I was born in Augusta Georgia and I have lived my entire life in Georgia or Tennessee. I never gave much thought to being southern until I was grown and I realized there is a distinct and ugly bias against southerners. To put it plainly: southerners are viewed by a lot of other folks [non-southerners, of course] as being either moronic or evil racists or both.
I used to take non-credit courses at Emory University and I was furious one day when I opened the course catalog and found a course titled How to Lose Your Southern Accent. The description said basically “Hey, if you have a distinct southern accent people will think you’re a moron.” I was very tempted to sign up for the course and sit there and argue with the teacher but I figured it would just anger me to the point of spiking my blood pressure unnecessarily and I didn’t need that. I felt personally insulted, however.
Southerners onscreen are often redneck racists, dim-witted southern belles, or steel magnolias who will happily cook up some fried chicken and then shoot you if you don’t use good manners. [I wouldn't shoot you for using bad manners but I might call your mama and ask why you weren't Raised Right...]
There are exceptions, though.
We southerners know the stereotypes, and sometimes we use it to our advantage. Think about Andy Griffith. A lot of the episodes of The Andy Griffith Show centered around people from out of town assuming Andy Taylor was a rube, an idiot. Andy always bested them. In his later series, Matlock, that was pretty much the premise of every show: Matlock appeared slow but totally upended the convention and beat his opponent, who had underestimated him. (My mother loved that show)
I think part of the enduring fascination with Scarlett O’Hara is that she is far from stupid, but she reinforces the scheming manipulative southern female trope. Yet despite all her bitchiness, we are rooting for her at the end. That was Margaret Mitchell’s genius.
BTW, concerning Gone With the Wind: yes, it described black people in a very racist way, undoubtedly. However, if you want to know what it was like to live through Reconstruction in the South, read it. Mitchell spent years researching and writing the book. She easily recalled listening to her elderly family members reminisce about that time in the south. She knew her subject.
Also, in her later years, Mitchell changed a lot of her racist opinions. She became close friends with actress Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy in the GWTW movie. Mitchell quietly funded a number of scholarships for students to attend Atlanta’s Morehouse College and became friends with the head of the school, Dr. Benjamin Mays. (Source)
The Southern Villain
How many times have you watched a movie and the villain had either a British or a southern accent? There’s a reason for that. In American history the British started off being the enemy: we fought a revolution against them, and fought them again in the War of 1812. For a more pop culture explanation, the Brits themselves glory in their villainy, as this article articulates:
“And while not all Hollywood baddies are British, a disproportionately high percentage of them are. From Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula to Alan Rickman in Die Hard and from Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate to Ian Holm in Alien, the majority of wrong ’uns speak with an English accent.”
The Brits may be cold and ruthless but Southern villains are of course racist, often moronic, and frequently show the cunning of a rattlesnake. Think about Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear or Buford T. Justice in Smokey and the Bandit. A recent movie that I liked a lot, Live By Night, features a southern villain who is racist, stupid, and deserved to die in a hail of bullets, Virgil Beauregard.
I will never apologize for being southern, nor will I endorse the stereotypes that are so popular in Hollywood. The south I know, while obviously not perfect [what region is?] has a lot of nice people in it. Many African Americans have moved back to the South from up north because they feel welcomed here, and frankly the weather and cost of living are so much better here. A lot of people in the North move to the South when it’s time to retire. If we were all stupid, hateful, bigots I don’t think folks would flock to the South to live…
Below, my grandparents Algie and Cordelia Thompson when they were dating, around 1922. Grandaddy would go to town and play the rube and hustle pool until he made enough money to buy his kids' shoes and other things sometimes he couldn't afford during the Depression. I have always admired that.
