dueling banjos

noun[plural only]2

1. •
   A contest of skill in which two people try to top each other's offerings, especially one involving musical ability.

   • Their tools were computers and when three or four engineers surrounded a car and plugged in, the scene wasn't dueling banjos. It was dueling laptops. — 1998
2. •
   Something typical of a stereotypic hillbilly; Something characterized by lack of education, poverty, inbreeding or lack of sophistication.

   • The name "Appalachia" evokes a host of popular images and stereotypes: feuds, individualism, moonshine, subsistence farming, quilting bees, illiteracy, and dueling banjos, to name just a few. — 1998