History Main / DeepSouth

* William Bradford Huie's novel ''Literature/TheKlansman'' is set in the Deep South, in a politically corrupt county in the years immediately preceding the Civil Rights movement. bBlacks are vilified and lynched - a central plot point is the alleged rape of a white woman by a black man. This is set against the deliberate false imprisonment and rape in prison of a visiting black woman from the North, who is viewed as "uppity" by local whites who determine she needs to be taught a lesson.

** On the other hand, when Creator/JeffFoxworthy made very similar, if not worse, jokes about the very same subject, there was no uproar whatsoever, [[NWordPrivileges since he himself is from Atlanta]].

* The portrayal of churches as Baptist is pretty well justified. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the US, and every Southern state has a Baptist plurality or majority except Florida (a Catholic plurality driven by Cuban immigrants and Northern retirees) and Texas (Catholic plurality, though East Texas is overwhelmingly Baptist), while Louisiana has a significant Catholic minority in its French Triangle region. The only non-Southern state with a Baptist plurality is Missouri, which is considered a border state, and southern Missouri is culturally aligned with the South. However, the qualifier '''Southern''' Baptist is very important for this discussion. The Baptist church in America began in UsefulNotes/RhodeIsland in 1638, but arguments over slavery led the Southern Baptists to split off into a separate group in 1845, with the Northern Baptists reorganizing as the American Baptist denomination, which is much less conservative in its theology and politics than the SBC. Since it's repudiated its white supremacist roots and has spread far beyond the South, there has been a push to rename the Southern Baptist Convention (a few churches have relabeled themselves as Great Commission Baptist).

The highest figure of authority down there is the reverend of the local evangelical Protestant congregation (usually either Baptist or Pentecostal), leading to the zone being often called the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt "Bible belt."]] Unlike the rest of the country, the MoralGuardians and the CulturePolice are ''actually'' supported and respected. So ''don't'' complain about the military, ''don't'' say how much you love Music/LilNasX, ''don't'' try to explain how [[UsefulNotes/NeoPaganism Paganism]] has nothing to do with devil worship, ''don't'' go out to the secluded farm house when your car breaks down in the rain, ''[[HeteronormativeCrusader don't]]'' [[BuryYourGays be gay]], and if you're a woman, ''don't'' [[StayInTheKitchen try to be anything other than a]] BabyFactory... Unless the [[SacredHospitality Southern Hospitality]] is being played up, that is.

* The portrayal of churches as Baptist is pretty well justified. The only states in the country that are majority-Baptist are in the South, except Missouri (which is itself sometimes counted as part of the South, or at least parts of it are). Louisiana and UsefulNotes/{{Texas}} have long had large native Catholic populations that the rest of the South lacks. UsefulNotes/{{Florida}} is majority Catholic (due to the massive influx of [[UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} Cubans]] and Northern retirees). Texas is split geographically: East Texas outside the major cities is overwhelmingly Baptist; Hill Country, most of the cities, South Texas, and the Rio Grande Valley are all staunchly Catholic.
** In almost all mentions above, 'Southern Baptist' should be substituted for 'Baptist'. Yes UsefulNotes/{{Virginia}}, there is a difference. (For one thing, the first Baptist church in America was in UsefulNotes/RhodeIsland, which is nowhere near the South.)
** Specifically, the Southern Baptists seceded with the onset of the American Civil War.

[[caption-width-right:298:Mullets, banjos and stills galore!]]

* The former UsefulNotes/EastGermany is regarded like this by Western & Southern Germany, ever since the Berlin Wall came down and [[UsefulNotes/TheBerlinRepublic Germany was reunited]], thanks to 4 decades of Soviet-imposed central planning and closed borders in the East. [[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/07/east-germany-west-far-right-afd-gdr Here's one explanation]].

** The [[UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} Canadian provinces]] of Alberta and UsefulNotes/{{Quebec}} are sometimes perceived as being the "South" of Canada. For Alberta it's usually due to the more conservative political leaning and focus on oil, gas and agricultural industries, while for Québec it's due to the fierce protection of French Québec culture by Québecers which has led to tensions with English-speakers and immigrants, as well as its similar history to the South, such as historically lagging behinds its peers economically and socially until the [=1960s=] and being considerably more religious. Within Québec specifically there is a notion that the further you get from UsefulNotes/{{Montreal}} the more backwards and racist people are. One city in Québec, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herouxville#Code_of_conduct Hérouxville]], became infamous in January 2007 for publishing a "Code of Conduct" which was seen as a barely subtle attempt at intimidating immigrants (especially Muslims) into staying out of the city.

** In [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdom Britain]], this niche is filled by UsefulNotes/EastAnglia and UsefulNotes/TheWestCountry, two largely agricultural regions which in the main were bypassed by the Industrial Revolution. All the tropes of yokels, inbreeding, hostility to outsiders, and a generally held perception that to adjust to local time you need to set your watch back by two centuries, are to be found here. Further reinforcing this is the fact that the American South was settled mainly by people from the West Country, East Anglia and Ulster Scots-Irish.

** In [[UsefulNotes/UnitedKingdom Britain]], this niche is filled by UsefulNotes/EastAnglia and UsefulNotes/TheWestCountry, two largely agricultural regions which in the main were bypassed by the Industrial Revolution. All the tropes of yokels, inbreeding, hostility to outsiders, and a generally held perception that to adjust to local time you need to set your watch back by two centuries, are to be found here.

->'''Sam Donaldson:''' Governor Clinton, let's be frank. You're running for president, yet your only experience has been as the governor of a small, backward state with a population of drunken hillbillies riding around in pickup trucks. The main streets of your capital city, Little Rock, are something out of ''ComicStrip/LilAbner'', with buxom underage girls in their cutoff denims prancing around in front of Jethro and Billy Bob, while corncob-pipe-smoking, shotgun-toting grannies fire indiscriminately at runaway hogs.\\
'''UsefulNotes/BillClinton:''' I'm sorry, Sam, do you have a question?
-->-- ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', [[http://snltranscripts.jt.org/92/92cdebate.phtml Debate '92]]