The South Stands Up
The South gets a rotten rap. Lazy storytellers -- especially in movies or television -- will often use places like Mississippi or Alabama as a kind of shorthand: set a scene or a sequence in the Deep South, and it's code for: these people are ignorant, violent rubes.
It's always irritated me, maybe because I genuinely love the flat, spooky atmosphere of the Mississippi Delta; the stately square of Oxford, Mississippi; the swank and chic restaurants of Birmingham, Alabama; and the polite, easygoing sophistication of your typical Southerner.
You want a shorthand for a violent, racially-polarized setting? Try Los Angeles. Or New York. Or any other enclave of smugly self-satisfied media elites. I say it again and again: when I eat out in Los Angeles, I notice that the restaurants are almost entirely white. Not so in the south.
And now some of the more famous sons of the South are standing up. James Earl Jones, for instance, The deep-voiced actor, a native of Arkabutla, Mississippi, is furious about the upcoming release of "Straw Dogs," a remake of the 1971 Sam Peckinpah film with Dustin Hoffman.
It seems the filmmakers got lazy again. From the San Diego Reader:
...director Rod Lurie's remake of Straw Dogs is under fire from no less a personage than Darth Vader himself, James Earl Jones. Jones, who hails from Arkabutla, Mississippi, tweeted "@Straw Dogs' portrayal of MS as pervert hick backwater - bigoted much? #BoycottStrawDogs."
In a prepared statement, Jones argued that "Like many states in the South - indeed, like many states throughout America - Mississippi is not without its problematic elements. But the constant, unremitting media portrayal of Southerners and the South in general as a kind of moral and intellectual landfill is simply unconscionable. My good friend Morgan Freeman has a restaurant in Clarksdale, and it doesn't matter how many times he shows up on the Food Network or in the pages of Bon Appetit, he still can't get friends from Hollywood to stop by. They're too spooked by their own pernicious portrayal of our home state. Enough is enough."
I've been to Morgan Freeman's place in Clarksdale many times -- both the upscale fine dining place, Madidi, and the fantastic dive bar Ground Zero. Had a great time in both spots, though I have a clearer recollection of the former. For obvious reasons.
And no less than brilliant actress Reese Witherspoon is seconding the motion:
Sweet Home Alabama star Reese Witherspoon has weighed in: "@JamesEarlJones: the South will rise again! #BoycottStrawDogs."
At some point, of course, people in the smugger parts of the country are going to "discover" the beauty of the Gulf Coast, the fun and worldly Oxford, the livable style of Birmingham, all of the secrets that southerners already know about, and treasure.
And then we'll all be sorry for complaining so much.
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Re: The South Stands Up
PS: Speaking of the South, I'll be in Charleston, SC this weekend. Any Ricochet Members in the area who want to say hi, give me a shout.
Re: The South Stands Up
I'm reminded of this Ricochet post that you did months ago that also proves your point about the misplaced perception of racism in the South.
I just spent the past summer in New York and remember remarking at how racially segregated certain areas were, and that there were even certain parts of the city named after different ethnic groups. In most cities, were that the case, the city would be reprimanded for its exclusiveness, but it's given a pass in New York and considered part of its charm and an example of its "diversity".
Dec '10
Re: The South Stands Up
I someone who hails from Georgia I have always wondered if ANY writers or film makers had actually ever visited the south, much less been born there.
Jul '10
Re: The South Stands Up
After spending most of my adult life in San Francisco, I live in the south now and wouldn't dream of going back unless they gave me a million bucks and a house in Seacliff. Southerners are nicer, warmer and all those good things you hear about them. If they are even aware of the dreck that Hollywood produces, they are generous enough to smile at the stereotypes created by hack screenwriters leaning on hoary cliches to peddle thin, oft-told stories to executives cocooned in their liberal ghettos of the mind.
Jun '10
Re: The South Stands Up
I like the South. People treat you like a person--not like a potential inconvenience.
Nov '10
Re: The South Stands Up
Amen and amen! I've often said that I wouldn't want to live any further north than Virginia. No offense to my Yankee brethren, bless y'all's hearts, but for me and mine, home is and will always be the Old Dominion. Now if we could just do something about this humidity...
Sep '10
Re: The South Stands Up
All over it here in Charleston, Rob. Feel free to track me down via Ricochet. Been here 7 generations. Higgins can vouch for me.
Apr '11
Re: The South Stands Up
As a native Texan now living "up north" I'm tired of the perception of Texans as "gun totin' racists". Um........yeah, right. A college friend from Chicago once said to me, "You haven't even begun to see racism until you've lived in Chicago."
Dec '10
Re: The South Stands Up
Rob Long:
I say it again and again: when I eat out in Los Angeles, I notice that the restaurants are almost entirely white. Not so in the south.·
I assume you are referring to the clientele, rather than the staff or the decor.
Aug '11
Re: The South Stands Up
It's also worth noting the census data showing African-Americans migrating back to the south and away from those oh-so-cosmopolitan northern cities. I don't buy the myth that America is awash with racism, but the south is probably the least racist part of the country.
Dec '10
Re: The South Stands Up
You know who really knows about the difference between the reality of racial tension in the North versus the preconceptions about racial tension in the South?
African-Americans.
“The notion of the North and its cities as the promised land has been a powerful part of African-American life, culture and history, and now it all seems to be passing by,” said Clement Price, a professor of history at Rutgers-Newark. “The black urban experience has essentially lost its appeal with blacks in America.”
My wife works with a number of African-American nurses in Oakland and Vallejo, California. Plenty of them have kids they've sent to live with the grandparents back in the Deep South, to protect them from the influences (and drugs and random shootings) of the urban environment.
Sep '10
Re: The South Stands Up
I was furious when I read the reviews of Straw Dogs in part because I enjoyed the original and there is only one Sam Peckinpah but mostly for the reason Rob outlines. The social pathologies that have long plagued the poor are very much multi racial and multi cultural and seeing race as their cause is detrimental to finding solutions.
Re: The South Stands Up
Stuart Creque:
My wife works with a number of African-American nurses in Oakland and Vallejo, California. Plenty of them have kids they've sent to live with the grandparents back in the Deep South, to protect them from the influences (and drugs and random shootings) of the urban environment. · Sep 23 at 6:37am
Sounds like it would be a great TV show- "Fresh Prince of Savannah".
May '10
Re: The South Stands Up
I moved from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlanta area in 2006. One of my reservations was that my children would be exposed to racial tension, and that did not exist in any of the small towns where I previously lived (tough to have racial tension when the demo is lily white). To my delight, our experience has been the opposite. Our neighborhood is multi-racial (including many mixed race families), and my children attend schools that are multi-racial. The lack of division and the community integration is remarkable. I contrast this to reports from large northern cities where often communities are starkly divided along racial lines, or even the very tranquil (but 99%+ white) villages of the Northwest. I am happy I moved to the South.
Dec '10
Re: The South Stands Up
I'll be in L.A. the weekend of Sept. 30 - Oct. 2. Give me a shout and I'll say hi.
Dec '10
Re: The South Stands Up
Ethan Safron
Stuart Creque:
My wife works with a number of African-American nurses in Oakland and Vallejo, California. Plenty of them have kids they've sent to live with the grandparents back in the Deep South, to protect them from the influences (and drugs and random shootings) of the urban environment. · Sep 23 at 6:37am
Sounds like it would be a great TV show- "Fresh Prince of Savannah". · Sep 23 at 6:45am
On a related note, do you remember the TV show "Frank's Place" with Tim Reid as the Brown University-educated estranged son who inherits his father's Creole restauant in New Orleans? That was a marvellous show on many levels.
Sep '10
Re: The South Stands Up
Ah, Clarksdale. Home of my first confusing crush. Lovely town. (At that time, there was terrible segregation, but we're talking 1969, so I imagine that it, like most of the South, is much better now. ) I remember that flying into Memphis from Louisiana made me think, whoa, northern Mississippi is almost up north!)
Jun '10
Re: The South Stands Up
While I applaud Mr. Freeman and Mr. Jones and Ms. Witherspoon for speaking out, I would think that the attitude many of us who live in the South might have toward Hollywood's caricature of us is best summed up by a certain Rhett Butler line. You know the one.
Jun '10
Re: The South Stands Up
The only time I have lived outside the South was an 8 year sojourn in Louisville, KY. It was much more Midwestern than Southern. While it was a lovely time, our family missed the easy congeniality of the South. We moved back before our children started school.
The thing that amazed me the most in Louisville was that the folks from other parts of the country were far more bigoted than my friends from Alabama. I grew up in a small town. Since there was only one high school, we knew everybody in town. We knew folks. That precluded prejudice.
May '10
Re: The South Stands Up
Good stuff, Rob. I've been a broken record on this issue, especially on the reception given to Southern presidential candidates and hopefuls. On the other hand, we are willing to make peace with pretentiousness as long as the rest of the country continues to surrender their jobs and economy to us!
Too bad you're just in for the weekend. I'm in Charleston on business the first part of next week.