The South?

I need help with a research paper i'm writing:





How do outsiders view the South based on historical, cultural, and social grounds?





How is the South represented in the media and in art?





How would you compare/contrast different interpretations of the south, and how did these interpretations come to be?





How do race and/or gender affect how someone participates in a conversation about the South?





Why do these issues matter on a personal, cultural, and political level?

The South?
Look under the term "Redneck" and you will find what the stereotype of a Southerner is to most Americans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck





Good Luck!!!
Reply:How do outsiders view the South based on historical, cultural, and social grounds?


Southerners are some of the most stereotyped people in America. Historically they are less educated (think mainly agragarian society during the industrial revolution) their schools were not as good as the north, as a whole their cities were more spead out and the lack of unity and cetralization wreaked havoc on their education system. Culturally you could look at anyone and say they do weird things. But southerners eat strange things like grits and spam and collards and okra and jesus christ the sweet tea. They also say things like "mash the button" "cut the light on" and call a tobaggan a hat when it is clearly a sled.


Socially there is still hatred and segregation in the south. It is not by any means as pronounced as say 50 years ago, but some blacks in the south to this day hate white people. For no other reason than because they are white. It is very strange.





How is the South represented in the media and in art? OK just think Dukes of Hazzard, The Andy Griffith Show, King of the Hill. Southerns are portrayed as yee-hawing, racist, stupid, alcoholics on the negative side of it. Their positive qualities very hospitible and friendly.





How would you compare/contrast different interpretations of the south, and how did these interpretations come to be? Well I think since the Civil war the south has always been the wild child atleast in the mind of southerners. They are the rebels, the ones who didn't win, but dammit if they had the resources and another crack at it they would... blah blah blah, so yeah I would blame the civil war for most of it. But since the south was mainly an agragarian society for so long, a certain slowness did develop in them. Maybe it is all of the sunshine or lack of cold weather, but the south as a whole is not in a big hurry. They talk slower down here... and talk substantially more! They seem to always have time to discuss things. There are also historical reasons for the "baptist bible thumping movement" view and the specifics you will have to look up, however I do know there were two big religious movements where some groups went out and conjured up some new members, in cluding the Baptists. The people who lived here didn't have much religion to speak of so they took it gladly and thus the south filled up with evangelical christians. The Blacks and their hand clapping was a child of their native religion combined with a form of christianity and this too has profoundly affected the Southerner's religious cast.





How do race and/or gender affect how someone participates in a conversation about the South? Race is a big one for obvious reasons. (the whole slave thing) Gender is tougher, it may be influcenced by the whole southern girls are easy idea. Or just the idea that southern accent implies low IQ.





Why do these issues matter on a personal, cultural, and political level? On a personal level we should strive to look past someone's eating habits, accent, and world view to see that they are a person and just as what they do seems strange to us, we may seem slightly foreign to them also.


Culturally although we come from pretty much the same background, historically the south has grown up almost completely differently than the north despite being separated by a few hundred miles and this difference has been reflected largely in their culture (once again think slave holding farmers vs. blue collar mill workers).


Politically it has been tough for southerns. They are cast as historically conservative repblican with a crazy streak. (think george w.) and add an accent commonly associated with bible thumping and stupidity, that doesn't make for a good career in politics... unless you happen to be running in the south. ha
Reply:Get on your search engine and find your own answers. You will learn more that way.
Reply:Oustiders view the south as a cosmopolitan melting pot on the basis of the south's long history of tolerant multiculturalism.





Southerners are represented in the media as the well educated, cosmopolitan, tolerant renaissance people that they are.





The only interpretations of the south that matter are from those people who actually live in the south. If you've never lived there, you don't know squat.





African Americans and other people of color obviously have a more positive opinion of the south.





Take a good look at answer #1