Meanings
alternative hicksploitation
- uncountablebroadcastingA genre of exploitation film that relies on the stereotypical (and often negative) depiction of rural whites of the American South and Appalachia.
The apotheosis of the hixploitation movement was Smokey and the Bandit (1977), the directorial debut of Tennessee-born veteran stuntman Hal Needham, who actually cast Mel Tillis, Foster Brooks, and Ruth Buzzi for unironic effect.
2006, David Kamp, Lawrence Levi, The Film Snob*s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Filmological Knowledge, Broadway Books, →ISBN, page 482 more examples
While Black Snake Moan seems to unfold in a realm of synthetic fantasy—a hybrid of hip-hop's Dirty South, a bluesman's back roads, and the Dixie of '70s hixploitation flicks—it's actually set in a corner of Tennessee where a white girl named Rae (Ricci) holds the title of town slut.
2007 February, Troy Patterson, “Chick Flicked”, in Spin, page 92Historians of what Scott Von Doviak dubbed "Hick Flicks" in his 2005 book by that name, point out that a "Southern" genre of film never emerged to compete with the western as such for a national audience, though there was a rise of hixploitation films in the 1970s whose success hinged on and ultimately died with the demise of the drive-in regional theater (French, Von Doviak).
2011, Tara Powell, “'You Taste of America': Talladega Nights, Deliverance, and Southern Studies”, in Andrew B. Leiter, editor, Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s, McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 220
Origin
Cite this entry
hixploitation. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hixploitation
“hixploitation.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hixploitation. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hixploitation,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hixploitation.
Source: hixploitation on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.