# Good lord, why can't they make movies with real Southern accents? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 12, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477 "2009-10-12T02:14:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/61 "2013-07-09T19:56:58Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > Why can’t they hire real southern people than getting people from other areas and putting on fake accent. Because it’s silly and restrictive and not worth the trouble when the real priority is getting the actors you want. People will go see a movie because of the actors, but they won’t go see a movie just because it advertises authentic Southern accents. So from a business standpoint it’s not that important. And to be honest here, isn’t it kind of a tradition at this point that if a movie is set in your home town or country, everybody sits back and complains about all the stuff they got wrong? I know I’ve done that with movies set in New York. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/62 "2013-07-09T20:04:37Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > Terry Gilliam for one can do a flawless American accent when he cares to. Nobody took the bait, eh? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/63 "2013-07-09T20:33:20Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > Its a weird example of Reality Is Unrealistic. Southerners do have distinct accents – note the plural – but because our natural accents don’t sound that much like Foghorn Leghorn, Yankees think we don’t sound ‘authentic’ enough. I’ve lived in NYC for three years and people still come up to me every couple of days and ask if I’m British. Y’all, no one in my family has lived in Britain for 300 years. Few Southerners are cast to play Southerners in movies, and most of the real Southerners have had their accents trained out of them in acting class. I usually get mistaken for English. Since my voice is deep I’m also asked to read at weddings a lot (about 8 at the last count). Actually, finding out in my genealogical research that many of my ancestors were Swiss German speakers who spoke both English and a dialect of German up until the Civil War (well over a century after they came to America) explained a lot about my mother’s somewhat crisp clipped accent. [QUOTE=bijou drains] My wife complained about Julia Roberts southern accent and she grew up in Georgia. [/QUOTE] An irritating example I’ve used is Lucas Black, who is from North Alabama and who has a natural north Alabama accent (a distinct accent with a German influence). He played Helen Keller’s brother in an already pointless TV remake of _The Miracle Worker_. The Kellers were a family of German ancestry in north Alabama. He spoke with an accent I’ve no more heard before than Helen Keller had- very genteel, “Fah-thah, I shahll take a brandy on the ver-annn-da” Hollywood fake nonsense. (The original movie had much better accents even though Inga Swenson was a New Yorker and Victory Jory was Canadian.) Not surprisingly, thickest are southerners who grew up long before television; some of them _I_ have trouble understanding. On the interviews I’ve watched with Flannery O’Connor she had an accent so harsh and thick it must have made her peacocks do a mating dance. Southern accents have definitely mellowed, but you still hear some whoppers on a near daily basis. My niece, who grew up small-town-rich in Alabama raised by my brother, who has a Bill Clintonish accent and his wife who has a Tennessee twang, has a drawl as thick as any girl I went to school with 30 years ago. (She just moved to NYC; I’ve wondered how that’s going.) Of course Hispanic accents are becoming as common in the south as strong regional accents, if not more so. (I’m not sure if non-southerners realize how many Spanish speaking immigrants the small town Deep South far from Mexico has.) I did not realize until recent years how many Spanish accents existed, but I’ve heard enough now that while I can’t listen to somebody and say “Born in Cuernavaca, public education before 1975, mother Guatemalan, spent time on the south side of Mexico City” I _can_ hear somebody speak and recognize that they have a different accent from the lady who used to clean my house or from my neighbor who’s from a middle class family on the Tex-Mex border. What’s really interesting is hearing college age kids who were raised here by Hispanic parents speak with a slight southern accent in English but then switch into fluent Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/64 "2013-07-09T22:14:16Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Because it’s silly and restrictive and not worth the trouble when the real priority is getting the actors you want. People will go see a movie because of the actors, but they won’t go see a movie just because it advertises authentic Southern accents. So from a business standpoint it’s not that important. And to be honest here, isn’t it kind of a tradition at this point that if a movie is set in your home town or country, everybody sits back and complains about all the stuff they got wrong? I know I’ve done that with movies set in New York. It’s easy for you to pooh-pooh the problem because, as a New Yorker, you do not get treated to a steady diet of badly faked New York accents. That’s because directors simply cast New Yorkers in the roles. I submit that Matthew McConaughey is not likely to be cast in a role that calls for old-time Brooklynese, no matter what sort of box office appeal he may have. On the other hand, we Southerners regularly have to deal with the annoyance of New Yorkers being cast in Southern roles (and handling them poorly). ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/65 "2013-07-10T00:14:15Z")
One thing Hollywood doesn’t seem to understand is that it’s not always _how_ we say things, but _what_ we say. We have a kind of cadence, a turn of phrase, as if we spoke in illiterate poetry, or song. The only example I can think of right now is instead of saying chicken breast, we might say breast of chicken. But if you were having that for supper, wouldn’t that maybe make you think of serving it on an aged lace tablecloth as opposed to a granite-covered kitchen island? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/66 "2013-07-10T00:29:32Z")
Once and a while the Yankee Mrs. Plant (v.2.0) and I could not understand each other. I cannot pronounce “pin” like a Yankee unless I enunciate very carefully. I would say, “HOT Springs, Arkansas” and she would say “hot SPRINGS, Arkansas”. I say “PEANUT butter”, and she “peanut BUTTER”. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/67 "2013-07-10T00:58:08Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > When I saw Robert Duvall in _Days of Thunder_ I didn’t realize he was doing an accent for most of the movie, because he was doing _my_ accent. Duvall does terrific Southern accents. Not bad for a Navy brat from San Diego. > [@Kizarvexius](#): > > …and those inclined to carp will do so for no other reason than for others to hear them. While carp are fine Southern fish, I usually think of catfish when I think of the South. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I cannot pronounce “pin” like a Yankee unless I enunciate very carefully. I can enunciate it with a flawless Yankee accent. I do it so well that I sometimes say “pin” when I’m asking for a “pen.” Same thing with “core” and “car.” I like Jodie Foster’s accent in _Silence of the Lambs._ I don’t know from West Virginia accents, but that was a pretty good Shenandoah Valley accent, especially if she were caught off guard, IIRC. Had that happen to me just today. It was my bored, tired, Southernish accent, not like the time I was talking to a fellow in Winchester, VA and something triggered in my head and I heard myself slip into my old Blue Ridge accent. Hadn’t talked like that for 50 years, didn’t know I could still do it, can’t consciously do it, but I had to keep that channel in my brain open through the call so the fellow didn’t think I was making fun of him. It didn’t help that my accent was much stronger than his. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/68 "2013-07-10T01:35:29Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Duvall does terrific Southern accents. Not bad for a Navy brat from San Diego. If I am not mistaken, he lives in Virginia. (Perhaps his parents had Southern roots?) ETA- Yep, his parents were both Virginians. > [@](#): > > I like Jodie Foster’s accent in Silence of the Lambs. Yes, she did an outstanding job. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/69 "2013-07-10T02:41:25Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Y’all aren’t from around here, are you? ^Here’s the solution in a nutshell, and I think _Justified_ does a good job with it. Rather than have people try and do the accent - and Americans seem to have trouble deciphering any accent other than their own - mimic the speech patterns. You get the regional flavor and can still tell what people are saying. Sure, Walton Goggins’ Boyd (he’s from Alabama) and Joelle Carter’s Ava (she’s from Georgia) nail the rhythms perfectly, but Damon Herriman’s Dewey Crowe (“Damn! I had _four_ kidneys?”) was spot on and he’s from Australia. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/70 "2013-07-10T03:07:56Z")
September 11 seemed something very far away and impersonal until I heard CNN interview some Medical Technicians from Tennessee who drive their ambulance to New York to help. Mama Plant was born and raised in Tennessee. Hearing someone speak about it literally in my Mother’s tongue made me weep. When I speak with people at work, country people, renecks, whatever, I find myself speakin’ lak they do. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/71 "2013-07-10T03:22:08Z")
The Evile Former Mrs. Plant (v.2.0) dragged me to a Dog Show, which I normally shunned as the plague. A lady friend of hers was there, and I stayed with them just to hear her beautiful tidewater accent. "“Where are y’all from?” “VUH gin YA.” Wow. Honey dripped from her mouth, but she blotted it away daintily with a napkin. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/72 "2013-07-10T03:40:16Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Probably the correct answer. > > Indeed, one of the returning Confederates tells Melanie that Ashley was captured at Bull Run instead of the Battle of Manassas as it is known in the South. 🙂 First or Second Manassas? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/73 "2013-07-10T03:53:24Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > …Joelle Carter’s Ava (she’s from Georgia) nail[s] the rhythms perfectly… Actually, I’m surprised to learn she is from Georgia, because her accent on the show seems like the standard bad, overdone, Hollywood version of the Southern accent to me. Now, Walter Goggins is perfect, of course. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/74 "2013-07-10T03:58:17Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > Yes, she did an outstanding job. The memories are flooding back of her obviously working very hard to talk reasonably posh to fit in with the FBI, but when Hannibal got her goat, back came the Mush Mouth. I must see that movie again, though the reality probably can’t match my memories of a phenomenal acting job that 99% of the audience wouldn’t realize they were seeing. Still prefer _Manhunter,_ though, because moths don’t mix with murder as well as Iron Butterfly does. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/75 "2013-07-10T04:09:06Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > The memories are flooding back of her obviously working very hard to talk reasonably posh to fit in with the FBI, but when Hannibal got her goat, back came the Mush Mouth. I’m not sure how many people get it, but my impression is that when Hannibal Lecter says he ate the census taker’s liver “with fava beans and a nice _kee-an-tee_,” he’s making a point of seizing on her accent to mock it (and her upbringing). ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/76 "2013-07-10T04:15:35Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > One thing Hollywood doesn’t seem to understand is that it’s not always _how_ we say things, but _what_ we say. We have a kind of cadence, a turn of phrase, as if we spoke in illiterate poetry, or song. The only example I can think of right now is instead of saying chicken breast, we might say breast of chicken. But if you were having that for supper, wouldn’t that maybe make you think of serving it on an aged lace tablecloth as opposed to a granite-covered kitchen island? Uh, no, but thanks for playing. I’ll have to catch House of Cards now - I’ve been meaning to watch it now but now that I know there’s an attempted Gaffney accent (home of the Giant Peach/Giant Butt)… perhaps we’ll have to see. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/77 "2013-07-10T04:29:27Z")
Gaffney and The Peachoid play a prominent role in Ep. 5 (or Ep. 4). HoC is entertaining, I’d recommend it, it has its issues but its generally well done. Possibly including the accent. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/78 "2013-07-10T04:45:32Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Because it’s silly and restrictive and not worth the trouble when the real priority is getting the actors you want. People will go see a movie because of the actors, but they won’t go see a movie just because it advertises authentic Southern accents. So from a business standpoint it’s not that important. And to be honest here, isn’t it kind of a tradition at this point that if a movie is set in your home town or country, everybody sits back and complains about all the stuff they got wrong? I know I’ve done that with movies set in New York. Depends on how badly they screw the pooch. A freelance journalist with no other source of income living in an “apartment” that’s actually a bank’s offices and which would be the most expensive flat in town (and has enough room for a family of 12, btw)? Snerk. A rodeo in 17-century London? Whadafuck. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/79 "2013-07-10T04:48:39Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Depends on how badly they screw the pooch. A freelance journalist with no other source of income living in an “apartment” that’s actually a bank’s offices and which would be the most expensive flat in town (and has enough room for a family of 12, btw)? Snerk. Yeah, that’s another thing you see in almost every TV show or movie. It’s eyeroll-worthy, but unless it affects the plot of really contradicts the character’s stated circumstances (if they live in a palace but keep complaining about being broke) it becomes one of those things you just have to accept. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477/80 "2013-07-10T13:38:35Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > Actually, I’m surprised to learn she is from Georgia, because her accent on the show seems like the standard bad, overdone, Hollywood version of the Southern accent to me. To my ear, she sounds exactly like a lot of the girls I went to school with in KY - the rise and fall, flow and speed are spot on. Another good one was the kid from _Last Man Standing_ that played Loretta McCready, purveyor of “herbal relief.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-lord-why-cant-they-make-movies-with-real-southern-accents/513477.md?page=5)