The South: from King of the Hill to Real Life™ and beyond!

January 1, 2008 5:25 PM

The South: from King of the Hill to Real Life™ and beyond. Help me sort out some questions I have on the nature of the South!

This started out as a question about King of the Hill, so I'll start from there. It's long. Bear with me.

I started watching King of the Hill again recently, mostly because I've been going through a lot of the classic animated "sitcoms" lately and thought I should reassess it (especially since I was too young to grasp its true humor/brilliance when it was still nascent). Watching it got me thinking.

Let's see, I'll use the Simpsons as an example. With a show like the Simpsons, I'm well acquainted with it enough, and have read enough about it, to kind of see its overarching place in American culture and society: how it's influenced it, how it represents it, how the culture at large perceives it, etc. etc. I can see its cultural footprint, however hazily, in my mind.

But the thing with King of the Hill is that it's about a culture and place I'm not part of, so I have a much different, and much more linear view of the show culturally. What I'm wondering is how the show is perceived in, let's say, the show's backdrop, Texas--or the rest of the South for that matter (which, to me, is still unfortunately a big coagulated mass of states).

See, though the Simpsons is absurd and ridiculous at times, in many ways it succeeded in doing exactly what Matt Groening had hoped for: it conveyed more honestly suburban family life than any past or contemporary sappy sitcoms. So I'm wondering if this is the case as well with King of the Hill--is it, in the end, human and accurate? Is it beloved? Was it a love letter from Mike Judge to his childhood? And I guess more importantly Is there anywhere on the net where I can find these kinds of questions analysed?

This is the first half of my question. Winded yet?

Well, this whole line of thought got me thinking. As a Northerner (and a fairly sheltered Northerner at that), I feel that I still have a hackneyed, negative, largely ignorant view of the South and southern states.

What kind of literature (or cinema, actually) can I look for that paints a different, more human picture of the South?

One author I've read who I understand does just the thing is Dennis Covington (I've read an excerpt of Salvation on Sand Mountain for a class). I'd be grateful if anyone could school me.

posted by Lockeownzj00 to society & culture (46 answers total)

I'd say KotH IS both human and fairly accurate. Kind of Texascentric but lots of it does apply to the rest of us.
posted by konolia at 5:31 PM on January 1, 2008

See, though the Simpsons is absurd and ridiculous at times, in many ways it succeeded in doing exactly what Matt Groening had hoped for: it conveyed more honestly suburban family life than any past or contemporary sappy sitcoms.

Actually, I'm not sure this is true. I remember reading way back that Matt Groening said that he wanted "The Simpsons" to be realistic, in that nothing would happen on the show that couldn't conceivably happen in real life. And while I think that it once conveyed the honesty of the suburban life, it was a long, long time ago.

So I'm wondering if this is the case as well with King of the Hill--is it, in the end, human and accurate? Is it beloved? Was it a love letter from Mike Judge to his childhood?

As a Southerner, I adore "King of the Hill" for all the elements that it gets right. Rarely have I seen it missfire. The episodes remind me a lot of Austin, which makes sense, since the writing staff takes yearly pilgrimages to Austin to look for stories.

What kind of literature (or cinema, actually) can I look for that paints a different, more human picture of the South?

What kind of literature or cinema are you currently watching that makes the South look sub-human?
posted by ColdChef at 5:32 PM on January 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Read Faulkner.

As for KOH, I believe that it is set in Arlington, TX, although I never heard them actually call out the town name. It seems a pretty accurate representation of Arlington in any event.
posted by caddis at 5:34 PM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

If this is where you get your views on Southerners, you're way way way off. There's a huge difference between common Southern people and Appalachian Snake Handlers.
posted by ColdChef at 5:35 PM on January 1, 2008

Texas is not the South.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:35 PM on January 1, 2008 [15 favorites]

(Technically, KotH is set in fictional "Arlen" (which is, in fact, "darlin'), which is a stand in for Garland, Texas)
posted by ColdChef at 5:36 PM on January 1, 2008

If, however, you enjoyed "Salvation on Sand", you'd also probably like Burkhard Bilger's fantastic "Noodling for Flatheads."
posted by ColdChef at 5:38 PM on January 1, 2008

For me, a native Texan, King of the Hill has always rung very true. I'm from Austin, but my family is country, and, as with the Simpsons, many of the characters in KotH are basically hyperbolic portrayals of people I know. In particular Peggy Hill IS my aunt, from the substitute teaching to the overestimation of her own cleverness.

I moved recently to NYC, and it does seem that most people I know have a very skewed perception of what the south is like, especially in the specifics. For example, I'd say a lot of Texans don't even consider themselves southerners in the sense that Alabamans or Mississippians do. We are Texans. Characteristics of the south, certainly - the politeness, the conservatism - but I think Texans also consider themselves to be of the mold of westerners - more part of the frontier, or descended from frontiersmen. In general, the people here and elsewhere in the South are much more heterogeneous than northerners tend to give us credit for. In New York, I often get asked where I'm from and I respond, with a bit of a twang, that I'm from Texas, and it often gets a derisive look until I qualify it by saying that I'm from Austin.

As for literature and film, I'm not sure what you mean when you say make the southerners seem human. Most literature of the south, in my experience, captures it with its positives and negatives, as it should, but it definitely gives you a sense of the culture. Flannery O'Connor, Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams are all good. John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces I always thought gave a great sense of New Orleans culture. More recently, I like Cormac McCarthy, but his work is pretty dark.
posted by ecab at 5:40 PM on January 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

So I'm wondering if this is the case as well with King of the Hill--is it, in the end, human and accurate?

Well, it's useful to be able to describe someone with a seriously backwoods accent as sounding like Boomhower. People know exactly what you mean.

As for how you can dispel your anti-south prejudice, it would be helpful to have some examples of what sort of people and behaviors you're imagining can be encountered here.
posted by frobozz at 5:44 PM on January 1, 2008

Also, probably the greatest written description of life in Texas in the last 100 years, which for me says a lot about where the state's culture comes from, is the chapter titled "Sad Irons" in the first volume of Robert Moses's incredible biography of Lyndon Johnson. The volume is titled The Path to Power.
posted by ecab at 5:45 PM on January 1, 2008

I'd also recommend WJ Cash's Mind of the South.

For southern fiction, I'd suggest the underrated Charles Portis's "Dog of the South" which mostly takes place in Mexico, but has a true southern voice that isn't full of syrup and sassafrass.

And you also might like to read "Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis", which ties in religion, politics, Southern culture and pop culture.
posted by ColdChef at 5:47 PM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

Thanks ecab, ColdChef for some of your advice. I guess the fact that I'm calling Texas the south itself is an act of ignorance, since it's being contested here. But my question still stands.

Though I'd like to address this:

What kind of literature or cinema are you currently watching that makes the South look sub-human?

Come on ColdChef, cut me some slack. Obviously I'm not watching anything of the sort. But you know these kinds of ideas and perspectives are just cultural stigmas, largely based on assumptions and plain old ignorance. I know nothing about the South culturally and all I do know is just a general condescending view that I've heard everyone from joe schmoes to rabid political pundits portray: the South is x y or z.

When I say "more human" I mean exactly that, a compassionate and realistic portrayal of Southerners as people and not as stock characters to throw out there (dumb/slow, ultra-religious, etc). This includes, as ecab said, their positives and negatives. This is what I want: a round, whole view of the South.

Keep em coming folks.
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 5:49 PM on January 1, 2008

As a southern boy (in the born-and-raised sense, not the south-will-rise-again sense) I would like to nth the comment that Texas is Not The South.

If you are looking for stereotypical South, wherein South is the former confederate states, KotH is def. not it. Even within the South, there is a huge difference between, say...the Mississippi delta region and Charleston, SC and Chattanooga, TN. All are Southern, but very different. Atlanta is arguably the only truly Southern big city, but it's different than all of the above.
posted by griffey at 5:53 PM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

When I say "more human" I mean exactly that, a compassionate and realistic portrayal of Southerners as people and not as stock characters to throw out there (dumb/slow, ultra-religious, etc).

Fair enough. My apologies.

For films, Junebug comes to mind as a wonderful example of someone seeing the real south and not just a series of stereotypes.
posted by ColdChef at 5:54 PM on January 1, 2008

Not that it's important, but it's not Robert Moses's bio of LBJ, it's Robert Caro's bio of LBJ. Caro also did an amazing bio of Robert Moses, hence the error.
posted by ecab at 5:56 PM on January 1, 2008

What I'm wondering is how [King of the Hill] is perceived in, let's say, the show's backdrop, Texas--or the rest of the South for that matter (which, to me, is still unfortunately a big coagulated mass of states).

...So I'm wondering if this is the case as well with King of the Hill--is it, in the end, human and accurate? Is it beloved? Was it a love letter from Mike Judge to his childhood?

I believe the answer across the board is "yes." I've had dozens of conversations about King of the Hill with Texans, and watched most of the episodes, and I'd say the show is considered an accurate look at lower-middle-class suburban Texas, and pokes affectionate fun at the culture here. I've never met a Texan who is offended by the stereotypes and clichés that appear in KotH, which I attribute to Mike Judge's gentle hand (and possibly the fact that Texans can laugh at themselves?).

A lot of the jokes are very subtle ones that you'd have to be from here to get: Hank Hill's niece, for example, is called "Luann Platter" -- also the name of the daily special at Texas cafeteria Luby's. Other characteristics are less regional, but still fair to the demographic, in my mind: I've met Hank Hill's mostly conservative, staunchly Protestant, live-action equals in towns all over the South and Midwest.
posted by pineapple at 5:58 PM on January 1, 2008

An old article, but...Exposure in films doesn't please all Southerners
posted by ColdChef at 6:06 PM on January 1, 2008

Texas is not "the South", though I'll grant East Texas is pretty darn close. Trust me, as a native Texan, I had a lot of culture shock when I visited Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia, states that I consider Southern; Texas is rather different in comparison.

But yes, KotH is pretty close to reality of a certain established segment of the population. My family lives in the "exburbs" of Houston, and if you ignore the influx of white-flight yuppie/soccer-mom families (who all tend to have the same lack of personality and live in their little gated enclaves next to the trailer park and horse farms), the locals and town atmosphere are similar to what you see on KotH.

I think it's great, and feels very true to life. And it made me less dismissive of these "Texan hicks," to be honest. Being a big-city gal, Hank Hill humanized a certain part of the local population that urban, ethnic people tend to disrespect. Also, in some ways, I think there's a bigger rural/urban distinction in Texas and in the country in general than expected; from my travels, large US cities tend to share commonalities, so that going from Houston to DC or Austin to Seattle was not a big shock. But going from Austin to the exburbs is kind of weird.
posted by lychee at 6:10 PM on January 1, 2008

Carson McCullers.
posted by rhizome at 6:25 PM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

As for KOH, I believe that it is set in Arlington, TX

NO! I am from Arlington, TX. KOH is set in Arlen, TX, which may be fictional, but is no way based on or representative of Arlington. Azle,TX or Aledo, TX are more like Arlen, perhaps, but not my home town. Arlington sucks a hundred different kids of cock, but it's no Arlen.
posted by mds35 at 6:50 PM on January 1, 2008

The Texas accents in KOH have always seemed pretty authentic. 99% of the time Texas accents on TV and movies are too syrupy.
posted by tamitang at 6:55 PM on January 1, 2008

(Technically, KotH is set in fictional "Arlen" (which is, in fact, "darlin'), which is a stand in for Garland, Texas)

hmmm, that could be correct. Garland, Arlington..... They are definitely in a Dallas burb, and not one of the fancy ones, but that is a lot of territory. Wikipedia suggests Temple, a town I am not familiar with. I can not remember what I saw in the first few seasons that led me to believe it was Arlington, and it has been years since I have seen the show. Anyway, it seemed to get pretty much right what it was like to live in those places. I always loved the Hank character which is sort of Archie Bunker (less bigotry) and Ralph Cramden, but with less swagger and more like your average joe who is just trying to figure out this rapidly changing world. He is a gem of a character. I also agree that Texas, although southern, is not "the south." It is quite independent, being the only former country now admitted as a state, and who knows it might break its contract and break off and become independent again.
posted by caddis at 6:59 PM on January 1, 2008

What kind of literature (or cinema, actually) can I look for that paints a different, more human picture of the South?

Honkytonk Man is a movie set in America's Great Depression era that has many southern locations and looks and feels spot on.

Bull Durham gets some of the details of life in Durham, North Carolina right.

Tender Mercies takes place in Texas and is a good picture of it's culture.

Coal Miner's Daughter Biography of Loretta Lynn. " Lynn grew up in Butcher Hollow, a section of Van Lear, a mining community officially a part of Paintsville, Johnson County, Kentucky. "


Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus leans a little to much toward being a southen freak show but the films heart is in the right place, and it gets a few things right in the process.

Honestly though I've not seen a film yet that does the southern culture justice, and I really think the best way to get to know the south if you don't live here is through it's musical heritage. Bluegrass, Country, Blues. But I'll keep my eye on this thread, it's a really good question and I look forward to seeing the answers people come up with.
posted by nola at 7:05 PM on January 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Walker Percy
Harry Crews
Harper Lee
Flannery O'Connor

James Agee and Walker Evans "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"

Probably more specific and detailed than what you're looking for, but Diane McWhorter's "Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution" is a wonderful book that's well-researched and meticulously written. (Completely tangential anecdotes, another southern trait: The real hero of the civil rights movement in those awful days in Birmingham was Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a man sadly unfamiliar to too many students of the civil rights movement. Rev. Shuttlesworth has more lives than a cat, lives to cause trouble with the establishment, and recently remarried at the age of 84, having survived at least three attempts on his life and managing to outlive pretty much all of his enemies. He played Bull Connor for a fool, and made Dr. King a hero. And generally pissed off his friends as much as he did his enemies. Sorry for the derail, the guy's a personal hero of mine....)
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:06 PM on January 1, 2008

A "Northerner" visited a friend of a friend here in Dallas, and as they sat outside chatting around the ice chest, the Northerner remarked, "Wow, Texas really is like on King of the Hill!" The host promptly responded, "No it's not! On King of the Hill, they drink beer in the alley, and we're drinking beer on the driveway."

It's true that Texas is not really The South, but sometimes it's hard to explain that it's just Texas to people who've never lived here.

I always found King of the Hill to be pretty realistic (and consequently extra-hilarious). Peggy Hill sounds exactly like my mom. It's creepy.

I wondered if Arlen was supposed to be Garland; I guess it would be a Garland of a few years ago, because now Garland doesn't seem any more separated from Dallas than any of the other suburbs (although I've never lived in Garland). I remember one KotH episode in which they have to drive to Dallas, and Hank makes a big deal of it (rolling up the windows so they won't breathe the dirty city air), but that doesn't make much sense to me with Garland of today. (Upon preview, Temple seems like a better candidate, due to its distance from Dallas.)
posted by korres at 7:11 PM on January 1, 2008

Huh. I always thought Arlen was closer to Austin, in the Hill Country than near the Dallas area.

Maybe Matt Groening will have a contest of where is Arlen is in Texas compared to where Springfield is in the US.

Born in Louisiana, (with family originating from Texas) I would have thought watching a show such as Designing Women, would have had you asking if that was more of a representation of the South, than KotH, which is why I have to agree with Griffey that the different regions of the Southern area will give you different ideals of what the South is like.

Texas is its own other country, with Austin being an annex from the rest of the state.
posted by freakinloon at 7:19 PM on January 1, 2008

Maybe Matt Groening will have a contest of where is Arlen is in Texas compared to where Springfield is in the US.

Just for posterity:

Matt Groening = Simpsons

Mike Judge = King of the Hill
posted by pineapple at 7:36 PM on January 1, 2008

Larry Brown.
posted by dawson at 7:38 PM on January 1, 2008

For what it's worth, Florida isn't exactly southern either - like Texas, it's got a lot of its own thing going on. Loads of native Spanish speakers, tourists, transplants, and so on - maybe one person in ten is born here. At least, that's how it is in the big cities. Out in the country it's more Southern-feeling, but Florida reminds me more of Texas than Alabama.

I still maintain that Carl Hiaasen writes the most 'real' Florida I've ever read. He exaggerates it to silliness, yes, but the silliness is all things that could happen. Last month a truck got into a nasty crash and they wound up closing the roads for five hours. Not, as you'd think, because it took a while to extract people -- the truck had been stuffed full of shrimp, and when it overturned they went everywhere. There's a reason Fark has a Florida tag, and Hiaasen taps into that.
posted by cmyk at 7:55 PM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

George Washington. and yes, Texas is not the South.
posted by iboxifoo at 7:55 PM on January 1, 2008

Pineapple, thank you for the correction.

Ugh, I know that, just a little out of it from the Nyquil I took. Meant to say that maybe Judge would follow Groening.

Think I'll just log off and watch the rest of the Sugar Bowl.
posted by freakinloon at 7:58 PM on January 1, 2008

I grew up in Texas, and yes, it rings terribly true. I also left Texas to go to college and never moved back. We didn't get along, Texas and I, and I don't really care for King of the Hilll, largely because it is such a spot-on depiction. So, if hating on it can be taken as proof of its verisimilitude, well, there it is.
posted by mumkin at 8:03 PM on January 1, 2008

Not from Texas, can't speak firsthand about King of the Hill being accurate.

I am from the South (Appalachian foothills), and when O Brother, Where Art Thou? came out, I was hugely happy that someone had finally gotten the South right.

Yes, parts of Appalachia have people who are poor, selfish, racist and willfully ignorant. But a lot of the good things about where I was born are in the movie as well. The entire culture is steeped in practical, love-thy-neighbor Christianity. Everyone knows how to have a good time without stepping on anyone else's toes (they don't always keep things polite, but they do know how, at least). And as nola said above, it is the home of some really, really great music (Merlefest FTW)!

For a good idea of the pressures Southerners face that have shaped them, check out FoxFire.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:44 PM on January 1, 2008

Absolutely watch Junebug -- the most delicate, interesting, memorable film I've seen on north-south culture clash (what happens when a northerner meets her husband's rural southern family). In the commentary they mention that the people who felt the film was "stereotypical" were all northerners, whereas southerners loved it.
posted by sparrows at 10:35 PM on January 1, 2008

I married a Georgia boy, and over the years my very Yankee attitude about the "backwards" South has done a complete 180. Now that I'm older and getting towards that "get off of my lawn!" stage of life, I appreciate the Southern hospitality and their respect for their elders. Mr. Adams grew up in a very rural town about 30 miles outside of Athens, GA. Even though his hometown is slowly becoming a suburb of Athens, the people there still call each other "sir" and "m'am" and won't let you leave their house on a hot day without offering you a glass of sweet tea. I learned that no matter what your age, when you're addressing someone older you call them "Mr. or Miss First Name." I've also learned that Texas is not part of the South, nor part of the Southwest, it's just simply Texas. Mr. Adams has often said that the Squash Capital shown in the film Doc Hollywood was very close to life in his hometown.
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:37 AM on January 2, 2008 [2 favorites]

Almost everything being described and recommended here is about purely white southern culture and primarily rural. I had a friend recently who was complaining about southern politicians--it became clear that he was speaking of Jimmy Carter and John Edwards and gave no thought to Mel Watt or John Lewis. One of the hardest things for people not from the South to understand though always seems to be that our society is not all white and certainly not all rural, and in many ways our lives are more integrated than those of people in other parts of the country--and that all of us, black, white, native and recent immigrants are Southern. I'm just a white southerner, but I think more people need to see Drumline. It will give you a taste for life in Atlanta, as well as introduce you to the idea of historically black colleges and universities.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:08 AM on January 2, 2008 [3 favorites]

I've described Texas to people as "the part of the South that didn't lose the war". Historically, Texas was pretty far from the action, a lot of it wasn't built out and settled until after the war, and anyway, they did win a war themselves against Santa Anna.
posted by gimonca at 5:45 AM on January 2, 2008

Mike Judge is from Austin. I've always thought of his oeuvre as exemplifying different parts of Austin:

• King of the Hill: South Austin
• Beavis and Butthead: North Austin
• Office Space: Far North Austin

In the latter two cases there are indications on-screen that they are actually in Austin. So you can learn a fair bit from just watching Mike Judge stuff, and not just about white redneck types. Of course Austin is different from much of Texas.
posted by grouse at 6:12 AM on January 2, 2008

As a native-born Floridian, and if I could favorite cmyk's comment 100 times, I would. Carl Hiaasen rocks. My children frequently say, "Florida is not southern," and there is some truth to that; we are certainly south geographically, but we have a much more diverse population than many other southern states, ranging from immigrants to retirees. Natives like me are in the minority, and are universally more liberal than we are represented in the media.
posted by misha at 10:09 AM on January 2, 2008

Oh, and Steel Magnolias, if you pay attention to Sally Field's character rather than Darryl Hannah's or Dolly Parton's (both of which are stereotypical and not true to my experiences), does a pretty good job of portraying Southern women.
posted by misha at 10:11 AM on January 2, 2008

I grew up in Mesquite, Texas (adjacent to Garland) -- it's pretty close to real life, depending on economics.
posted by jmevius at 11:32 AM on January 2, 2008

Actually, grouse, Mike Judge didn't base KotH on his Austin experiences, but rather of a small town outside of Dallas where he lived for a while.

Yes, Garland.

He had neighbors that he based the characters on. They would stand around outside, sometimes drinking beer and offered to build his fence for him to make sure he did it "right." Things like that.

These are the answers straight from the horse's mouth, not speculation. My boyfriend went to a Mike Judge Q&A recently and people asked about KotH specifically.

The show is pretty accurate. I don't think the depictions are particulary negative. I'm from just north of Austin, which is more liberal and let's say, less traditional, than most of Texas (including the other cities), but I still don't see the types in King of the Hill as something to look down on. My dad is a blue-collar worker and he LOVES the show. I think he definitely can relate to it a lot. My mom's good friend works in propane and propane-related accessories, too, hah.

How sad that Texas left such a bad taste in your mouth, mumkin. It's not THAT bad, after all. I talk to people from all over the US daily and there are every type of person everywhere.
posted by fructose at 12:54 PM on January 2, 2008

p.s. joining the consensus that Texas isn't southern if the deep south is what you think of as "southern." All of my grandparents are from Alabama or Tennessee and there is a big contrast between what Alabama or East TN is like and what Texas is like.
Maybe it's just where I'm from but I saw a lot more obvious and blatant racism (such as overhearing people in public) than I ever have in any of the many parts of TX I've spent time in.
posted by fructose at 12:57 PM on January 2, 2008

grouse, Mike Judge didn't base KotH on his Austin experiences, but rather of a small town outside of Dallas where he lived for a while.

Yeah, I know. That doesn't mean the comparison to an area of Austin doesn't ring true. I probably could have made the same comparison to various parts of the Dallas metro area.
posted by grouse at 8:59 AM on January 3, 2008

Out in the country it's more Southern-feeling, but Florida reminds me more of Texas than Alabama.

Except for northern florida, which is almost identical to alabama. Florida is more than disney world and miami.

Maybe it's just where I'm from but I saw a lot more obvious and blatant racism (such as overhearing people in public) than I ever have in any of the many parts of TX I've spent time in.
posted by fructose

I can't remember the last time I heard a blatant racist comment in public in alabama, and I go there quite often. Rarely been to texas, and but I've heard several the few times I've been there. I don't think it has anything to do with texas, just my bad luck. You might want to subscribe to the same theory. Putting down the 'south' to make texas look better is a fools game.
posted by justgary at 12:35 PM on January 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Now that I think about it, when I first moved to Arlington in 1980, we lived on Dogwood Drive. We had some neighbors from Eastland and Olney and they were a lot like KOH. I think they even drank beer alongside the fence.
posted by mds35 at 7:34 AM on April 25, 2008