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Deep South: Difference between revisions
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''When Alabama gets [[Atomic Hate|the bomb]].''|[[Tom Lehrer]], "[[Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto Us/Quotes|Who's Next]]?"}}
{{quote|'''Sam Donaldson:''' ''Governor Clinton, let's be frank. You're running for president, yet your only experience has been as the governor of a small, backward state with a population of drunken hillbillies riding around in pickup trucks. The main streets of your capital city, Little Rock, are something out of ''[[
'''Bill Clinton:''' ''I'm sorry, Sam, do you have a question?''|''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', [http://snltranscripts.jt.org/92/92cdebate.phtml Debate '92].}}
The Deep South: home of fat redneck sheriffs, hillbillies, moonshiners, [[Politically-Incorrect Villain|Klan members]], tobacco-chawin' [[Good Ol' Boy]]s missing half their teeth, and all other manner of [[Corrupt Hick|Corrupt Hicks]], not to mention [[The Fundamentalist|fire-and-brimstone preachers]], [[Apron Matron|iron-bound matriarchs]], [[Fat Sweaty Southerner in
Although the real mid-southern and southeastern United States has a far wider range of locales and settings, the [[Deep South]] as it appears on TV is usually one tiny rural town after another, separated by miles of farmland or steep, forested mountainsides. Its inhabitants always seem to be about fifty years behind the times, at least as far as social issues are concerned, and some might even be fighting the [[The American Civil War|The Recent Un-Pleasantries]] still. This trope has major [[Unfortunate Implications]].
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Do ''not'' try to knock up one of the local girls there, or you will disappear, or, at the very least, [[Shotgun Wedding|be married to her for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not]]. Sex is [[Serious Business]] down there.
So ''don't'' complain about the war overseas, ''don't'' admit that you think ''[[Queer
People will often have two names, with men having the second name [[Everything's Better
Any part of the region that is not rural, backwoods, mountains, or bayous shows up on TV as merely [[The City]] or [[Suburbia]] with an accent. The sprawling metropolises of [[Atlanta]] and Charlotte might as well not exist. And while Nashville and [[New Orleans]] do exist, they're not without stereotypes of their own: N'awlins being a [[It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans|party city]] with the occasional vampire, and Nashville only known for country music. As far as writers -- largely based in Southern California -- are concerned, the only true South is the Deep South. And any old state down there will do. Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, [[Critical Research Failure|Maryland]]... what's the difference?
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== Anime ==
* ''[[Blaster Knuckle]]'' is the story of a black man in the 1880's who battles demons who use the Ku Klux Klan to cover their [[I Am a Humanitarian|flesh-eating tendencies]] on the nearest safe target. As one might expect, [[Hero
== Comic Book ==
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** The series also mentions several Earth-C southern cities, including "Memfish" (Memphis) and "Tallahatchee" (Tallahassee, Florida), along with Mew Orleans.
* In ''[[Bitchy Bitch]]'', Marcie surely comes from the deep south. She's a stupid and extremely prejudiced (but cute) [[Southern Belle]] type with a heavy accent.
* ''[[Scare Tactics (
== Film ==
* ''[[Smokey and
* Played straight in ''Gone with the Wind.''
* There are several racist rednecks in ''[[The Blind Side]]''; Lynne Tuohy lampshades this trope by calling one of them "[[Deliverance]]." On the other hand, the Tuohys are representative of [[Sweet Home Alabama]].
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* [[Harold and Kumar]] visit the Deep South when they ''Escape from Guantanamo Bay'', and encounter, among other things, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|a Ku Klux Klan rally, an inbred mutant child, and Neil Patrick Harris]].
* ''[[Forrest Gump]]''
* ''[[O Brother, Where Art Thou?]]?'' takes place in the 1930's Deep South (it's never outright stated where), and was largely shot in Mississippi.
* Rob Zombie's ''[[House of 1000 Corpses]]'' and ''[[The
* ''[[Gator Bait]]'', ''[[Wild
* The whole premise behind the ''[[
* ''[[Hannah Montana]] [[The Movie]]'' takes place in the fake Tennessee town of Crawley Corners.
* Subverted in the documentary ''con'' fiction film ''[[Borat]]'', when the titular character dines with a family in the South. They are very courteous of this odd foreigner and patient with his rude and boorish behavior... that is, until his dinner guest, a transvestite prostitute, arrives, at which point they kick him out.
** The film also clashes at points with the common stereotype that the South is anti-Semitic. A cut scene (available on the DVD) has Borat visiting a dog kennel and asking if he can buy their most vicious dog, because he thinks he needs to defend himself against Jews. The kennel owner admonishes him not to think about Jewish people that way. And in another scene - which actually is in the movie proper - we are introduced to an elderly South Carolina couple who actually ''are'' Jewish!
* ''[[The
* The 2011 remake of ''[[Straw Dogs]]'' moves the setting from England to Mississippi. And the antagonists are a group of pickup truck driving redneck rapists.
* ''[[Requiem for
* ''[[Mississippi Burning]]'' & ''[[In the Heat of
* ''Southern Comfort'' pits a bunch of Nation Guardsmen against a gang of local [[Ragin Cajun]] s who don't take too kindly to outsiders invading their territory and stealing their boats.
* The screenwriter of the ''[[Cape Fear]]'' remake directed by Martin Scorsese admits as a "New York Jew", he wrote Max Cady to be a "Monster of the South" speaking in tongues like something out of a tent show revival.
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* Played cheerfully and for humor in Joan Hess's ''Maggody'' mysteries.
* [[William Faulkner]], himself a Mississippian, ''loved'' to play around with this trope.
* [[Flannery O
* Subverted in ''[[Bimbos of the Death Sun|Zombies of the Gene Pool]]'', which is set in Tennessee. Jay Omega worries that he and his fellow professor-slash-girlfriend Marion have stumbled upon a diner like this. Then a big bearded man comes up to the table and starts intimidating Jay...until Marion tells him to knock it off. It turns out, the "redneck" is a Joyce scholar professor and a friend of Marion's who wanted to have a little fun at the expense of yet another "''[[Deliverance]]'' sucker" as he puts it.
* In [[Kim Newman]]'s ''[[Dark Future (
* [[Deliverance]], by James Dickey. Southerners will complain at length about the movie and the novel and the horrible stereotypes it represents. It's worth noting Dickey was born and raised in Atlanta, living and working in the Southeast for most of his life.
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[American Gothic]]'' (the show, not the painting: that one takes [[Down
* ''[[The Beverly Hillbillies]]'': The early seasons featured Mr. Drysdale and Miss Hathaway as the straight men, looking on at those wacky hillbillies and how unfamiliar they were with the big city. They eventually shifted to Jed being the straight man, solving problems because his homespun wisdom made him smarter than city folk, with Mr. Drysdale being a comic character. Later on, much of the humor of the Clampetts' unfamiliarity with the modern world came from making fun of the stranger aspects of the modern world, like when the Clampetts meet a bunch of hippies.<br /><br />Of course, as the title of the series states, the Clampetts are, specifically, "Hillbillies". That is, rural Appalachian hillfolk rather than just generic Southerners. The Clampetts were from Tennessee ([[The Movie]] incorrectly says Arkansas - whose hillfolk instead come from the Ozarks, which also stretch into Missouri), but Appalachian culture goes as far north as Ohio and Pennsylvania, so it's not even an exclusively "Southern" stereotype.
* ''[[In the Heat of
* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]''.
* ''[[
* ''[[Green Acres]]''.
* ''[[Hee Haw]]''.
* Seen in several ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]'' episodes, except that garrulous New Englanders who interfere in everyone's business ''don't'' come to horrible ends.
* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''--Joel, Mike and the Bots would take jabs at the [[Deep South]] anytime a movie featuring the stereotypes was screened. Since absolutely everyone--fat or thin, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, smart or dumb--gets lampooned equally on the show, it's not worth getting worked up about.
* Although the trope is based on an exaggerated stereotype, the ''[[Top Gear]]'' team proved that it's still not a good idea to drive around in Alabama with cars sporting such slogans as "NASCAR sucks" and "Manlove rules OK", to say nothing of "Hillary 4 President". They pulled in for gasoline and eventually had to flee while rocks were chucked at them. The jury's out on whether the locals kicked off as a result of being offended by what was written, or at being trolled with the stereotype...
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* ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' never lets you forget the main character's Southern roots (specifically, Tennessee). Taken to extremes when a snooty set of parents spent the entire episode mocking [[The Deep South]].
** Interestingly enough, Disney apparently originally tried to make Miley Cyrus speak in that standard bland SoCal dialect that all their other personalities use, but even the most rigorous dialog coaching failed to erase her accent, so they just gave up.
* [[Justified (TV series)|Justified]] does this, although it's much more nuanced than many other TV shows.
* ''[[ER]]'' brought Dr. Benton to the backwater town of Pascagoula, MS, where minorities were looked upon with suspicion and residents were wary of treatment from him. When this episode aired, it caused residents of the real Pascagoula (a medium-sized city), to protest its portrayal.
* ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?
{{quote| ''[[Scenes from a Hat" suggestion: "Visions of Hell other than fire and brimstone.]]''<br />
'''Colin:''' (miming driving) Mississippi... I'm ''still'' in Mississippi...<br />
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''[From a different session: "Unlikely state songs"]''<br />
'''Wayne:''' (singing) Oh, you won't find me in Alabamaaaa... }}
* ''[[
* The [[ABC]] show ''[[GCB]]'' is about a single mother and widow who moves from Santa Barbara, California to her hometown of Dallas, Texas. The show pretty much plays up all of the stereotypes of the South and Texas.
* [[CMT]] has a tendency for these types of show, most of them were reality shows.
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== Music ==
* [[Tom Lehrer]], "[http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/dixie.htm I Wanna Go Back to Dixie]."
* [[
* [[Neil Young (Music)|Neil Young]]'s [[Protest Song]] "Southern Man", against which "Sweet Home Alabama" is partly a [[Take That]], is an opposing example, graphically portraying and condemning the abuses of slavery and racism.
* For a [[Take That]] at "Sweet Home Alabama" itself, see Warren Zevon's "Play it All Night Long." The first line is "Grandpa pissed his pants again" and that sort of sets the tone.
* "Sweet home Alabama / Play that dead band's song..." Ironically, [[
* [[
* "The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia" by written by Bobby Russell and sung in 1972 by his then-wife Vicki Lawrence recounts a sad tale of poverty, adultery, murder, and corrupt public officials in the Deep South.
* Occurs in [[
* Nina Simone's [[wikipedia:Mississippi Goddam|"Mississippi Goddam"]]
* Anthony and Those Other Guys [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqnWQgU5AOU&feature=plcp&context=C3982292UDOEgsToPDskLtPcZIM_hmZZGJkqDag9Pd Sunburn] which is loosely based on a real person.
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** ''[[A Streetcar Named Desire]]''
** ''[[The Glass Menagerie]]''
** ''[[Cat
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* ''[[Starcraft]]'' - the Terrans are the Deep South [[In Space]]! Nearly all the Terrans are apparently from the Deep South; many of the heroic ''and'' the villainous Terrans use syntax and expressions stereotypically attributed to Deep Southerners. Keep in mind, there are no references to specific cultural features of the real life Deep South - racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Focus is almost solely on the accent: the [[Sergeant Rock|Good Guy]] in the setting is a southern Terran with a distinct accent, while General Duke, an evil character, also has a very, ''very'' thick accent right out of a Civil War movie. In the expansion pack, the non-Terran humans are European, specifically Russian and German--and are almost universally evil. The United Earth Directorate is, more or less, a mish-mash of [[Commie Land]] and [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazi Germany]]. Not ''every'' Terran has a Southern accent though: Sarah Kerrigan does not, and Jim Raynor's is debatable, as his accent is a sort of "Generic Rural" that can sound vaguely Southern at times (listen to him say "right on"). Tell you what, it's an Indiana accent. Southern Indiana. Basically Midwestern, but with a few traces of Southern from the dialect of Indiana's original Virginian settlers. If the Battlecruiser voices are any indication, there are also some Russians lumped in with them as well. The wiki even mentions traces of Japanese culture. Still, it seems that much of Terran civilization is dominated by heavy American (i.e. Southern) influences.
** The Terran Confederacy were originally comprised of prisoners who crash landed in the Korprulu Sector. It is pointed out that the Terran Confederacy (using a modified Confederate States Army naval Jack as their flag) is considered corrupt, is plagued by several rebel groups, has nuked a rebelling planet (Korhal) and is eventually [[It Got Worse|overthrown by the even worse]] [[The Empire|Terran Dominion]]. Actually, most of the human factions [[Humans Are Bastards|are shown as more or less evil]], except [[La Résistance|Raynor's Raiders]].
* The villains in ''[[
* ''[[Oddworld]]: Stranger's Wrath'' is set in an alien version of this, populated by hillbilly chicken people and toadlike outlaws.
* ''[[Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead 2]]'' chronicles the journey of four survivors of a [[Zombie Apocalypse]] making their way from Savannah, Georgia to New Orleans. Two of the characters are Southerners: Ellis, an overly energetic mechanic who loves guns, rambles at length about "[[The Munchausen|my buddy Keith]]", and is generally too good-natured to be a [[Good Ol' Boy]], and Coach an African-American high school football coach who loves food and plays the [[Team Dad]]. They are joined by two Northerners, Rochelle, a reporter from Cleveland, Ohio who takes on the dual roles of [[The Chick]] and [[Team Mom]], and Nick, a Vegas con-artist and borderline Guido [[Deadpan Snarker]]. Much of the humor in the game is based on Rochelle and Nick's observations of the Rochelle and Nick's [[Deep South]] views vs. Ellis and Coach's [[Sweet Home Alabama]] views. The two share a somewhat stereotypical love for NASCAR and southern music, Ellis going so far as to wish he were a woman so he could have his favorite racer's children. [[Jerkass|Nick]] makes fun of a more repulsive southern stereotype in the "tunnel of love" section of the Dark Carnival campaign by saying that the tunnel was created for hillbillies and noting that it used to give discounts for cousins.
** In the second level of the game, one possible dialog has Ellis say he knows of a gun store where they can get better equipped. Nick snarks "Looks like living in this place is finally paying off", and Coach gravely responds "Mister, I don't like your attitude."
* ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]''--Although most if not all the humans your alien protagonist vaporizes are appropriately stupid, with most of them carrying around pretty vapid thoughts ("I Like Ike!") in their heads, your first mission takes place in an area called Turnipseed Farm, where you encounter incompetent mayors, violent farmers, ignorant housewives, ditzy teens, corrupt cops, and easy to fool cowboys. Slightly inverted because the area is located in the midwest instead of the Deep South.
** And, in light of the "I Like Ike!" snippet described above, it's worth pointing out that the South was one of the few places where Dwight Eisenhower was ''not'' popular during the 1950s.
* ''Death on the Mississippi'' and ''Till Death Do Us Part'' missions in ''[[Hitman]]: Blood Money''.
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** It comes up yet again in "Lois Kills Stewie", this time targeting North Carolina with a sign reading "First in Flight, 48th in Education" ([[Did Not Do the Research|note that this information was very out of date - at the time of the episode's 2007 airing, N.C. was ranked 24th in education]]). An amnesiac Lois is lost in North Carolina, but finds work at a fat camp for obese kids who keep trying to eat each other. She soon makes a friend at the local small-town diner, who turns out to be a white supremacist, and is assaulted with a blunt object after an anti-Semitic joke when she tries to point out [[Godwin's Law|that same train of thought started the Holocaust]]. This might be ''barely'' justified as part of {{spoiler|Stewie's virtual-reality simulation of what'd happen if he tried to kill Lois}}, but it's never treated as an inaccuracy. It certainly fits in with the rest of the show's treatment of the South, and, if anything, is even meaner-spirited than those earlier portrayals. There are no ridiculous accents this time, at least. <ref>In reality, there are Klan chapters in every single state in the country, not just the South; the Klan reached the pinnacle of their power in Indiana in the 1920's, not Mississippi in the 1960's; those blonde twin girls who sing White Power songs are from California.</ref>
** The episode "Boys Do Cry" is set in Texas.
** The recent episode "Back to the Pilot" hits two of the writers' favorite targets, the South and [[George W. Bush]], at the same time. Brian manages to prevent [[The War
* ''[[Futurama]]'':
** Pays a visit to the submerged, forgotten city of... [[Atlanta]]. Yes, ''Atlanta'', largest city in Georgia and a major metropolitan area. Apparently the 1000-year timeskip has regressed this city back into a municipality inhabited by southern dandies, as all the "quality" people ([[My Friends and Zoidberg|and Jane Fonda]]) left when they airlifted the entire city out to float the ocean, built too much on it, and it sank. Appropriately, the episode this is from is called "The Deep South".
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