got tunnel vision and forgot this is the board for Eaten Alive, which I agree sucks @ss. Well at least we can agree on that much.

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I know right? Lol. Who says liberals and conservatives can't agree on anything?

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This movie wasn't filmed in any state it was filmed in a hollywood studio next to the paramount lot can't you tell when a car pulls up in front of the hotel that they're on a studio lot they always back up to leave and they didn't film any of the movie in the daytime and it was filmed on two or three sets.

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well my question was why do these movies always portray the countryside like a backward third world country? i know it's just movies, but do they really follow a pattern taken from real life?
just my curiosity as european.

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I don't really know why they like to portray areas in these movies as third world countries but I do know for a movie set in Louisiana, as one previous poster stated, they certainly name-dropped Texas more (two of the characters were from Houston and then the law officer said something about Huntsville which surprised the crap out of me), did they ever actually say they were in Louisiana? From the previously listed references I figured they were somewhere in Texas.



Currently watching: "Poseidon"-2006 version on TNT

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License plate on the car was from Texas.

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I will say that there is still a lot of poverty in the South. Not so much as there used to be because a lot of people from the North moved to North Carolina and other southern states due to more space and the environment. However, I think a lot of these movies give nods to the old stereotype of southerners being backwards. Here in the UK, we still have a lot of poverty in the rural and urban areas.

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LOL...just wathched this again probably since 2004, and was like *beep* it..let's go see how this board has progressed. Some decent threads on the actual film, some outddated Obama worship threads..some asshat neocons saying the right is better....look morons. There is only one party, one ruler, one HONCHO...your're vote means SQUAT...it's a hard pill to swallow, but you better wise up quick. Both parties are working for the same *beep* heel bag man, it's pretty obvious at this point.


ANYWAY, Eaten Alive doesn't need a remake...

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There is only one party, one ruler, one HONCHO...your're vote means SQUAT...it's a hard pill to swallow, but you better wise up quick. Both parties are working for the same *beep* heel bag man, it's pretty obvious at this point.

Indeed you are correct. I have been called a looney conspiracy theorist and a tinfoil hat wearer for sharing your beliefs, but I agree with you nevertheless. I would watch a remake of this film but with low expectations because it probably wouldn't be as good.

I've been waiting for you, Ben.

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Seems like a lot of posters in this thread haven't actually been to these places, people complaining about political affiliations and whatnot when both the country and city have their share of crapholes. Wherever poor folks without many prospects exist you'll be able to find crappy places, whether in rural areas or the inner city, hell even in the middle of the suburbs.

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lol @ someone blaming republicans. All this was really exacerbated with Johnson's 'great' society policies and subsequent handouts. Government is the sugar daddy for the poor, why should they try to better themselves when they know they'll always be able to put on the table and support their crack habits?

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