Depending on who you are and where you've lived, you may have very specific ideas about where "the South" is, what it's like, and what role something called "religion" plays there. People debate whether states like Texas or Florida "count" as the South, whether the region should include the Caribbean, what it means to be "Southern," etc. More specifically, if we play a little visual free association, different images might come to mind if someone asks you to think about the South...(like? what say you?). So, how we see the American South will vary, of course, but I thought it might be telling to look at what a huge search engine like Google had to say about the matter. If you search "Southern" in Google Images, here's a snapshot of the first images that pop up:
These images seem to offer a pretty particular vision of what "southern-ness" is all about...And if that's the case, what (if anything?) should be read into the fact that the most popular/recognizable images of what's "Southern" are things like knife-laden Confederate flags surrounding a buxom blonde wearing ripped jeans (next to a "Southern belle" in corset and big skirts), fried chicken, and one "Scarlett O'Harlette"?
In other words, do you think there's a tension between the South that we live in and the South that appears in a larger cultural imagination? Or not? Where do these images come from?
What’s really been getting to me about these two posts is the conspicuous difference between the Google search for “Southern” and “Southern religion.” The “southern” search portrays a cultural space that includes fried chicken, an obdurate flag, alcohol, snakes, a peach, a hoop skirt and a southern skank—alright, we can all agree we’ve seen our fair share of these in the South. It’s interesting, however, that this “snapshot” of southern-ness is quietly absent of the force behind the cultural space—the people. Only when the word “religion” is added to the mix do we begin to put a ‘face’ to the American South; and it’s still a pretty disquieting picture. Though small town churches and graphs/maps of religious conservatism dominate the search, we also get a picture of lynching, a book called Baptized in Blood, and...er...Jerry Falwell. It feels like there’s this big unspoken disparity here, between these two searches. Why is it that we can only look at the complex human-aspect of the American South by adding a word (or justification?) like religion? To build an accurate picture of ‘southern-ness,’ I (personally) don’t think it’s possible to separate the people from the culture. Maybe disparity is the wrong word...It just feels like we sweep the things we don’t want to see under the rug.
ReplyDeleteGranted, I’m not saying that Google is the best way to look at this whole issue...it’s a pretty narrow scope to be sure, just from the eyes of the Internet. I do, however, feel like this is a good indicator that there is definitely a tension between the South we live in and the South that appears in the larger cultural imagination—at least in shallow manifestations. That flag (that’s still so sickeningly present in Southern culture) came from a society undeniably supported by slavery. So...what do we make of this? The larger cultural imagination seems to remember this about the South, while many of those within (debatably) do not. Does this mean every person who wears the confederate flag is a raging-southern racist? No, not necessarily...I just find it appalling when people don’t understand the ramifications of the statements they make. I don’t mean to say that we should carry our problematic past on our sleeves, but we’ll never be able to comprehend the connection between people and culture if we don’t recognize that part of the picture might be a little bit uncomfortable.
Personally, I don’t think this is as much of a “representation” as it is a grouping of pictures that a computer threw together based on its programming.
ReplyDeleteI think Wil mentioned something about this in the other post but I did the same “southern” search so that I could look at these pictures a little more closely and I found that of the 28 pictures that can be seen, fewer of them are actually about the south than one would believe at first glance. The snakes are from the West coast, both Southern Comfort pictures are there because the pictures have “Southern” in their title rather than a commentary on drinking in the south. There is also a map of the bay area in San Francisco, a map of the Antarctic (southern ocean), a railroad station in Melbourne, an eating place in England, and the constellation known as “The Southern Cross” which if memory serves, can’t even be seen from the American south.
And as much as I hate to break this to prof, Scarlette O’Harlette wouldn’t even be on the screen shot if she weren’t a model for “Southern Studios” which incidentally is the title of the picture.
My basic point is that while I get what you’re saying, I personally don’t see this as a representation of the south, it’s just a program doing its job to me.
its funny that the only picture that is here that represents the black community is the 6th picture on the last row. its actually pretty damn pathetic. what i wonder is why doesn't all of these confederate flags offend many white people. its easy to say yeah that pretty offensive, but lets be honest the reason i feel like it doesn't offend many white people is because they know that whether or not they find it offensive it's some kind of protection in that flag for them. the images of women are all of the "sexy/slut-like" white woman why doesn't this outrage white women?
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking over this the past few days, and I...well, I believe I might have jumped the gun a little bit on this whole 'representation' thing, as the saying goes; I've been thinking about all of the various possibilities of titles that could carry the label "Southern," and that definitely accounts for more things than I was originally thinking--especially in an image search within a program as large as Google. And while I didn't think of the fact that the alcohol shown actually HAS the term 'Southern' in it (duuuhh...I don't know what I was thinking), I do still find it interesting that the very first things yielded in the search are pictures of the Confederate flag--a symbol that insinuates ideas from slavery to veneration of tradition and the "Old South" to religion in general...I mean, check out that second picture up there! "American by birth, Southern by the Grace of God." Whoa. That definitely denotes some interesting perceptions of Southern symbolism to me...
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the South, I don't see either Black or white...although there are issues w/ blacks & whites in the South. I think this is a pretty fair representation of the southern culture,...There is a pic of fried chicken, gin/alcohol lol, etc. Thise two could actually be a great representation of the south by itself. People from the south love to eat, barbeque, fried chicken, etc, & they do definitely get drunk! lol(e.g., moonshine!, etc) lol
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