Pinkowitz on Two Thousand Maniacs!

economics of regional exploitation film production

narrow profit margins/ low overhead including non-pro actors, etc.

drive-in theater venues as a marginal space/audience– note less segregated than other venues, not an “ideal” audience (the “classy” or normie-type audiences Hollywood studios were after)

other aspects of viewership: audience identification with the grotesque caricatures of Lewis’s film. an ironic identification as “redneck” “cracker” etc.

narratives often include characters who function as stand-ins for readers/viewers

ex. Lottie Mae and Beeder in the final image of Feast. the non-pro extras, residents of St. Cloud, who watch the dunking machine/boulder dropping atrocity

social content of Maniacs: a non-Southern version of the South but also references to CRM and “Massive Resistance” campaigns against it. racist violence of lynching (the atrocities against the Yankee tourists but also the toy nooses, off-camera torture/killing of black cat

note absence of Black  people in Pleasant Valley