How is your region portrayed in pop culture?

That's what I was going to say.

My expectations are so low these days that if they get the accent right, I can live with the rest. Megan Fox can't act her way out of a paper bag, but seemed to pull off a Southern accent in Jonah Hex (she IS from Tennessee, after all). Holly Hunter, Billy Bob Thornton and Reese Witherspoon are good, too, but they're all from the South.

Best "non-Southerner" Southern accent? Probably Christopher Guest in "Best in Show."

Worst? Probably Dan Aykroyd in "Driving Miss Daisy."

 

As of late, the fake southern accents drive up me a fucking wall... Like the McDonald's biscuit commercial.

 

Movies portray people in our region as skinnier and smarter than they really are.

 

Can be summed up in one compound word:

RoboCop

Pretty much spot-on.

 

Baldacci and Cornwell do a decent job...

 

Wasn't that a documentary?

 

My region is always someplace else in the movies.

 

I'm from Kansas, and since all anybody knows about Kansas is the Wizard of Oz, I have been called Dorothy, I've been asked where Toto is, I've heard, "You're not in Kansas anymore!" so many times that the last person who said that, I replied with, "Is that SERIOUSLY the best you can come up with?!"

Damn I hate that friggin movie.

 

Wenders, you should see "Wicked." Absolutely turns the story on its ear. Also very entertaining. I'm not a big theater person, but I really enjoyed that play.

 

If you're driving through Kansas and turn on the "Dark Side of the Moon" CD when you cross the border, does it sync up in any meaningful way with points of interest in the state?

 

I'm from Mississippi, and we've been portrayed all over the pop culture map. In some aspects, they're ridiculously over the top, but I can tell you there is shit that goes on WAY beneath the surface here that makes the pop culture stereotype look like Beverly Hills.

 

If I ever see Kyra Sedgwick in person, I'm going to have to fight the urge to strangle her for her butchery of a southern accent. That accent pukes all over what otherwise would be a pretty good show. Drives me up the fucking wall.

There, I feel better.