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Eye on Soaps' Popular culture, or pop culture, (literally: "the culture of the people") consists of widespread cultural elements in any given society. Such elements are perpetuated through that society's vernacular language or an established lingua franca. It comprises the daily interactions, needs and desires and cultural 'moments' that make up the everyday lives of the mainstream. It can include any number of practices, including those pertaining to cooking, clothing, consumption, mass media and the many facets of entertainment such as sports and literature. (Compare meme.) Popular culture often contrasts with a more exclusive, even elitist "high culture." Definition by wikipedia January 19, 2007 "You just got t'feel sorry for'em. Their momma'n'em are must be dead as a boot, 'cause they obviously ain't got nobody t'teach'em how t'act." Judy Chapman (my mom), circa: all through my childhood As I wax poetic and muse languidly about the various cultures that run through our fine country and despite the grumbling amongst the ranks, I do still feel enormous pride and belief that our country is best. We are nothing if not the "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" country. Of course, logical response to that is, "I don't hate you because you're beautiful, I hate you because you're an arrogant, conceited bitch." (And as a Pop Life aside, did you know that the woman who purred "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" to the camera in those Pantene commercials was none other than actress, Kelly LeBrock?") Anyhoo, yes, I love America and one of the finest things about our country in my opinion is the rich texture of the subcultures that exist throughout the different regions. While this is not technically a pop culture topic since the behavior itself does not run through the veins of all areas of our mass consciousness, the beliefs actually do, I have found, so I'm going to run with it. Since doing the "I called it" dance on Anna Nicole's grave and doing Goodfellas lines about Ray Liotta's arrest and waxing on (pun intended) Britney's bald head would be in poor taste, we're going to hit the baseball into the other park and talk about the South. There are a lot of myths out there about Southern folks and I'd like to dispel some of them before we got to some truths about Southern folks. I almost feel I should recuse myself since I was born and raised in Kentucky and we were actually neutral in the Civil War, so there might be some die hard Southerners who would debate my authenticity. Anyone who listens to me talk for more than 20 seconds, however, will likely will let me in the club so I am therefore staking my claim. I also can only speak to the South of the late 50's and early 60's. Prior to that is beyond my experience. So all disclaimers now aside, here we go: (I'm going to pretend y'all didn't watch "Coal Miner's Daughter" too many time and figure that we're all living in Appalachia, so I'll just go with the most common misconceptions.) In the time I spent in Kentucky, I never knew anyone who'd had sex with her father, her brothers or even her cousins. It's my opinion that there is no greater occurrence of incest in the South than in the West, East or North. I never knew anyone who had a double name. We didn't have Billy Bobs, Ellie Maes, Jimmy Joes or any other type of double barrel name. I'm sure it does exist, but it isn't nearly as common as what non-Southerners think it is. The very vast majority of people I knew wore shoes. If they didn't, like anywhere else in the US with nice weather, it was by choice, not necessity. Of course, we had families in our area who lived in poverty and we were one of them, but we always had shoes. We do not have any more trailer courts than other places in the US. In fact, I've seen more trailer courts in California than I ever saw in Kentucky (likely because the tornadoes tend to clear them out). There is no discernibly greater instance of tooth loss or periodontal disease in the South than anywhere else. We bathe every bit as frequently as people in other parts of the country. We even use soap and deodorant. I have encountered no greater instance of racism in the South than in any other part of the country. In fact, the most racist place I've ever lived was definitely Idaho, which is nowhere near "South" unless you are in Canada. [Readers of my off-topic journal, "Life Forensics" have already heard this story and may feel free to bypass it.] I remember when I was about 4-5, we lived on a very rural road in Utica, Kentucky. Imagine if Capp's Crossing was "town" and there was a long, dusty road off of it that was about 10 miles long. The houses were spaced about 1/2 - 2 miles apart. Lots of oak, elm and locust trees. Every day, a man would walk from his house, about 2-3 miles further down the road from ours, past our house and on down into "town" where there was a tiny little country store. He'd then sit out front and talk with friends for the day, then a little while before dark, he'd start walking back home again. This man was about 200 years old, he was black and the whole town called him "Nigger Polk." ...except my father. If my father was out in the yard when Mr Polk was walking home from the store in the evening or to the store on the weekend mornings, the two of them would have exactly the same interchange. It's one of my earliest memories. Dad would raise his hand and say, "Good morning/evening, Mr. Polk!" Mr Polk would walk into our yard and extend his hand and say, "Now, Mr. Chapman, I keep telling you that you can just call me ol' Nigger Polk. That's what everybody calls me." Dad would shake his hand and say, "I know you said that, Mr Polk." Then they would talk for a bit about the weather or about whatever Dad was doing with the car or whatever he happened to be building. After a while, Mr Polk would be ready to move along again and he'd say, "Well, Mr. Chapman, I guess I should get to moving along now." Dad would nod to him and say, "Have a good day/night, Mr Polk" and Mr Polk would shake his head and smile and move on to the road. It never, ever varied from that pattern. When Mr. Polk died many years later, after we'd moved away from Utica to Pleasant Ridge, there were so many people at his funeral, both black and white, that they spilled out into the churchyard. They ended up moving the service out to the cemetery so everyone could hear. People in the town had the utmost respect for him, yet we were still close enough to "then" that they didn't even blink at referring to him as "Nigger Polk;" all but my Daddy. Other than that, I saw very little instances of racism. We do not usually have a variety of cars parked up on cinder blocks in various stages of disrepair, although I have seen this most often in Utah, which is also decidedly not "Southern." By the time I was 6, everyone I knew had indoor plumbing, although my grandmother did still have a "slop jar" until about 1970 or so. She was quite the hold out. We do not "sit up with the dead," but we do have "viewings" at the funeral home where people come for a couple of days before the funeral to pay their respects to the dead person and catch up with folks they haven't seen in a long time. It's all very social. So that's all that, in my experience, we aren't. What we do have is a remarkable way of crafting the English language into something glorious. We'll start off easy: In the South, the word "often" is said with a silent 't', as in the word "soften." We can work wonders with a double negative. It should not be attempted by amateurs. Yes, we do sling around some very fine similes and analogies. It's just what we do. I'd wager to guess that all Southern women and most of the men refer to their father as "Daddy" and their mother as "Momma." For unknown reasons, the word "rinse" is often (that's with a silent 't' remember) pronounced "rench." My family did not, but many did. We love the word "fix" and "fixin" as in, "I was fixin' to go over to Kate's and take her to the store." Oh hell, I just remembered that I knew a woman named "Mary Helen." So I did know one double barreled name. The pronoun "they" is commonly pronounced "momma'n'em." It goes like this: "I was fixin t'go over to th'funeral, but then I saw that Momma'n'em weren't going, so I decided I'd head on over to th'store instead." We have to shorten words like "to" and "the" into "t'[insert next word here]" and "th'[insert next word here]" to make up for the breath we use to add extra syllables to other words, like "stow-ore" for "store." When we speak about a stow-ore, we put the article "the" in front of it, such as, "The K-mart" or "The Winn Dixie" or more correctly, "Th'K-mart" and "Th'WinnDixie." It's a sign of respect. We do not have a meal called "lunch." That is a light meal eaten by city people who do not get out there and do hard, manual labor work requiring a substantial midday meal to allow them a bit of time to rest and more body fuel for working in the afternoon and into the evening. We eat, "Breakfast, Dinner and Supper," much like a "Sunday Dinner" or "Thanksgiving Dinner" is eaten as the midday meal. All soda/pop is a "coke." The conversation goes like this: "Will you go down to th' stow-ore and get me some cokes?" "What kinda cokes do you want?" "Some RCs and some Mountain Dews, mix'em up." (Not a Coca Cola in sight) Alternatively, you can replace the word "cokes" in that exchange with "drinks" or (again) more appropriately, "dranks." "Dern" is a world and is just as versatile as "dang." We do not, despite popular opinion, normally proceed "dern" with the word "gol." We do, however, frequently pair up the word "dang" with "ol'," just like Boomhauer on "King of the Hill." "Dang ol'" is a perfectly legitimate adjective. We do, true to our reputation, sometimes shorten "son-of-a-bitch" to "sumbitch." Being "tarred" is even past being "tired." "I'm just so tarred I can't hardly move" is pretty derned tired. Don't worry. Momma'n'em will look after you. We do (and I was just confirming this for Eric yesterday), refer to our family as "kin." We don't say things like "we's kin." It's a shortened form of "akin" as in, "Do you know David Troutman?" "I don't know, is he kin to them Troutmans that momma'n'em know over on the ridge?" We do so love our big hair. That just isn't even a myth. Big hair endures. I do make absolutely amazing fried chicken and biscuits. It would take your breath away. When a little child is sleeping and looking all cute, we are prone to say, "Awww. Bless hits li'l heart." Why we bless the hearts of sleeping children, I am unsure. In fact, we bless hearts a good bit. When we are moved by someone's actions, we'll bless their heart as well. "Well, bless your heart, darlin." This is typically accompanied by a soft touch of the hand on the arm and a furrowed brow. We express disbelief by saying, "You don't SAY!" when it's obviously that the speaker is saying whatever they said. Rather than "myself," we throw in an "own" and say, "my own self." So "I'll just do it myself," turns into "Well, I'll just do it my own self, then. Hmmph!" Yes, we are given to embellishment. We have a comeback for everything. "Dan wants you t'fix and come over t'th'barn t'help him strip that tobacca." "Well Dan can shit and fall back in it for all I care." (As you can see and I have just aptly demonstrated, you can stack up the t's and th's for as long as it takes to say what you need to say.) This could also be followed by something colorful like, "Well I'd tell you Dan has a trumpet up his ass, but Lord knows you'd blow it." If we had to sit on our hands and not gesture when we talk, we would likely be rendered mute. The hands are as vital to story telling as are the other operative processes of speech. We consider people who are missing hands or fingers to have a speech impediment. We are much more akin to things like chivalry and being coy and such than other places in the country where I've seen. We still like our men to pull out our chairs for us, open doors for us, fix stuff, carry the heavy things and tells us that we're pretty. For many years, I worked hard to hide my Southern heritage. I got tired of my first husband and his family (from California) repeating the last word of every sentence I said in a mocking way. I got tired (tarred) of being treated as though I was uneducated and less intelligent than others because I had an accent. So I worked and worked until I had no trace of a Southern accent. If someone asked where I was from, I'd say, "Oh, all over the place." During that all important time after my divorce from Paul when I was recreating myself, I proudly re-embraced my Southern roots and now I feel more like me than I ever have. It's still stronger at some times than others, mostly when I'm mad, when I'm passionate about something and when I'm talking about really good food. I can say with assurance that this time, it's here to stay. It's an important part of who I am. You have a great week and tell momma'n'em I said hi.
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