I’ve lived in the South all my life. Holly has lived all over, but she’s in the South now, too. And we’ve taken this opportunity to get all riled up about how the South and southerners are portrayed in the worlds of television and film. It’s not that no one in the South does the things we’re talking about … it’s that the portrayals stick mostly to the same tropes and traits.

Stereotypical southern traits we jab at:

• “Bones” and the North Carolinian squintern
• Accents
• Ball caps, flannel shirts and lack of shirts
• “Monster’s Ball“
• “The Apostle“
• “To Kill a Mockingbird“
• A USA Today series on southern stereotypes Holly consulted for this recording
• Self-replicating racist movie southerners
• Jim Henson and his Mississippi roots
• Jack McBrayer’s character Kenneth Parcell on “30 Rock“
• Jeff Foxworthy
• The spunky southern woman character, as in “The Closer” and “Warehouse 13,” Julia Sugarbaker on “Designing Women,” and most of Holly Hunter’s characters
• The Atlanta Olympics and Holly’s chagrin at the opening ceremonies
•  ”Deliverance“
• “Gone with the Wind” and the 20-minute “Gone with the Wind” I love (even though I kept saying 30 minutes in the podcast)
• “Fried Green Tomatoes“
• “The Blind Side“
• “O Brother, Where Art Thou” (gopher, Everett?)  and Holly’s hobo fear
• “Barton Fink“
• “The Golden Girls“
• “The Riches“
• Southern gentlemen and southern belles
• “Sweet Home Alabama“
• Hollywood’s War Against the South
• “The Straight Story,” which is more midwestern
• “Steel Magnolias“
• How awesome Felicia Day is
• 5 Wacky Small-town Festivals

Episode link: How to Build a Southerner for Your TV Show or Movie

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