And the West Texas accent crosses the border into Oklahoma. Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove had that Texahoma drawl -- very different from a Deep South accent.
Southern accents in movies
- Thread starter Nerdius Maximus
- Start date
Yeah, there's definitely alot of people around here with Texas accents. It's interesting, though, the variety of accents we have around here. It's like Oklahoma is a microcosm of America; We have straight up trailer trash rednecks, actual cowboys, a large Asian, Hispanic, black and Indian population, etc. And we're all ruled by rich, white, conservative fundamentalists who don't want us having any fun.
Anyway Some people have very strong accents, and others have no discernible accent at all, because they've picked up bits and pieces of accents from the states all around them and they've canceled each other out.
But anyway, I think the diversity of the people here is why we're often used to test-market products.
This brings up an interesting point, actually. While the complaints about anti-Southern prejudice are (partly) justified, the flip side of this prejudice is exoticism.
The South is viewed as the inversion of the modern, urban, industrial, and thoroughly mundane North. It's a magical, mysterious place--an appropriate setting for Disney musicals (The Song of the South), erotic vampire fantasies (Interview With a Vampire), dewy-eyed historical romances (Gone With the Wind), and of course, Gothic nightmares of decay, degeneration, and the return of the repressed.
In much popular fiction, the South plays the same part that New England played in the stories of H P Lovecraft--an old and enchanted land, full of secrets. And to be fair, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Southerners helped to perpetuate this type of North-American Orientalism by their attachment to the Lost Cause, and to a mythic, antediluvian past of Eden-like plantations, graceful ladies, and courtly gentlemen.
Perhaps one of the difficulties actors have with "southern accents" is that there is no one singular accent. Someone from Texas would sound considerably different than someone from VA for example. Hell I'm from mid-MO and I've had people from the East comment on my southern accent, and I can assure you I sound nothing like a native deep southerner, but apparently my variation of the "Ozark twang" must sound that way to some people.
That's what I was actually had in mind when I created the thread. These actors hamming it up, chewing the scenery, pretending to be some kind of exaggerated "suthun gentleman, suh, I declayah." That's how people talked in the 1800's. It would be like an actor doing a British accent and peppering the dialogue with a bunch of "Thees" and "Thous" as if people over there still talk like characters from the Canterbury Tales or the King James Bible.. They need to take it down a notch, is all I'm saying. They sound like Foghorn Leghorn.
The notion that Hollywood's attempts at a southern accent qualify as some sort of discrimination is astounding. Tendencies to stereotype southerners as poor, uneducated or bigoted (or some combination thereof,) are the most difficult kinds of stereotypes to criticize, much less eradicate. Namely, they are founded in blatant historical fact.
So far as bigotry goes, Jim Crow. Which didn't end in the Fifties, but the Sixties. Oh but that's ancient history? Hell no it isn't. Most families as portrayed in Hollywood are still based on Fifties sitcoms. The same type of thing applies to the poor and uneducated aspects. And the religious aspect too, except no one worries about "favorable" stereotypes.
So far as bigotry goes, Jim Crow. Which didn't end in the Fifties, but the Sixties. Oh but that's ancient history? Hell no it isn't. Most families as portrayed in Hollywood are still based on Fifties sitcoms. The same type of thing applies to the poor and uneducated aspects. And the religious aspect too, except no one worries about "favorable" stereotypes.
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I was watching The Special Relationship on tv last night and was really impressed by how well Dennis Quaid captured Bill Clinton's distinctive voice. Not just the accent but the wheezy quality to it as well as Bubba's delivery. Great performance all round actually, and I remember saying at the time that I thought Quaid was an odd choice for the role (I imagined him being more suited to George W. Bush).
Let's not forget the utterly and wonderfully horrifying T-Bag, and despite his sexiness, humor and charm, Sawyer from Lost was hardly a choir boy. Yep, Southerners are perfectly right to bitch their heads off at how they're portrayed in media, but the characters are often so wonderfully written and acted, that I hope yall can take it with a grain of salt.
Oh lawdy lawdy, that's paaaaaainfully unfunny and the "hilarious" accents aren't worth slogging thru the skit for.
Okay THAT one is funny!
I spent about 10 year living in the south, and I can't STAND fake Southern accents. I had to turn off the pilot of Damages because Željko Ivanek's accent was painful to me. And he's an actor I like.
Rich Hall's Dirty South was an interesting show on the subject of how the media treats the south. Not sure if it's available anywhere to watch in full though.
Favourite Southern accents on film:
Brian Cox in "X2: X-Men United"
Chris Cooper in "Adaptation."
Gary Oldman in "The Fifth Element"
Brad Pitt in "Inglourious Basterds"
The only one on that list I thought was really convincing was Chris Cooper. The others were fun and entertaining, but I don't know if they were realistic. Maybe the worst, most annoying Southern accent I've ever heard was Jerry Hardin as Mark Twain on TNG. That was disappointing given how great he was on "The X-Files".
Brian Cox in "X2: X-Men United"
Chris Cooper in "Adaptation."
Gary Oldman in "The Fifth Element"
Brad Pitt in "Inglourious Basterds"
The only one on that list I thought was really convincing was Chris Cooper. The others were fun and entertaining, but I don't know if they were realistic. Maybe the worst, most annoying Southern accent I've ever heard was Jerry Hardin as Mark Twain on TNG. That was disappointing given how great he was on "The X-Files".
Twain wasn't Southern, was he? He was born and raised in Missouri, and spent much of his life in Nevada, California, New York, Connecticut, and elsewhere. Missouri was considered part of the slave-owning South in the 19th century, but it's more Midwestern, really, isn't it?
The difference between the south and the north is simple: obviously things still aren't perfect here, but in the South, the problems have come out into the open. People UNDERSTAND the history and the problems, and know that there's a need to do better.
Yet being up north, I've also seen Archie Bunker-type people, too. (And that's one thing I loved about that show: they acknowledged that bigotry is NATIONWIDE.) And I've seen absolutely blatant, awful behaviors that would not be tolerated down here where people are on the lookout for it. The difference is in awareness and in acknowledgment of one's own problems. You have to recognize that a problem existed before you can get better.
And I would also remind anyone who thinks their past is squeaky clean of the way Irish and Polish immigrants were mistreated. And speaking of the 60s--remember, this was a time when JFK being an Irish Catholic was actually a campaign issue.
I'm sure there are folks up North who cringe at even the thought of Jersey Shore. Every region has a "stereotype" or two to bear. It can be dumb surfers and valley girls from California, rude and insensitive big city Easterners or unsophisticated MidWesterners
Present.
Having grown up in the San Fernando Valley, I can say with some authority that that particular stereotype is more than somewhat based on fact!
Well we do seem to thrive on stereotypes. Hollywood even "eats it's own", with it's portrayal of dumb vain actors, greedy clueless executives and shifty manipulative agents.
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