Throughout the semester, we have hinted a lot about southern food through stereotypes, generalizations, and media. With Bastard Out of Carolina, the concept of southern food comes up yet again with Mama Anney working in a diner. Dorothy Allison goes into detail about the diner food when Glen first visits Anney at work with Anney's brother. So, I thought for this week, we focus on finding information on Southern food; it's your turn to interpret this openly: from opinions to a focus on a certain restaurant.
Here is my response:
So another reason I wanted this topic is I wanted to chance to explore one of my close friend's favorite place to eat, Cracker Barrel. My friend was really craving good ole' Southern food and did not want to go Cracker Barrel. So we drove up to Canton, GA to go eat at his favorite Cracker Barrel which I marked on the map. So after eating there in Canton, my interests sparked upon the history of this Old Country Store. I discovered that Dan Evins established the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store as somewhat of what we now call rest stops. Basically, he wanted a "home-y and trustworthy"all-in-one stop for travelers that provided gasoline, a good meal, candy, and a place to rest from the road. The name came from old country stores he used to visit where "the stores were a community's unofficial meeting place where folks gathered around a barrel full of saltine crackers to visit with friends and trade some common sense wisdom."
Also, I think Cracker Barrel represents the South in many ways other than just their country cookin'. For example, they believe in a social responsibility that they phrase as "Pleasing People." This reminds me of the concept of Southern Hospitality in Southern Culture. During my visit, everyone in the store and the restaurant were extremely nice and caring and made you feel like you were at home. Moreover, the place was so packed that we had to wait for around an hour and a half. That just proves how much people love the hospitality that Cracker Barrel provides.
So your turn: what's the southern cookin' around you?!
Southern accents have always played a huge role in American music. This is best exemplified by Johnny Cash's song "Southern Accent". In the song Cash, a highly influential musician, talks about his pride in his accent and the general perception of this accent. It may seem weird to sing about something as simple as the way one talks, but there is more to it than simple pronunciation. The way one speaks is very telling about who they are because accents are generally burned into someone from an early age, ingrained in their psyche, and make up who they are. From someone's accent you can generally tell where they were raised and how they were brought up. Now this is a very powerful thing, because it means from the moment you open your mouth people have already judged you based on your accent. They know, or at least the pretend to know, these very intimate "facts" about you just based on a sentence at most.
In the song Cash tackle's this perception of his accent. One particular line that stands out is the very beginning of the song is still very poignant even today.
The young'uns call it country The Yankees call it dumb I got my own way of talkin' But everything is done, with a southern accent Where I come from.
The perception in the Northern states that a Southern accent means someone is dumb still holds true today. Cash even calls the non-Southerners "Yankees" which implies a great divide between the South and North by labeling them as something other than Americans. Nonetheless Cash is still proud of his heritage and proudly proclaims that his accent shows pride in his Southern upbringing.
I agree that southern accents sometimes make Southern people seem dumb or uneducated. In many movies and television shows, a dumb character usually has a Southern accent and is depicted with many other Southern stereotypes, like wearing overalls or going barefoot. In Forrest Gump, Forrest has a very blatant Southern accent. He is not necessarily dumb, but more simple minded. However, there needs to be a distinction when talking about Southern accents. When Southern accents are combined with bad grammar, then the Southern stereotype becomes negative. However, when the speaker has an accent, but has good grammar, the stereotype becomes somewhat positive. It starts to take on the connotation of being laid back and open. Take Paula Deen, for example. She is notorious for her accent, but nobody really thinks that she is dumb or illiterate. She is known for her Southern hospitality.
So I think that it really depends on the type of English that the movie portrays. A southern gentleman like Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind has the accent, but the accent does not make his character seem illiterate. Bad grammar in combination with appearance and other factors make a character seem dumb and illiterate.
One stereotype of the South is the Southern accent. This accent is often defined by long, drawn out vowels, slurring of words, and shortening words by cutting out consonants. My question to "y'all" is... Is a Southern accent portrayed as a good or bad quality?
From my perspective, the Southern accent is a negative characteristic. Movies and television shows display an ignorant and ridiculously dumb persona for those with Southern accents. In the satirical television show "Family Guy," the family move to a Southern town. All the students in the local school have the infamous accent and are mocked for being less intelligent than a pig. The father Peter also gains the sheriff position for this town. He has no real job requirements and thus drinks the working day away. Peter's act makes the South appear lazy and troubleless. The South is too stupid to have any problems or work.
Being from the South, I obviously disagree with this representation. However, given this show is a satire, "Family Guy" proves what the majority of the population believes when they hear about the South.
Sweet Home Alabama is full of Southern Stereotypes. The movie is about a Southern woman who lives in the North. She becomes engaged to the son of New York's senator, and is one of New York's biggest fashion designers. However, she is still married to her husband, and must go back home to get a divorce. When she comes home, she realizes that the South is really her home, and ends up staying married to her old husband.
The stereotypes really come into the picture once Melanie goes back home. Melanie arrives in Alabama with her stylish clothes, and looks really out of place in the rural setting. However, soon after she arrives there, she gains a Southern accent. According to this movie, everyone has a southern accent. The setting is important as well. The movie gives the message that the South is all rural. There is not a lot of urban development where Melanie lives. Southern women are also stereotyped. Melanie's old friends are all married and have babies. This movie suggests that most Southern women's roles in life are to get married and have babies, and that they are not intelligent enough to do something else with their life. Mainly, the South is depicted as really different from the North, as shown when Melanie says, "You need a passport to come down here."
Overall, movies about the South tend to use the same stereotypes over and over again, and the ones in Sweet Home Alabama have the major ones: the southern accent, the rural setting, and the southern woman.
In the movie Man of the House, Ronald Sharp (Tommy Lee Jones), a Texas Ranger, has to protect a bunch of UT cheerleaders who witnessed a crime. In this movie, he plays the classically stereotyped gun-toting, conservative cop from Texas. In the movie, he makes the girls cover up their backs, naval, cleavage, upper thighs, etc. If you've ever seen the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that it shows many Texas stereotypes. It shows big-haired blonde bimbos, how (at first) girls aren't good for anything but cheering on the football players, football is a huge deal, and Tommy Lee Jones shows these girls that they can have fun and be the UT cheerleaders that they love being and also be the key witnesses in the case.
View at 2:10
"Man of the House (2005/I) - Memorable quotes." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Feb. 2010.
An unfortunate stereotype about the South is their close, loving, family relationships, and by loving I mean physically attracted to other relatives. Some people believe the South is made up of giant families composed of many marriages within the same family. That is to say, a common belief is incestry. This idea comes hand-in-hand with the association the South has with hillbillies. The movie Wrong Turn displays the stereotype of incestry. Check out the trailer...
The movie takes place in the West Virginian mountains. Some might argue that West Virginia is not part of the South, but the stereotype is directed at the South.
One of my favorite movies and one definite Southern movie of all time is Forrest Gump. The trailer below gives an good overview of the movie which further helps me break down the stereotypes presented in the movie.
As you watched the trailer, you probably didn't notice any stereotypes. However, there are many things secretly put into this trailer that depict the South well. First, Forrest's house is somewhat plantation-like. It's a house with a farmland/greenery around. Second, the trailer mentions Forrest being on a football team. As we all have experienced with the GT vs. U[sic]GA rivalry, football is big down yonder. Also, they show that Southerners don't necessarily have manners. For example, all Forrest has to say to the President is "I have to pee." Though this one might be a stretch, lack of manners in business situations is definitely associated with the Southern population. Southern pride is also a big stereotype of the South and how Southerners explicitly like to show off being a Southerner. This is secretly hinted at when Forrest says with pride that he is from Alabama. Finally, we all have heard about the Southern Gentleman. Here are two lines that I thought fit perfectly:
Jenny: "Why you so good to me?" Forrest: "Because you are my girl."
Though the stereotypes are not explicitly stated out throughout Forrest Gump, I definitely think they are hinted at- just to further bring out Southern Culture. Moreover, the movie was mostly even filmed in the South at Beaufort, South Carolina which I have linked to in the map.
For this week's topic I thought it would be interesting to analyze the portrayal of the South in films. The South is almost always depicted as a backwater and uncivilized place in most films. This is no exception in the film O' Brother Where Art Thou. The film itself is very funny but it employs many negative stereotypes of the South to achieve laughs in many instances. In the clip above, the three escaped prisoners are seeking help from one of their relatives. He is shown wearing overalls with no shirt underneath them and sitting amongst waste and next to farm animals. Furthermore the film also uses the stereotype that the South is uneducated and backwards during the dinner scene. The man in overalls tries to tell his cousin something without informing his son by using the age old trick of spelling it out. However he spells out "RUNNOFT" when he means to say "ran off". As we all (hopefully) know "runnoft" is not a word. The barrage of derogatory stereotypes does not end there. The movie then bluntly insinuates that the stew they are eating is old horse meat stew...
Not food, silly UGA fan
Needless to say O' Brother Where Art Thou does not deal with the South with the utmost subtlety. However it is still an amusing movie that, regardless of the inaccuracy of stereotypes, contributes to the perception of the South in other parts of the country.
All right blog group, it's your turn... What do you think are some of the stereotypes that film and other mediums convey about the South?
To answer the question proposed by Mawish, one needs only to take a look down their hall or at their friends. In my opinion diversity in all regions, not only the South, can only be beneficial. This extends to many other facets besides racial issues. Diversity of opinion, outlook, or skills, any type of diversity provides a new way to look at things that one may have never even considered before.
Tech is really a microcosm of diversity in the South. When I first came to Tech, I attended FASET session 5, which included out-of-state students and international students. It seemed that every person I met was either from Korea, China, India, or some other country. It was truly fascinating to meet all these people on the first day and watch them as they adjusted to American living and more specifically Southern living.
In my group of friends includes people from Georgia, Maryland, and other states, but also, Japan, Korea, China, and India. My Korean friend is even teaching me to speak Korean. My friends and I are all very different but we get along. We have things in common even though they come from across the world. The differences serve to highlight what we have in common, and make the friendship more interesting.
Diversity also is present in the faculty at Tech. For instance Dr. El-Sayed who taught Chemistry last semester is from Egypt. He is an extremely accomplished chemical physicist who even has his own rule named after him, in addition to the many awards he has won. Dr. El-Sayed is the perfect example as to why bringing people from diverse backgrounds in can only be good for Tech and any community.
Mahwish introduced our topic this week as: Do you think diversity has benefited or worsened Southern living, and which aspects do you think have been affected the most?
As I've mentioned earlier, I spent my early life in India. However, for the past nine years, I've been here in the state of Georgia. Within Georgia, I had the chance to experience two different cultures that of Southern Georgia and that of Urban Georgia. I just moved to Valdosta, GA in 2001. There, the town lacked diversity in comparison to my later residence in Lawrenceville, GA in Gwinnett County starting from 2004. Valdosta was not "diversified". It is a small city/town near the border of Georgia and Florida. According to the census, the population is basically split between 50% African American and 50% white. Hence, this town has not been affected by diversity much. Through my personal experiences, I can share how my Indian culture was pretty new to my friends and peers in Valdosta. My family never thought about wearing Indian clothes out in "public"; however, in Gwinnett, we never even think twice about wearing them. It's completely normal to do so in Gwinnett. Because of this, I believe that the typical Southern living in South Georgia is still present and has not been affected by immigration. However, the Southern culture in Gwinnett has almost disappeared. If you walk down any major street in the county, you are bound to find multiple ethnic cultures. However, you would struggle to find a typical southern family/neighborhood. Gwinnett County is a result of an great extent of assimilation to the point where the majority(Whites) culture has become the minority culture in the county. Though the numbers still show, the white population as the majority, the culture in the county is reflected more by Hispanics and Asians.
So, "diversification" in Gwinnett has deteroited Southern culture but the lack of "diversification" has left Valdosta, GA its Southern Culture.
So what do I think? Do I think diversity has benefited or worsened Southern living, and which aspects do I think have been affected the most?
Hmm... Well, I do think that diversity has certainly changed Southern Living. Where I grew up, there was a fairly small black population, a high Mexican and Latino population, and a pretty high European population. Where I live, we don't have many "Navy Brats," but we do have "Exxon Brats." Our little play on words. Because most the major oil companies paid for your house, your car, and your children's education if you were from over-seas, this meant that my school (a private school) had a super high international group. I grew up with kids from Venezuela, Mexico, Holland, Canada, Italy, England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Brazil, Australia, Ecuador and a few others that I'm having trouble remembering ;). Basically, I knew a lot of people from really neat places. I think that diversity has benefited Southern living because it allows kids who, historically, come from a not-as-accepting culture to co-mingle with children from other backgrounds and ethnicities. Personally, I enjoyed going to their houses and meeting their parents, listing to them speak in their native language, eat their food. It was like growing up in my own Disney's E.P.C.O.T! International Day was always be best at school because each classroom was a different country; this was always the best because usually, classes would pick a country that one of the students (or students' parents) was from. Which meant that the food was authentic and delicious!!
One of my really good friends', Amy's, parents were from China and she was a first generation American... Even though she grew up in America and was just like any other American teen, she still carried some of the more stereotypical Asian characteristics... She was one of the hardest workers I've ever met. She did the IB program and had a 6.0! (Our GPA scale was really funky, that's the highest possible).
While thinking of a topic for this week, I thought about how much experience I have had with Southern culture. I was born and raised in Norcross, GA, a suburb north of Atlanta. Downtown Norcross used to be the typical small town, but by the time I was about six years old, the demographics had changed. There was much more diversity, and I was happier for it. When my parents moved to Norcross from Pakistan, they took part in the change that happened to Norcross, GA.
The same change has happened all around Georgia. Clarkston is now home to refugees from around the world, and the South is no longer the South it was before. But it's hard to say whether the change is for the better or for the worse. I never really experienced Southern Hospitality until I went to Ellijay to pick apples, and it is something I miss in Norcross. But at the same time, knowing people of different cultures has made me a well rounded person, and the experience has been invaluable. This was lacking in traditional Southern culture. On the other hand, the rapid immigration to Georgia led to a fall in appreciation for old Southern living, mainly in the way of manners. I have never been in the habit of saying Ms., Mr., Sir, or Ma'am. I never knew my neighbors, in fact, I was told to stay away from them. People don't stop in the streets and say hi to each other, and the luxurious lifestyle of the South is gone where there is a lot of diversity. The immigrants, me included, don't fully appreciate it.
This is a video talking about the changes that occurred in Clarkston, GA:
So what do you think? Do you think diversity has benefited or worsened Southern living, and which aspects do you think have been affected the most?
Percy and many postmodern writers would define my hometown of Potomac, Maryland as a non place. Last semester I analyzed my hometown in terms of how it related to the general concept of suburbia (last semesters overarching theme). This semester however it makes more sense to view my hometown through the lens of postmodern thinking. Potomac, while a great neighborhood, really has no history. No events of significance have ever happened in Potomac and it really resides in the shadow of Washington DC. It is like the little brother that can never live up to the status of the older brother.
Potomac mainly serves as a residential area for people who work in DC. Droves of people make the daily migration to this grazing ground in order to perform law, politics, or any other job of importance to the city.
The area around where I lived was mostly McMansions and sprawl. McMansions define the idea of a nonplace almost exactly. These cookie cutter houses are never seen in historic places like New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, etc. Thus if one is looking for nonplace all one has to do is follow the cookie crumbs.
However there is still some stuff that is slightly unique to Potomac, although not very culturally significant. The Potomac River is a a large river that is somewhat of an attraction. My family usually goes to the river in the summer to kayak or go whitewater rafting.
Unlike Katy, I grew up in Georgia all my life. Thus, the speech and addressing elders never changed for me. I do remember calling my first grade teacher "Ms. Jennifer" and not the proper form including her last name. I do have some family from the North though. I remember the first time they asked for a Coke, they said, "pop." Being from the South, this word completely caught me by surprise. I had to ask them what they meant and discovered it was only soda. Another different word choice I heard was "yous guys." I had heard "ya'll" and "you all" before, but never "yous guys." Using speech and dialect to know where I was never occurred with me. Because Katy moved across the country in her childhood, she experienced such a change in dialect; however, I did not.
Our topic this week are the things that define the places where we have lived. My up-bringing has occurred in several different cities and two different countries. I was born in a small town named Gandhidham in the state of Gujarat in India. I soon moved to Surat, India where I completed my two years in "nursery" school. After that, I spent the next few years in Mumbai, India. Due to the presence of various different cities in my childhood, I am going to pick Mumbai because it is the city I consider my hometown in that country. [Side note: If you are wondering where these cities are, I am linking to them in our map]
Mumbai:
The thing that defines Mumbai is the most is culture. Mumbai is not only the most populous city in India, but it is also one of the most populous cities in this entire world. This big city is the residence for people of all different cultures of India and the world. As a result, almost every cultural and religious holiday celebrated in this world is also celebrated in this city. Mumbai is nothing less than a mixture of being a "melting pot" and a "salad bowl". As different cultures are celebrated and recognized, some people let the cultures become homogenized while others prefer the cultures to be different. You might be confused as to what I mean by culture in this context. Well, the way that country of India is set up- it seems that every region has their own culture differing from food to language. Overall, I believe the social accepting, welcoming, and the very hospitable culture of Mumbai defines the city and its people very well.
I believe the following video truly defines my statement of the presence of diverse cultures throughout the country.
When I moved from India to United States, I moved to a small southern Georgia town named Valdosta. I lived in Valdosta for around 2 and a 1/2 years. So, I don't consider it that much as a place where I grew up. However, for the past 6 years, I have lived in Lawrenceville, GA which I do consider one of the places I grew up. Lawrenceville is a suburb of Atlanta and is located in Gwinnett County. Diversity is the thing that defines Lawrenceville the most according to me. My high school's ethnic make up was approximately 40% Hispanic, 40% African American, 10% Asian, and 10% Other. The "white" majority of America was actually a minority at my school. As a result, my school was very culturally diverse. These statistics are a reflection of the diverse culture present in the town. If you walk down any street, you are guaranteed to encounter people of at least two different ethnicities. However, I don't think that the town is unified as a whole. It is broken up into different sections according to the ethnicities, and people don't mix much. Hence, I cannot say that the town holds one cultural thing that signifies it. On the other hand, Downtown Lawrenceville takes pride in this historic features as seen through the Experience Lawrenceville website. This relates back to the Savannah Article in "Southern Lady"[the one my group covered in class] where the article talks about the history about the city; however, it fails to mention the city today.
So overall, the two things that defined the two cities I grew up in are the welcoming culture of Mumbai and the diversity of Lawrenceville.
What defined where you were when you were little? Was it places that you saw? Was it the people who were around you? For me... It was the way that people, especially women spoke to me, and the way I was supposed to speak back to them.
Me first :)
As you all know, I'm Katy... As many of you don't know, I'm from Texas, but not originally. Originally, I was from Minnesota. Kind of a switch from freezing to sweating but I like it. A lot of my family still lives in MN and goes back and forth like we do for the summers and holidays. My favorite is late spring in MN, when all the trees are purest green and everything is in fresh bloom, all bright and happy. People walking can't help but falling under the tree's charm and being happy too. Then when I moved to Texas, I got my first taste of "The South." It wasn't really the South though, where I lived we had "Oil Brats" (some places have Navy-Brats, we have the Exxon version). I grew going to school with kids from Mexico, Holland, England, Italy, Canada, Australia, Germany and all parts of the states. Basically, I never got to hear the "Howdy Y'All!" I did hear a lot of y'all and sofas and sodas which I was most definitely not used to hearing! I heard things like hey guys! and let's go sit on the couchand anybody want some pop? I feel like this was how I identified where I was at the time, I could always know where I was when I was a little girl by the words that people used when they spoke to me and around me. When speaking to my mother's friends in MN, I would address them either by simply their first names, "Stephanie," if she was close to them, or by their last name if they were neighbors or aquaintences, "Mrs. Sample." If I was in TX it was considered rude to address women by simply their first name and it was too formal to call them by their last names which meant that I had to call them "Miss Stephanie," which always sounded weird to me, but it was what I was supposed to do, and it was what was expected of all of us (the kids). My favorite drink was also called different things in different places. A lovely mixture of cherry syrup and Sprite was callled a "Kiddy-Coctail" in MN but in TX and most other places in the country, it's called a "Cherly Temple" after the cute blonde actress. But I'm rambling....
So now it's your turn, I knew where I was by the language used... How did you know?
