Southies: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Gibbs:''' Says here you're from Boston.<br />

'''Petty Officer Drew:''' South Boston, actually.<br />

'''Gibbs:''' Does it matter?<br />

Residents of South [[Useful Notes/Boston (useful notes)|Boston]], MA.

The real Southie is, in actuality, much less dangerous than in years past. Currently, a surprisingly large portion of the population consists of... [[Boring but Practical|Yuppies]]. As with New Englanders in general, Southie folk are really nice people -- onpeople—on the ten or fifteen days a year when it isn't freezing cold or blisteringly hot outside.

The good folks of [[Useful Notes/Boston (useful notes)|Boston]] hope that Hollywood will eventually stop assuming that [[Big Applesauce|fun things can only happen in New York City]], and that someday we will get a movie set in Boston about sunshine and happy music and cute puppies and basically ''anything'' other than the mob, violent crime, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Harvard]], and so on. Expect this to be an increasingly common complaint if economically minded filmmakers follow the trail of ''[[The Women]]'' (2008) and start using "Boston Doubling" for scenes ''set in [[New York City]]''. Ouch.

Incidentally, no two Boston residents will agree exactly where Southie begins and ends. Is the Waterfront part of Southie? How about Dorchester? Is Dorchester "really" part of Boston or is it a suburb? What about the other suburbs? Have we put way too much thought into this? (Note that the actual compass direction "South" hardly factors in.) In fact, many residents feel that "Southie" and "South Boston" are two different areas, with Southie being a tight knit Irish community and South Boston being the yuppie area right next to it.<ref> Never confuse the two areas in front of someone from Southie, it's a bit of a [[Berserk Button]], and don't even ''try'' to compare it to [[Gayborhood|the South End]]</ref>. The short version is "if you're in Boston and surrounded by working-class Irish, you're in Southie."

{{examples|Examples:}}

* Of course, ''Southie'', starring [[New Kids Onon the Block|Donnie Wahlberg]]. Memorably had a tagline which claimed that our fair neighborhood was "the most dangerous city in America!" Yeah... no.

** Affleck's next film, ''[[The Town]]'', also features much of the same Southie elements as ''Gone Baby Gone'' did.

** And it starred his brother Ben.

* ''[[The Forbidden Kingdom]].'' Yes, you'd be excused if you thought this was [[Never Trust a Trailer|an action fantasy set entirely in ancient China]] [[Just Here for Godzilla|starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan]]. Well, there is also a [[The Scrappy|Modern-Day Young, White, Male]] [[Cultural Translation|American Character]] who was evidently only in the story to get the plot moving and for [[You Suck|the audience]] (who would be surely be [[Viewers Areare Morons|confused and enraged]] by a story set in ancient China with an all-Asian cast) [[You Suck|to relate to]]. Now, of all the arbitrary American cities this character could have hailed from...

* As ''[[All Souls: (Literature)|AllA SoulsFamily Story from Southie]]'' shows, this trope does have some basis in [[Real Life]]. In the 1970s and 80s, this was one of the worst places in the country to live in, as Michael MacDonald found out growing up there.

* In The [[Black Dagger Brotherhood]] novels, Butch is an Irish-American cop from Southie who chain smokes, drinks scotch, consorts with whores, occasionally indulges in police brutality ([[Kick the Son of Aa Bitch|though few object]]) and otherwise tries to fulfill every applicable stereotype he can think of. Then [[And Then John Was a Zombie|he finds out he's a vampire]].

* Dr. Donald Westphall of ''[[St. Elsewhere]]'' is a Southie.

* The stereotypically brash and violent young Scout from ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' is from Southie, according to Valve. He has a [[Brooklyn Rage|Brooklyn accent]] as part of [[Stylistic Suck]], though.

* Speaking of [[New Kids Onon the Block]], we probably ought to mention their infamous [[Band Toon]] here, but... [[They Just Didn't Care|it'sits writers just didn't care.]]

== MetaTroping Wikis ==

* "Southies" has become something of an inside joke hereat [[TV Tropes]], due to the YKTTW for "Southies" having had no text other than "[[Self Explanatory]]". That led to the page "[[Not Self -Explanatory]]" and similar "it's not obvious to everyone" examples.

[[Category:UsefulIndexed Notes/TheStates Unitedof StatesAmerica]]