The American Southern Gothic on Screen 9789048553136

Citation preview

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Horror and Gothic Media Cultures The  Horror and Gothic Media Cultures  series focuses on the influence of technological, industrial, and socio-historical contexts on the style, form, and aesthetics of horror and Gothic genres across different modalities and media. Interested in visual, sonic, and other sensory dimensions, the series publishes theoretically engaged, transhistorical, and transcultural analyses of the shifting terrain of horror and the Gothic across media including, but not limited to, films, television, videogames, music, photography, virtual and augmented reality, and online storytelling. To foster this focus, the series aims to publish monographs and edited collections that feature deep considerations of horror and the Gothic from the perspectives of audio/visual cultures and art and media history, as well as screen and cultural studies. In addition, the series encourages approaches that consider the intersections between the Gothic and horror, rather than separating these two closely intertwined generic modes. Series editors Jessica Balanzategui, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia Angela Ndalianis, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia Isabella van Elferen, Kingston University London, United Kingdom Editorial Board Dr Adam Hart, North Carolina State University Professor Adam Lowenstein, The University of Pittsburgh Dr Antonio Lazaro-Reboll, University of Kent Associate Professor Bernice Murphy, Trinity College Dublin Associate Professor Caetlin Benson-Allott, Georgetown University Dr Julia Round, Bournemouth University Associate Professor Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Auckland University of Technology Associate Professor Mark David Ryan, Queensland University of Technology Dr Stacey Abbott, University of Roehampton London Associate Professor Valerie Wee, National University of Singapore

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Karen Horsley

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: © Robert Bryant Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Layout: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 944 4 e-isbn 978 90 4855 313 6 doi 10.5117/9789463729444 nur 670 © K. Horsley / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2022 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

For my dad



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 11 From Belles to Bayous: The Fall of the South on Screen

Section One  The South in the Cultural Imaginary 1. The South as Region: Southern History, Southern Identity, and Perceptions of Southern Difference

37

2. From Sectionalism to Swamp People: Conceptualizations of Southern Otherness

55

3. Ghosts Fierce and Instructive: The South as Haunted Terrain

67

Section Two  Gothic Visions, Southern Stories 4. Crumbling Structures and Contaminated Narratives: Genre and the Gothic 5. Manifesting the Other

85 109

Section Three  The Southern Gothic on Screen 6. Locating the Gothic South

123

7. Slavery, Degeneracy, Myth, and Historical Resonances: A Survey of Southern Gothic Screen Texts.

135

Section Four Case Studies: Toys in the Attic and Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus 8. Reinterpreting Gothic Secrecy: Toys in the Attic 159

9. Finding the South in the Ethereal: Atmosphere and the Spectral in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus 183 Conclusion – Fading, But Never Faded

201

Bibliography 209 Filmography 219 Television Series

225

Songs 227 Video Games

227

Websites 227 Index 229

Acknowledgements The fact that this book exists at all is almost wholly attributable to someone who is my friend first, and colleague second, Jessica Balanzategui. Without Jess’s gentle prodding I would have let my research languish in some dusty cupboard. Thanks also to Felicity Collins and Anna Denis. I am truly grateful for Felicity and Anna’s unwavering faith in me despite my frequent resistance to their suggestions and advice. As Felicity reminded me recently, “we told you what to do and you mostly ignored us.” Sorry. I am surrounded by the most awesome group of women who sustain me in the best, and worst of times – you know who you are, much love and solidarity. Maryse Elliott from Amsterdam University Press has been more than generous, granting me an extension on the manuscript and answering my questions with kindness and patience. I am also grateful to my friend John Bayne, a true southern gentleman, who in October 2013 led me on an impromptu walking tour around Savannah, Georgia pointing out significant sites while secretly testing me on my knowledge of the South (I passed). We were keen to visit Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home in East Charlton Street, which is now a museum, but when we got there, it was closed. In 2017 we went back again but it was closed. John Bayne said he’d never seen it open. I live in hope. To Justin Herrgesell, thank you for saving me from making a mistake when describing the duco of the Chevy in a film I used as one of my case studies. I would also like to acknowledge the shuttle driver in southern Louisiana who will never read this book but was convinced I’d be murdered while travelling solo on the Greyhound buses. Thanks for your advice, I made it. Thank you so much to Rob Bryant for the artwork on the front cover, knowing where to put commas, and proving to me that Doom Metal shows are the perfect antidote to staring at a computer screen for hours on end. More importantly, thanks for your endless love and support. To all my friends who have been with me through the ups and down of life, I now have time to catch up for drinks – message me. To my beloved dog Belle whose complete disregard for my “important” human work led to many bushwalking adventures. Rest in peace Bellsie, we will never stop missing you. I am deeply grateful to Nancy Horsley, Cathy Horsley, Heather Simpson, baby Jimmy, and finally, to my children Brett and Mae, the only reason I do anything.

Introduction From Belles to Bayous: The Fall of the South on Screen Abstract The introduction outlines the South’s shifting status in the cultural imaginary and its subsequent representation on screen in the mid-twentieth century. Where films like Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming 1939),1 Song of the South (Harve Foster; Wilfred Jackson 1946), and Jezebel (William Wyler 1938) depicted the Old South as an exalted society built upon a thriving plantation economy, A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan 1951), To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan 1962) and a number of other southern films reconfigured the South as a Gothic and othered space. This sets up the framework for the discussion of the Southern Gothic on screen by positioning it within a sociocultural context that has seen southern otherness disseminated through the tropes, conventions, and iconography of the Southern Gothic genre. Keywords: Gothic, Southern Otherness, Old South, Slavery, Religion, Fundamentalism

Tell about the South. What’s it like there. What do they do there. How do they live. Why do they live at all. – William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

In an upstairs bedroom at the Twelve Oaks plantation house, Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) navigates her way around the sleeping bodies of her fellow southern belles who lie strewn, in disorderly fashion, across beds and sofas 1 Fleming replaced the original director George Cukor when Cukor was fired from the project after aseries of disagreements with the film’s producer David O. Selznick. Sam Wood replaced Fleming for a brief time during filming. Fleming, however, is generally recognized as the film’s director.

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_intro

12 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

in the expansive and extravagantly furnished room. Having spent the day socializing, the belles of Clayton County have loosened their stays and surrendered to exhaustion in the heat of the Georgia afternoon. Slave girls, their own discomfort subjugated to the needs of the southern aristocratic class, stand at bedsides fanning the women to create a breeze. A young slave, no more than nine or ten years old, ceases her work momentarily when the heat threatens to overcome her, but she quickly regains her composure and continues fanning in steady rhythmic waves. Scarlett finds a mirror and checks her reflection. She is planning to confess her love to Ashley Wilkes on the eve of his departure for the Civil War – a war that will provide a powerful backdrop for Scarlett’s personal transformation from cloistered southern belle to stalwart survivor of war and Reconstruction. Scarlett looks in the mirror and pinches her cheeks to create a blush, then rushes off to find Ashley. There are probably few films that extol the grandness and spectacle of the Old South more effectively than the 1939 production of Gone with the Wind. Like a number of classical Hollywood films set in the antebellum South such as The Littlest Rebel (David Butler 1935), So Red the Rose (King Vidor 1935), The Toy Wife (Richard Thorpe 1938), Jezebel (William Wyler 1938), and Way Down South (Leslie Goodwins; Bernard Vorhaus 1939), Gone with the Wind conveyed a heroic picture of the southern planter class, capitalizing, at the time of its release, on popularly held and deeply sentimental yearnings for an idealized bygone era. In positioning the Old South as a nostalgic site of pomp and grandeur, Gone with the Wind participated in, and perpetuated a cultural mythology that refracted all concerns and issues connected with the Civil War through the lenses of romance, personal triumph, and glorified defeat. This version of the Old South was unambiguously exultant, presenting a “glossy apologia for slavery and white supremacy” which, through stereotyping and historical distortion, defined the image of the South for at least a generation (Mark 2014, 157). Operating in the space carved out by an extensive early twentieth-century antebellum industry that used the allure of the Old South to offer consumers a counterbalance to the changes brought by modernity (Cox 2001, 36), Gone with the Wind contributed to the establishment of a number of southern film tropes and character types that became defining images of the South and southerners on screen. These include the feisty southern belle, the loyal self-sacrificing Mammy, the kindly gentleman planter, the white-columned antebellum mansion, the sun-filled cotton fields, and the happy slaves singing while they worked which, rendered iconic by the film, cemented the mythology of the Old South in twentieth-century discourse and culture.

Introduc tion

13

Gone with the Wind. Director: George Cukor; Victor Fleming. Year: 1939. Stars: Vivien Leigh. © M.G.M / Album. Album / Alamy Stock Photo

While the cinematic Old South, with some thematic adjustments, proved popular with f ilmmakers and audiences alike right up to the 1960s, in the late-1940s a divergent image of the South had started to gain traction in Hollywood. It was an image that had been brewing for decades in the literary world, and by the 1950s had started to re-define the way the South was represented on screen. In Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), just over a decade after Gone with the Wind had become embedded in the popular imagination through the sheer force of its imagery and Old South nostalgia, Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois sits at a mirror in a dimly lit New Orleans apartment and peers at a reflection that is both a symbolic and material manifestation of this redefinition. As the noise and clamour of the French Quarter tenement district filters through the open windows of the dingy apartment, Blanche looks upon a reflection that resonates unmistakeably with the traces of Scarlett O’Hara, yet is worlds away from the lavish parties, gallant beaus, and dutiful slaves of the antebellum South. In the claustrophobic spaces of Kazan’s Gothic South, where the environment is thick with humidity and the air bristles with a multitude of barely concealed resentments and desires, Blanche contemplates an image tainted by guilt, pessimism, and defeat. It is an image that speaks not only of Blanche’s personal fall from grace but indicates more broadly the fall of the South

14 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

as a romanticized and idealized cultural construct. In an adjoining room, Blanche’s brutish brother-in-law Stanley rifles through Blanche’s papers. These are the last remnants of the lost plantation Belle Reve and the only link to a past that has been irreversibly reconfigured in Gothic terms of ruin and loss. The southern plantation, once a powerful symbol of the ascendency of the South, is rendered, in A Streetcar Named Desire, an emblem of failure, its grounds useless except as the site of a long-abandoned family graveyard. In Kazan’s cinematic adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play, the South is neither romantic nor grand, neither heroic nor triumphant. Rather, it is heavy with the burden of a history that has resulted in the positioning of the South as a benighted, melancholy, and troubled space. Blanche checks her reflection. She is a reiteration of Scarlett, but one irrevocably altered by the distortions of a depraved past. In the sweltering New Orleans apartment, where there is no respite from the heat, no romantic gesture untroubled by desperation, and no resolve not underwritten with hopelessness, Blanche finally succumbs to the violence and madness of a South, that in its downfall, has been Gothically encoded as disintegrating, degenerate, and brutal.

Banjos, Courtrooms, and Old-time Religion This book examines the Southern Gothic as a screen genre, exploring the ways in which particular Gothic southern screen texts engage with a regional specificity that emanates from broader discourses of southern difference and southern otherness. It re-conceptualizes existing approaches to the Southern Gothic by offering an interdisciplinary analysis, which focuses on the intersection of Gothic studies, southern studies, screen studies, and genre studies to facilitate a renewed understanding of the Southern Gothic and the generic conditions that designate it as such. A recontextualization of the literary Southern Gothic, arguably nascent in the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) and erupting as a fully-fledged literary style in the early part of the twentieth century, the Southern Gothic screen genre aestheticizes and formalizes certain narrative and thematic impulses arising from the aberrations of the South’s unique historical reality. Oriented towards representing the American South as a dark and dangerous place in a perpetual state of collapse, Southern Gothic screen narratives are organized around what Nick Pinkerton describes as a “creeping darkness” solely attributable to the defining event of the South’s history – Civil War and the institution of slavery that necessitated that war (2015, 46). Along with Civil War and slavery, this

Introduc tion

15

“darkness” derives from a multitude of other complex social and political anxieties arranged, or rearranged, through certain established conventions of Gothic representation such as ruin, decay, the supernatural, violence, distortion, and horror, to emerge in Southern Gothic film and television texts as tropes explicitly linked to the ideological positioning of the South as an othered space. These include (but are not limited to) Voodoo,2 inbreeding, the spectre of slavery, the ruined plantation, the southern swamp, religious fundamentalism, the irrational southerner, and what is frequently referred to as the “southern grotesque,” a tendency towards the depiction of certain physical and/or mental abnormalities in key characters.3 As a framing paradigm, the Gothic South has been a tenacious and persistent mechanism for organizing southern screen narratives. So much so, that many popular understandings of the South can be traced back to specific moments, images, characters, sounds, themes, and settings from film and television that have registered the South through a Gothic lens. Whether a fragment of dialogue, a particular southern stereotype, or a visual cue that functions to locate an audience unequivocally in the South, the South as a Gothic screen space has left an indelible impression on the popular imagination and had an enduring influence on filmmakers and creators of television content. The distorted vision of the South that structures John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), for example, helped to ensconce the image of the demented southern hillbilly in popular culture, going some way towards establishing banjo music as a metonymic device signalling a supposed southern predisposition for incest, violence, and backwardness. There is ample screen evidence of the film’s influence with its legacy as a template for southern deviance present in such cinematic texts as Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer 2009), Ruthless People (David Zucker et al. 1986), The Internship (Shawn Levy 2013), The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock 2009), Road Trip (Todd Phillips 2000) The Bell Witch Haunting (Ric White 2004) and Shrek, Forever After (Mike Mitchell 2010). In these films, situations involving either dimwitted southerners or potentially dangerous southern environments reference Deliverance through devices such as the intonations of banjo music or the now iconic phrases, “squeal like a pig” and “he got a real pretty mouth ain’t he.” While in the television series The Simpsons (1989–current), Futurama (1999–2013), and 2 The terms “Voodoo,” “Voudun,” “Vodou,” and “Vodun” refer to variations of pan-African spiritualism imported with slavery into the gulf states of the American South (Rigaud, 1985: 8). 3 See for example Flannery O’Connor’s essay, “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction.”

16 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

South Park (1997–current), and the video games, Redneck Rampage (1997) and Duke Nukem Forever (2011), deliberate nods to Deliverance are present in particular characters or situations where southern-ness functions as shorthand for backwardness, sexual distortion, and all manner of degenerate behaviour. 4 The Simpsons, for example, includes the recurring peripheral characters Cletus and Brandine, toothless hillbillies who live somewhere “south” of Springfield and whose low intelligence is the result of inbreeding.5 Similarly, in a South Park episode entitled “The China Probrem” (Trey Parker 2008), Indiana Jones is raped in the wilderness by hillbilly versions of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg while repeatedly being told to “squeal.” In its standardizing of the toothless sadistic hillbilly as a southern trope, and in its positioning of incest and inbreeding as common southern practices, Deliverance thus contributed to the establishment of several enduring southern stereotypes and generic codes, which through intertextuality, homage, parody, and imitation, fortified and perpetuated the concept of the distorted and benighted South in popular culture. The South, as it is represented in Deliverance, is a space of otherness in which the debauched tendencies of those who reside on the fringes of southern society manifest in sadistic violence, partly due to their alleged cultural and intellectual backwardness. To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan 1962), on the other hand, interprets southern otherness as a collision between the benighted South and encroaching southern modernity through its portrayal of a sophisticated southern lawyer attempting to challenge endemic prejudice and ignorance in small-town Alabama. Charging the spaces of the Alabama courtroom with a fervour that reflects the burgeoning American Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, the film established the southern courtroom as both a legal and ideological site in which specific southern social and cultural concerns are highlighted and interrogated. A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher 1996), The Client (Joel Schumacher 1994), The Gingerbread Man (Robert Altman 1998), The Gift (Sam Raimi 2000), Ghosts of Mississippi (Rob Reiner 1996), Mississippi Burning (Alan Parker 1988), Bernie (Richard Linklater 2011) and Futurama (1999–2103)6 while not all necessarily engaging with the South as a Gothic space, nevertheless utilize 4 It’s interesting to note that the video games The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Walking Dead, while adapted from Southern Gothic texts, do not adopt specifically Southern Gothic themes or aesthetics. 5 Cletus and Brandine are variously referred to in the series as siblings, cousins, niece/uncle, and parent/child. 6 The Hyper-Chicken in the series is modelled on an assemblage of small-town layers from film and television, his southern accent suggesting unavoidable parallels with Atticus Finch.

Introduc tion

17

specific tropes such as the overheated onlookers, the uneducated hillbilly witness, the corrupt redneck lawyer, and the confluence of religion and racism in such a way that they bear an obvious relationship with To Kill a Mockingbird and its characteristic courtroom setting. In Deliverance and To Kill a Mockingbird the South is established as an othered space through complex and overlapping themes and subject matter, which can be somewhat crudely reduced to, the horrors of southern deviance and the horrors of southern racism respectively. In Charles Laughton’s directorial anomaly, The Night of the Hunter (1955), the horrors of the othered South are imagined through an absurd and contorted version of fundamentalist Christianity, positioned as a driving factor in the depraved actions of Preacher Harry Powell. A classic of the Southern Gothic genre, The Night of the Hunter combines an elaborate lyrical realist aesthetic with a plot centring around the psychopathic Preacher Powell, who travels the South marrying, and then murdering recently widowed women. Depicting the South as a region suffocated by old time religion and blind piety, The Night of the Hunter situates such values as the bedrock of southern morality, community, and small-town ideals. Punctuating this central thematic conviction with the now iconic image of Harry Powell’s tattooed knuckles bearing the words “love” and “hate,” The Night of the Hunter presents a compelling vision of the American bible belt on screen, its influence still evident in multiple films and television series in the twenty-first century. In scenes of tent revivals featuring f ire and brimstone sermons where congregations are whipped into religious frenzies, the film not only offered a glimpse of southern fundamentalist religion unfamiliar to non-southern and non-American audiences at the time of its release, but also employed a powerful Gothic aesthetic that evoked the cathedral and the underworld as indivisible conceptual spaces. This tension around the inseparability of good and evil, the divine and the infernal, has structured such films as The Fool Killer (Servando Gonzalez 1965), Angel Baby (Paul Wendkos 1961), The Apostle (Robert Duvall 1998), Frailty (Bill Paxton 2001), The Reaping (Stephen Hopkins 2007), The Last Exorcism (Daniel Stamm 2010), The Devil all the Time (Antonio Campos 2020), and a number of television series including Season One of True Detective (Nic Pizzolatto 2014), Rectify (Ray McKinnon 2013–2016) and The X Files – in particular, an episode entitled “Signs and Wonders” (Kim Manners 2000) in which Mulder and Scully head down South to investigate a crooked preacher at a Tennessee snake-handling church. As Roger Ebert wrote in 1996, “Everybody knows … the sinister ‘Reverend’ Harry Powell. Even those who have never seen [The Night of the Hunter] have heard about the knuckles

18 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

The Night of the Hunter. Director: Charles Laughton. Year: 1955. Stars: Shelley Winters and Robert Mitchum. © United Artists. ScreenProd / Photononstop / Alamy Stock Photo

of his two hands” (rogerebert.com November 24, 1996), a testament no doubt, to the film’s impact on generations of film and television audiences and media makers alike.

Categorizing the Southern Gothic As recognisable as such images, themes, and genre conventions are in popular culture, and as familiar as they might be to film and television audiences, the Southern Gothic as a screen genre has been somewhat overlooked as a genre worthy of close analysis, leading to a certain ambiguity around, or lack of clear acknowledgement of its place in the screen lexicon. This is not to undermine or ignore the important work that has already been undertaken by a handful of scholars who have addressed the Southern Gothic as a recognizable and legitimate screen genre. David Greven, for example, in his chapter, “The Southern Gothic in Film: An Overview” in The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic (2016) provides an outline of a selection of film and television texts that function as Southern Gothic, arguing that the Gothic South is partly rooted in certain features and customs of southern

Introduc tion

19

identity and is partly a national fantasy (2016, 473). Christopher Lloyd’s essay “Southern Gothic” in American Gothic Culture (2016), offers a broad analysis of Southern Gothic film and television, with a focus on three key examples to highlight the striking “visual imaginary” of the Southern Gothic,” (2016, 81). While Nick Pinkerton’s article in Sight and Sound, also entitled “Southern Gothic,” tracks the “rich seam of content” that originated in the literature of such southern authors as William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O’Connor, and found its way into multiple cinematic texts structured around “the ghosts of slavery, lost loves and dark family secrets.” (2015, 44). A diverse array of scholars such as Teresa Goddu, Christopher Smith, James Crank, Ken Gelder, Brigid Cherry, Phillip Lamarr Cunningham, Andrew Leiter, Bruce Brasell, Tara McPherson, Deborah Barker and Kathryn McKee, Lisa Hinrichsen, Gina Caison, and Stephanie Rountree, and Anthony Wilson engage with the Southern Gothic on screen (although not necessarily in terms of genre) to explore the historical anxieties that link the South to the Gothic in twentieth and twenty-first century film and television. Andrew Leiter’s edited collection Southerners on Film (2011), for example, focuses on challenging many of the preconceptions associated with the image of the filmic South as a hillbilly and redneck dominated space, instead emphasizing the multitude of diverse ethnic, thematic, and subregional perspectives brought to bear on the South’s transition to modernity. Deborah Barker and Kathryn McKee’s edited collection of critical essays provide contemporary insights into the “evolving and expanding field of southern film” (2011, 1) with the aim of challenging totalizing discourses around southern representation. Stephanie Rountree, Lisa Hinrichsen, and Gina Caison’s edited collection Small Screen Souths addresses television’s rediscovered fascination with the South “as a site of desire and fantasy, wonder and danger” (2017, 2). Other analysis slightly peripheral to the specific subject of the Southern Gothic on screen can be found in the work of Tara McPherson (2003) who tracks and interrogates changing representations of the South to examine the way in which the contemporary South conceptualizes identity, race and gender in historical and contemporary texts such as advertisements, music, film, and television. While Anthony Wilson (2006) looks at the way in which Hollywood has portrayed the southern swamps as sites of visceral menace, in which various monsters emerge in a symbolic association of the South with notions of primitive and uncultivated beliefs and practices. While these scholars offer valuable perspectives that intersect, in many ways, with the concerns of this book, what this body of scholarship as a whole highlights is the fact that there is room for a more dedicated and focused analysis of the Southern Gothic as a screen genre. However, rather than

20 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

expanding upon existing scholarly works such as those mentioned above (and many others not mentioned), and rather than reiterating the extensive analysis already undertaken in Gothic studies around core Gothic tropes, this book adopts a poststructuralist approach that draws on Derridean conceptualizations of categorization, which includes an interrogation of the related but divergent concepts “genre” and “mode.” It does this to reflect upon the framework that underpins generic attribution and to highlight the slipperiness of genre categorization. Anticipating, however, some challenges to this approach, it seems necessary to explain the absence of a more concrete or definitive method of analysis. The key idea discussed in this book, that the Southern Gothic as a screen genre remains somewhat under-investigated, seems straightforward enough. Yet the approach this book takes to that idea is not quite as straightforward, since is asks the question, “what constitutes a genre category?” In order to answer this question, it focuses on the slipperiness of genre and the instability of generic tropes to propose a mimetic succession of signification that disallows entirely knowable or stable conclusions about the Southern Gothic as a mediated screen space. It takes as its starting point the breadth of scholarship around genre that has examined genre from a diversity of critical perspectives. It then discusses and analyses those perspectives using the principles of Derridean deconstruction to demonstrate the complexities inherent in any attempt to definitively categorize texts in terms of “belonging” or “not belonging.” Intended as neither axiomatic nor prescriptive, this book approaches genre through the theoretical prism of Derridean genre critique to offer one method among many other possible methods for investigating the Southern Gothic on screen.

From the Old South to the New South: Redefining Southern Screen Narratives To properly examine the Southern Gothic as a screen genre, the South’s shift in the cultural imaginary needs to be addressed due to its role as a driving factor in the emergence of the Gothic South as a representational construct. As the opening paragraphs of this introduction aimed to demonstrate, the films Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire represent divergent, yet inseparable images of the South on screen. While Gone with the Wind presents, in an unproblematic way, the Old South as an exalted society built upon the success of a plantation economy, A Streetcar Named Desire dismantles the symbols associated with the Old South and presents

Introduc tion

21

a challenge to the idealized nostalgia that structures, not only Gone with the Wind, but idealized representations of the Old South more generally. Blanche’s references to the plantation home Belle Reve, for instance, reveal it to be a site of dereliction and lost equity, a site whose once fertile grounds are now barren and deserted. While earlier Hollywood plantations, such as Twelve Oaks and Tara (Gone with the Wind), Halcyon (Jezebel), and Bayou Lovelle (Way Down South) were conceived of as symbols of white power and superiority, the deserted Belle Reve repositions the southern plantation in such a way that it becomes a symbol of corruption and defeat. Further, A Streetcar Named Desire portrays the southern belle, traditionally a figure of chaste and virtuous comportment, as the embodiment of perversion and moral corruption. It does this through references to Blanche’s inappropriate sexual conduct with a 17-year-old boy and other unspecified “affairs,” which function to paint her as a sinful woman of questionable morals. Additionally, the character of Blanche, played by Vivien Leigh, operates intertextually with Leigh’s portrayal of Scarlett O’Hara due to the way in which Leigh essentially reprises of the role of Scarlett within the Gothicized spaces of Kazan’s film. This represents not so much a reversal of meaning in relation to the southern belle, but an overlaying of meaning that enfolds the earlier construct of the southern belle within a relationship that allows each version to reflect upon, and inform, the other. Functioning here as an example of a broader movement in the mid-twentieth century towards the re-positioning of the South as a Gothically encoded space, A Streetcar Named Desire perfectly illustrates this shift through its reorganizing of existing southern tropes and imagery into new Gothic arrangements. This shift, in large part, can be understood as a response to wider cultural and political factors affecting the South: the emergence of the Civil Rights movement, revisionist critiques of the Old South as a nostalgic construct, and a mounting cultural unease around some of the more unsavoury aspects of southern history, particularly in relation to slavery. As the historical fictions that had shaped the Old South took a backseat to depictions of a modern-day South organized around themes of poverty, racism, depravity, and violence, the Southern Gothic offered a striking, if implicit, critique of the exalted Old South to become one of the most recognizable methods for representing the contemporary South on screen. Significantly, in the twenty-first century, as the definitions of cinema and screen have changed to include the multi-platform distribution of media content, streaming and television services have provided new avenues for telling southern stories though the lens of the Southern Gothic. Leaving aside classical Hollywood films and streaming for a moment, and tracking back to

22 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

A Streetcar Named Desire. Year: 1951. Stars: Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. © Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early 2000s, it is easy to see American cinema’s embrace of the Southern Gothic genre increasingly strengthened through the integration of Southern Gothic elements into prominent Hollywood films. Crimes of the Heart (Bruce Beresford 1986), Angel Heart (Alan Parker 1987), Cape Fear (Martin Scorsese 1991), Ghosts of Mississippi, Dead Man Walking (Tim Robbins 1996), Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton 1996), The Green Mile (Frank Darabont 1999), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel Coen 2000), The Gift (Sam Raimi 2000), Frailty (Bill Paxton 2001), and Monster’s Ball (Marc Forster, 2001), films primarily produced as star vehicles intended to attract maximum box office revenue, access, to greater and lesser degrees, the tropes and conventions of the Southern Gothic. To single out one example, Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear (originally made in 1962 with J. Lee Thompson as director) became a box office success partly due to audiences’ familiarity with the original film and partly due to the film’s casting of prominent stars such as Juliette Lewis, Jessica Lange, and Robert De Niro, not to mention the interest around Scorsese’s expansion of his already impressive oeuvre. While the film operates primarily as a psychological thriller, it also utilizes Southern Gothic genre conventions: establishing

Introduc tion

23

shots emphasize the ominous gloom of the swamps and bayous of North Carolina; the narrative foregrounds a revenge plot driven by the violent, predatory, and psychopathic Max Cady; and a mock trial on a sinking boat deliberately references and simultaneously distorts the jargon and customs of the traditional southern courtroom. Into the twenty-first century, films such as The Skeleton Key (Iain Softley 2005), Black Snake Moan (Craig Brewer 2007), The Last Exorcism (Daniel Stamm 2010), The Paperboy (Lee Daniels 2012), Mud (Jeff Nichols 2012), Beautiful Creatures (Richard LaGravenese 2013), and Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino 2013), weave their narratives around specific Southern Gothic tropes while operating simultaneously within the parameters of popular genres such as the horror (The Skelton Key, The Last Exorcism), fantasy (Beautiful Creatures), the crime drama (The Paperboy), and the western (Django Unchained). In the current shifting landscape of media production and distribution, streaming and/or subscription television services have, in some ways, taken up the mantle as leaders in Southern Gothic storytelling. In a number of popular television series: True Blood (Alan Ball 2008–2014) True Detective,7 Rectify, Murder in the Bayou (Matthew Galkin 2019), Tiger King (Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin 2020), Southern Gothic (Lauren J. Przybyszewski, Joanne Hock 2020), Sharp Objects (Jean-Marc Vallée 2018) and the Netflix films The Devil all the Time, and Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard 2020), characters and actions are mediated through specific tropes of ruin and decay – both physical and symbolic, haunted landscapes, southern backwardness, and feature such familiar characters as the small town simpleton, the demented hillbilly, and the uneducated redneck. True Detective in particular had a significant widespread cultural impact upon its release due to its complex themes and intertextual references structured around the classical Gothic texts An Inhabitant of Carcosa (Ambrose Bierce 1886) and The King in Yellow (Robert W. Chambers 1895). Set in Louisiana, the series presents an ominous view of the South that emphasizes the region’s cultural backwardness through a narrative that includes Voodoo, fundamentalist Christianity, inbreeding, violence, and a formal aesthetic that overstates the desolation of Louisiana’s industrialized landscapes. True Detective’s combination of police procedural and Southern Gothic proved to be an extremely successful formula, which, simply in terms of ratings, saw the Season One finale averaging 3.5 million viewers in the U.S. alone, while the first season overall was one of the most watched series on the HBO network in 2014 (Kissell, 7 Season One of the anthology series is the only season that operates specifically as Southern Gothic.

24 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

2014). While the success of True Detective certainly cemented its status as a pop culture phenomenon, in terms of ratings it never quite reached the levels of viewership of HBO’s Southern Gothic vampire series True Blood, or AMC’s The Walking Dead (Frank Darabont 2010–present). True Blood, which ran for seven seasons from 2008 to 2014, became HBO’s most popular show since The Sopranos (1999–2007) and Sex and the City (1998–2004) when its first season averaged 6.8 million viewers per episode in the U.S. (Garofalo, 2014). The Walking Dead, which depicts a southern sheriff’s attempt to lead a group of survivors in the post-apocalyptic South straddles the Western, the dystopian science fiction, and several other genres in equal measure. Yet, the series’ primary engagement is with the Southern Gothic through its depiction of the South as a space of deterioration, decay, ruined landscapes, and characters such as the psychotic redneck Merle Dixon who functions as one of a multitude of contemporary versions of the uneducated southern racist. Indeed, as Matthew Dischinger points out, the significance of The Walking Dead’s southern milieu is such that in the apocalyptic landscape, where “southern” should cease to mean anything at all, viewers are required to imagine a South in which regional stereotypes are maintained even after the literal collapse of both nation and region (2017, 259–260). According to Paul Tassi from Forbes online, 17.29 million viewers in the U.S. watched the Season Five premiere of The Walking Dead, setting an audience record as the most watched episode in the series to date (Tassi 2020).

Organizing the Unsaid The emphasis on ratings in relation to Southern Gothic television texts is not intended here simply as a rationale, in and of itself, for an analysis of the Southern Gothic screen genre. Rather, it is intended as an indication of the genre’s adaptability and its continuing popularity as subscription and streaming television services embrace the Gothic South as a framework for storytelling. This demonstrates the significance of the Southern Gothic genre in popular culture overall because its generic codes, both on the big and small screen, have contributed to, and perpetuated an accepted image of the South in which the South’s representation as a space of strangeness and otherness has been established as a familiar convention. While it is quite possible that audiences, filmmakers, and showrunners are not fully cognizant of the extent to which genre serves as an organizing principle that arranges particular southern texts in terms of Gothicity and otherness, an engagement and participation with the Southern Gothic genre occurs,

Introduc tion

25

nevertheless. As John Frow has noted, the generic framework constitutes “the unsaid of texts.” It organizes information “which lies latent in the shadowy region” in a way that allows us to draw on it as we need it, even though it is information that we may not know we know because it is not directly available for scrutiny. (2006, 90) If Frow is right, and the framework that organizes genre is essentially latent yet accessed nevertheless, then what can be achieved by articulating the “unsaid” when genre is so adept at structuring texts (in this case, Southern Gothic texts) in such a way that the relevant information is successfully conveyed whether or not we know what the genre is or how it works? This is a problem Bruce Brasell considers in his discussion of a proposal by Larry Langman and David Ebner (2001) to establish the “Southern” as a legitimate screen genre comparable with the “Western.” As Brasell says, the desire to identify a southern genre raises a number of questions: Where does this desire spring from? Why is it a desirable goal? Why do we need it? (2011, 297). As a way of ostensibly side-stepping the inclination to understand southern screen texts along genre lines, Brasell suggests a framework for conceptualizing dominant trends in southern film and television that he refers to as the “southern-scape” – a configuration that informs a film or television text’s narrative development and character construction (2011, 299). For Brasell, this configuration is a discursive formation applicable to the southern screen, allowing the mediated South to be imagined as a conceptual space in which certain features or characteristics exist in complex interrelationships that determine their organization into meaningful arrangements (2011, 303). While Brasell’s description of a “southern-scape” as a discursive southern space is in many ways simply a semantic alternative to the conceptualization of a “Southern” genre, his ideas are useful insofar as they re-frame generic discourse in such a way that the inescapability of genre is highlighted. We can call something a genre, a discursive space within which certain conventions are organized, or some kind of visual or conceptual “scape,” but what is unavoidable is the tendency towards categorization. Taking Brasell’s questions about southern film and television and posing them in relation to the Southern Gothic, we can similarly ask: why is it desirable to understand the Southern Gothic as a genre? It is tempting here to invoke a 1989 article by film scholar Adrian Martin, whose provocation, “why bother?” in relation to the teen genre, concludes with the answer, “because it exists” (1989, 10–15). Considering this, the mere existence of the Southern Gothic on screen might therefore be sufficient justification for undertaking an analysis of the genre. However, the Southern Gothic’s existence as a

26 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

functioning genre notwithstanding, it seems clear, as Brasell’s concept of the “southern-scape” shows, that any attempt to transcend genre while still wishing to discuss groups or networks of texts that display thematic, narrative, or visual consistencies is a difficult pursuit. This is explained quite succinctly by Frow when he says that there can be no speaking or writing or any other symbolically organized action that takes place other than through the “shapings” of generic codes, since genre is central to meaning making (2006, 10). In other words, we cannot avoid the way that genre guides interpretation by specifying what is relevant or appropriate in a particular context (Frow 2006, 110). To paraphrase Adrian Martin, then, the rationale for discussing the Southern Gothic as a screen genre might be stated simply thus: because the genre exists. Taking its cue from Frow, this book proposes that it is the latent information, generic shapings, and embedded assumptions of the Southern Gothic on screen, along with the discursive formations that inform narrative development and character construction, that organize the mediated South into a site of Gothicity. Why this happened and how it happened is the crux of this book’s argument. As a complex screen space where Gothicity, southern-ness, history, and the Other assemble, the Southern Gothic genre sees relations between screen texts enacted through the re-citing and re-framing of characters, themes, narratives, and visual styles that operate as part of a wider generic dialogue. We can see, for example, in Buck Grotowski from Monster’s Ball or in “Wild Bill” Wharton from The Green Mile, the racist redneck from earlier Southern Gothic films such as The Defiant Ones (Stanley Kramer 1958) and In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison 1967). In Buddy Cole from The Gift, John Coffey from The Green Mile, Daniel Holden from Rectify, and Karl Childers from Sling Blade we can recognize Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird or Lonnie, the banjo boy from Deliverance. Moreover, Buddy Cole and John Coffey are supernaturally encoded as characters haunted and/or haunting in the manner of the folkloric character the Fool Killer in The Fool Killer and Charlotte Hollis in Hush…hush, Sweet Charlotte (Robert Aldrich 1964). The antebellum mansions in The Skeleton Key (Iain Softley, 2005) American Horror Story: Coven (Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk 2013–2014), and Hush… hush, Sweet Charlotte reconfigure the ruined mansions of A Streetcar Named Desire, The Sound and the Fury (Martin Ritt, 1959; James Franco, 2014) and Baby Doll (Elia Kazan, 1956) as sites of horror and/or destruction within which the past has a corroding and haunting influence on the present. Both The Skeleton Key and The Gift configure swamps as haunted spaces, and thus bear traces of Jean Renoir’s Swamp Water (1941) in which the southern swamp is aestheticized in terms of mystery, the unknown, or the supernatural. In

Introduc tion

27

Frailty, The Last Exorcism, True Detective and The Devil all the Time, the theme of southern religious fundamentalism that underpins The Night of the Hunter and Angel Baby (Paul Wendkos 1961), re-emerges in the more contemporary context of the twenty-first century only to reinforce, like the earlier films, the image of a backwards South mired in superstition and driven by regressive attitudes and behaviours. While the endurance and adaptability of the Southern Gothic genre is evident in the retrieval of such tropes, it is not only the Southern Gothic’s penetration into Hollywood filmmaking and contemporary streaming content that attests to its power as a genre. There are a number of independent films, non-Hollywood films, and made-for-television films8 that engage with elements of the Southern Gothic genre in various ways. Some examples are: The Beyond (Lucia Fulci 1981), an Italian film set in Louisiana that blends Italian horror conventions with Southern Gothic conventions resulting in a mutual hybridization of both generic forms; Southern Gothic (Mark Young 2007), an independent vampire film; Little Chenier: A Cajun Story (Bethany Ashton Wolf 2006), also an independent film which premiered at a number of film festivals before gaining direct-to-DVD release; A Christmas Memory (Glenn Jordan 1997) and Orpheus Descending (Peter Hall, 1990), which are both made-for-television films based on the work of Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams respectively; and My Louisiana Sky (Adam Arkin 2001), a Showtime production adapted from a novel by southern children’s author Kimberly Willis Holt. In addition to these narrative films, several feature documentaries display obvious Southern Gothic tropes and aesthetics. Some examples are: Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (Andrew Douglas 2003), a BBC-funded documentary exploring the connection between music and religion in the South, which gained limited theatrical release in the U.S; Deepsouth (Lisa Biagiotti 2012) a film that focuses on the prevalence of HIV in the South, and has been used as an educational tool at various AIDS related conferences; Trouble the Water (Tia Lessin and Carl Deal 2008), a film about Hurricane Katrina which premiered on HBO and features ground zero footage, archival footage, and cinema verité footage; and Werner Herzog’s death row documentary Into the Abyss (2011) which premiered at the Toronto film festival and was followed in 2012 by two seasons of On Death Row (Werner Herzog 2012–2013), a series that aired on the UK’s Channel Four. 8 Made-for-television films, or telefilms, are those films produced and aired on commercial television networks. They can be distinguished from f ilms made specif ically for streaming services such as Roma (Alfonso Caurón 2018), or The Irishman (Martin Scorsese 2019), by their comparatively low production values and use of second-tier actors.

28 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

The Shape of Genre As Frow points out, no text is ever unframed no matter how unstable its relationship to the genre with which it participates (2006: 30). He goes on to say, Genre … is a set of conventional and highly organized constraints on the production and interpretation of meaning. In using the word “constraint” I don’t mean to say that genre is simply a restriction. Rather, its structuring effects are productive of meaning; they shape and guide, in the way that a builder’s form gives shape to a pour of concrete, or a sculptor’s mould shapes and gives structure to its materials. (2006, 10)

The “shape” of the Southern Gothic, then, manifests in the genre’s capacity to frame texts in such a way that even in cases where a text might disrupt expectations, genre still contributes to the contours that create those expectations. Additionally, this “shape” may be unstable and mutable, and engaged with consciously or unconsciously, but without the framing capacity of genre, meaning cannot take place since no text’s meaning is transparently conveyed, rather, it is mediated through a framework of interrelations (Frow, 2006: 10). The Southern Gothic as a genre is thus a guide, determining, in some ways, the direction of meaning while not limiting meaning, but rather, allowing meaning to move and flow in a dynamic and regenerative process where texts interact and intersect in broadly conceived networks of affiliation. Further, the notion of southern otherness, now ensconced as a characteristic of southern-ness in myriad cultural, historical, and mediated contexts, underpins the Southern Gothic genre, with the genre becoming one of the primary mechanisms through which such othering discourses about the South emerge. In the realms of the “unsaid,” genre thus structures the mediated South in such a way that it is read, consciously or unconsciously, as a space of ruin, collapse, deterioration, desolation, defeat, backwardness, violence, haunting, melancholy, regression, guilt, and pessimism. These specific tropes, and others that will be discussed throughout this book, shape the South into a Gothic space, which is as much a result of cultural discourse as it is an employment of Gothic signifiers for aesthetic and narrative effect. This book is organized into four sections. Section One, “The South in the Cultural Imaginary,” lays the foundation for an examination of the Southern Gothic on screen through an analysis of the impact of slavery and Civil War on the South’s positioning as a region separate from

Introduc tion

29

dominant American culture and values. It does this by drawing on seminal works of southern scholarship to understand the links between southern distinctiveness and the construction of southern identity. Section Two, “Gothic Visions, Southern Stories,” focuses on the traditional parameters of Gothic representation to show the way in which the destabilizing of these parameters allowed the Gothic to emerge and thrive in such seemingly unlikely locations as America, and the South. It also includes an analysis of the concept of the Other to highlight the extent to which the Southern Gothic is shaped and informed by this inherently divided and dividing construct. Section Three, “The Southern Gothic on Screen,” establishes the idea of the South as an imaginary space with a complex relationship to the actual geographical region to which is connected. It also undertakes a survey of Southern Gothic film and television titles in order that Southern Gothic screen texts can be organized into a generic space for the purposes of categorization. Conceptualizing the Southern Gothic screen genre as an umbrella concept, the survey includes texts that share narrative, thematic, aesthetic, or formal affinities, along with an overall tendency to render the South in terms of otherness. Finally, Section Four comprises two case studies: the Hollywood adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s play Toys in the Attic (George Roy Hill 1963) and the 2003 BBC-commissioned feature documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (Andrew Douglas). Toys in the Attic has been selected for its contribution to the “sweltering and sexy” depiction of the South that became popular in Hollywood cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. With a plot that draws attention to certain cultural and sexual boundaries, Toys in the Attic sees those boundaries transgressed in a Gothicized reimagining of the dominance (and ultimate failures) of the southern elite. In Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, a road trip across the South becomes an endeavour to find a quality that is allegedly unique to the region. While Toys in the Attic and Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus are very different films, what these differences highlight is the fact that despite such dissimilar modes of engagement with genre, an affinity nevertheless exists between the films due to the way in which they both clearly operate as Southern Gothic. Throughout the book the terms “America” and “American” will be applied in keeping with twenty-first century usage. The terms “United States,” “U.S.A,” and “the United States of America” have become conventions of speech primarily associated with political rhetoric and will therefore be avoided unless they form parts of quotes where the referenced material uses the latter convention. The capitalization of “South” is based on its function as a proper noun and the non-capitalization of “southern” is based on its adjectival

30 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

function. Further, in keeping with contemporary descriptors, the term “black” will be kept to a minimum with “African American” the preferred term. This book examines the Southern Gothic primarily in terms of its attributes as a screen genre. It does this by addressing the ubiquitous nature of Southern Gothic tropes in popular screen representation (hillbillies, banjo music, the southern courtroom, the faded southern belle, tent revivals, fundamentalist religion) to establish the Southern Gothic’s place within wider scholarly and popular discussions of the South’s history, culture, identity, and media. Locating the Southern Gothic on screen within precise Gothic and southern discourses, the book not only revises and re-frames discussions of the Southern Gothic literary genre with which it historically and unavoidably intersects, it also examines the way in which the genre (like all genres) functions as a shifting and transitory site of meaning. In order to illustrate this, a large number of film and television texts that display certain narrative, stylistic, aesthetic, and thematic consistencies will be referenced to position the Southern Gothic screen genre within a broad economy of representation that resonates with the influences of eighteenth and nineteenth century Gothic literature as much as it functions as a specific manifestation of southern otherness in twentieth and twenty-first century screen contexts. Combining cultural analysis of the South with textual analysis of key film and television examples to ascertain the features of the Southern Gothic genre, the book illustrates the way in which particular film and television texts adopt, adapt, and reject these features according to principles of generic collapse and reinvention. Underpinning this approach is a tracking of the proliferations and meanings of the terms “Southern” and “Gothic” as historical, cultural, and discursive categories, the aim of which is to highlight, and partly resolve certain ambiguities that may undermine the cohesiveness of the film and television titles proposed as a generic map – albeit an ever-evolving one – of the Southern Gothic on screen.

Works Cited Barker, Deborah E. and Kathryn McKee. American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011. Brassell, Bruce. “Humid time: Independent Film, Gay Sexualities, and Southernscapes.” In American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Edited by Debra E. Barker and Kathryn McKee. Athens: University Press of Georgia, 2011. Cox, Karen. Dreaming of Dixie: How the South was Created in Popular Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

Introduc tion

31

Dischinger, Matthew. “The Walking Dead’s Postsouthern Crypts.” In Small-Screen Souths. Edited by Lisa Hinrichsen, Gina Caison and Stephanie Rountree. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Ebert, Roger. The Night of the Hunter. Accessed December 14, 2020. https://www. rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-night-of-the-hunter-1955, 1996. Accessed June 26, 2021. Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! London: Random House, 2005. Frow, John. Genre. London Routledge, 2006. Garofalo, Alex. “How successful was ‘True blood’ for HBO? A look back at ratings before series finale.” International Business Times. https://www.ibtimes.com/ how-successful-was-true-blood-hbo-look-back-ratings-series-finale-1663206, 2014. Accessed June 25, 2021. Greven, David. “The Southern Gothic Film: An Overview.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Edited by Susan Castillo Street & Charles L. Crow. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Kissell, Rick. “HBO’s ‘True Detective’ wraps season with its largest audience.” Variety. https://variety.com/2014/tv/news/hbos-true-detective-wraps-season-with-itslargest-audience-1201128626/#!, 2014. Accessed June 26, 2021. Kissell, Rick. “The Walking Dead Ratings Rise with Controversial Episode.” Variety. http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/the-walking-dead-ratings-rise-1201627223/, 2015. Accessed June 25, 2021. Leiter, Andrew B. Southerners on Film. NC: McFarland, 2011. Lloyd, Christopher. “Southern Gothic.” In American Gothic Culture: An Edinburgh Companion. Edited by Joel Faflak and Jason W. Haslam. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Mark, Rebecca. Ersatz America. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014. Martin, Adrian. “The Teen Movie: Why Bother?” Cinema Papers, 10–15, 1989. McPherson, Tara. Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. O’Connor, Flannery. Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald, Mystery and Manners. London: Faber and Faber, 1984. Pinkerton, Nick. “Southern Gothic.” Sight and Sound 25 (5): 44–50, 2015. Tassi, Paul. “‘The Walking Dead’ Ratings Finally Fall Under 3 Million For The First Time.” Forbes, March 11, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/11/the-walking-dead-ratings-finally-fall-under-3-million-for-thefirst-time/?sh=172a66b55b89, 2020. Accessed June 26, 2021. Wilson, Anthony. Shadows and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture. Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 2006.

32 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Filmography9 A Christmas Memory. Glenn Jordan. United States: Hallmark, 1997. Angel Baby. Paul Wendkos. United States: Allied Artists Pictures Corporation, 1961. Angel Heart. Alan Parker. United States: Tri-Star Pictures, 1987. The Apostle. Robert Duvall. United States: October Films, 1997. A Time to Kill. Joel Schumacher. United States: Warner Bros, 1996. Baby Doll. Elia Kazan. United States: Warner Bros, 1956. Beautiful Creatures. Richard La Gravenese. 2013. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures. The Bell Witch Haunting. Glenn Miller. 2013.United States: Bernie. Richard Linklater. United States: Millennium Entertainment, 2011. The Beyond. Lucio Fulci. Italy. Medusa Distribuzione, 1981. Black Snake Moan. Craig Brewer. United States: Paramount Vantage, 2007. The Blind Side. John Lee Hancock. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 2009. Cape Fear. J Lee Thompson. United States: Universal Pictures, 1962. Cape Fear. Martin Scorsese. United States: Universal Pictures, 1991. Crimes of the Heart. Bruce Beresford. United States: De Laurentis Entertainment Group, 1986. The Client. Joel Schumacher. United States: Warner Bros, 1994. Dazed and Confused. Richard Linklater. United States: Gramercy Pictures, 1993. Dead Man Walking. Tim Robbins. United States: Gramercy Pictures, 1995. Deepsouth. Lisa Biagiotti. United States, 2014. The Defiant Ones. Stanley Kramer. United States: United Artists, 1958. Deliverance. John Boorman. United States: Warner Bros, 1972. The Devil all the Time. Antonio Campos. United States: Netflix, 2020. Django Unchained. Quentin Tarantino. The Weinstein Company/Columbia Pictures, 2012. Eve’s Bayou. Kasi Lemmons. United States: Trimark Pictures, 1997. The Fool Killer. Servando González. United States: American International Pictures, 1965. Frailty. Bill Paxton. United States: Lions Gate Films, 2001. Ghosts of Mississippi. Rob Reiner. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1996. The Gift. Sam Raimi. United States: Paramount Classics, 2000.

9 All films listed in the filmographies throughout this book are listed alphabetically by film title, director, country of origin, distributor, and theatrical release date. Distribution information is unavailable for some independent films.

Introduc tion

33

The Gingerbread Man. Robert Altman. United States: PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, 1998. Gone with the Wind. Victor Fleming. United States: Loew’s, 1939. The Green Mile. Frank Darabont. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999. Hillbilly Elegy. Ron Howard. United States: Netflix, 2020. Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Robert Aldrich. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1964. The Internship. Shawn Levy. United States: 20th Century Fox, 2013. In the Heat of the Night. Norman Jewison. United States: United Artists, 1967. Into the Abyss. Werner Herzog. United States, United Kingdom, Germany. IFC Films/Sundance Selects, 2011. The Last Exorcism. Daniel Stamm. United States: Lionsgate, 2010. Little Chenier. Bethany Ashton. United States: Radio London Films, 2006. Mississippi Burning. Alan Parker. United States: Orion Pictures, 1998. Monster’s Ball. Marc Forster. United States: Lionsgate Films, 2001. Mud. Jeff Nichols. United States: Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions, 2012. My Louisiana Sky. Adam Arkin. United States, 2001. O Brother, Where Art Thou? Joel Coen. United States, United Kingdom, France: Buena Vista Pictures; Universal Pictures, 2000. Orpheus Descending. Peter Hall. United States: TNT, 1990. The Paperboy. Lee Daniels. United States: Millennium Films, 2012. The Reaping. Stephen Hopkins. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007. Road Trip. Todd Phillips. United States: DreamWorks Pictures, 2000. Ruthless People. Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams Jim; David Zucker. United States: Buena Vista Distribution, 1986. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Andrew Douglas. United States, United Kingdom: BBC, 2003. The Serpent and the Rainbow. Wes Craven. United States: Universal Pictures, 1998. Shrek Forever After. Mike Mitchell. United States: Paramount Pictures, 2010. The Skeleton Key. Iain Softley. United States: Universal Pictures, 2005. Sling Blade. Billy Bob Thornton. United States: Miramax Films, 1996. The Sound and the Fury. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1959. The Sound and the Fury. James Franco. United States: New Films International, 2014. Southern Gothic. Mark Young. United States: IFC Films, 2007. Toys in the Attic. George Roy Hill. United States: United Artists, 1963. Trouble the Water. Tia Lessin, Carl Deal. United States: Zeitgeist Films, 2008. Zombieland. Ruben Fleischer. United States: Sony Pictures Releasing, 2009.

34 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Television Series10 American Horror Story: Coven. Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. United States: FX, 2013–2014. Futurama. Matt Groening. United States: 20th Television, 1999–2013. Murder in the Bayou. Matthew Galkin. United States: Showtime, 2019. On Death Row. Werner Herzog. United States, United Kingdom, Austria, 2012. Rectify. Ray McKinnon. United States: Sundance TV, 2013–2016. Sharp Objects. Jean-Marc Vallée. Warner Bros. Televsion, 2018. The Simpsons. Matt Groening. United States: 20th Television, 1989–2020; Disney, 2020–present. Southern Gothic. Lauren J. Przybyszewski and Joanne Hock. United States: Investigation Discovery, 2020. South Park. “The China Probrem.” Trey Parker. CBS Media Ventures, 2008. Tiger King. Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin. United States: Netflix, 2020. True Blood. Alan Ball. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 2008–2014. True Detective. Nic Pizzolatto. United States: Warner Bros. Television Distribution, 2014–2019. The Walking Dead. Frank Darabont. United States: AMC, 2010–present. The X Files. “Signs and Wonders.” Kim Manners (dir). 20th Television, 2000.

Videogames Duke Nukem Forever. Bryan Ekman and George Broussard. 3D Realms. 2K Games, 2011. Redneck Rampage. Drew Markham. Xatrix Entertainment. Interplay Productions, 1997. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Wizard Video Games, 1983. The Walking Dead. Sean Vanaman, Jake Rodkin, Dennis Lenart, Eric Parsons, Nick Herman, Sean Ainsworth. Telltale Games, 2012.

10 Television series in the reference sections throughout this book are listed bibliographically by title, showrunner (if applicable), series creator (if applicable) country of origin, original network and/or distributor, and dates each series or single episode aired.

Section One The South in the Cultural Imaginary

1.

The South as Region: Southern History, Southern Identity, and Perceptions of Southern Difference Abstract Despite its cultural and ethnic diversity, the South has historically been positioned in terms of a distinctiveness that has functioned ideologically to separate the South from what is generally referred to as the “North.” While this can be linked to the South’s historical reliance on, and reluctance to abandon the practice of slavery, as a divisive mechanism in the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries slavery’s residues have been both compounded and supplanted, to some extent, by an array of additional factors. This chapter considers those factors by drawing on seminal works of southern scholarship to examine the South’s historical positioning in American national discourse and interrogates the role of southern distinctiveness in shaping southern image and identity. It then explores the way in which those discursive practices have created a paradigm ideally suited to the evocation of otherness and Gothicity. Keywords: Southern Distinctiveness, Myth, North South Divide, Southern Identity, Sunny South, Benighted South

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” –William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun “Talk about genetic deficiencies.” – Bobby Trippe (Ned Beatty), Deliverance

In the cultural geography of America, the region known simply as “the South” has been historically differentiated from what is generally referred to as “the North” by lines of demarcation that are as ideological as they are Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch01

38 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

physical. As a physical divide, differentiation between the North and the South is marked most conspicuously, and is understood most conventionally, as the boundary of the Mason-Dixon line. Established in the eighteenth century to settle a property dispute between the Penn and Calvert families, the Mason-Dixon line took on additional significance as a dividing line in the nineteenth century when it became the separator between the free states and the slave states (Makowski 1989, 573). Less conspicuous, yet similarly discernible as a marker of division, is the perimeter of the former Confederacy. While now largely diminished in its significance, at one time this division acted as a determinant of political affiliation up to, and during, the Civil War. Designating Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia as independent from the Union, the boundary lines of the former Confederacy stand today as historical imprints − remnants of a secession attempt that split the nation according to the position and arrangement of state borders. On a map of the contiguous United States, the separation between North and South is defined by state boundaries and borders that indicate, to some extent, the dimensions and scope of the division, yet there exists a separation so ideologically entrenched in American culture that it eludes, almost entirely, the capabilities of cartographic representation. It is a separation that has manifested as a cultural divide whose proponents insist, with seemingly unabated vehemence, that the South is a region distinctly different from the rest of the nation. This cultural divide is neither definitive nor invariable in terms of its boundaries. Certain regional particularities such as climate, patterns of speech, ethnicity, and political and religious leanings are not contained behind state borders, nor are the southern states a cohesive whole with a homogeneous racial or cultural profile. Migration patterns in Florida, for example, determine that a large proportion of Florida’s population originate in the northern states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (Perry 2003, 4), while the Francophone Creole and Cajun cultures of southern Louisiana are specific to, and to a large extent, characteristic of that particular state (Picone 2014, 196). Despite such cultural and ethnic diversity, the South is unique as an American region that has been consistently positioned in terms of its distinctiveness (Griffin 2006, 7).

The Burden of History: America’s Dark Other While this distinctiveness emerges from an array of historical factors, almost all iterations of southern distinctiveness derive from the South’s racial history.

THE SOUTH AS REGION

39

As Teresa Goddu says, race is central in the construction of the South’s oppositional image, helping to situate the region as America’s dark Other – a space whose landscapes are benighted, whose history is heavy and haunted, and whose excesses and transgressions are symbolic of all that the nation is not (1997, 76). In the multiple and varied manifestations of the American South on screen, the South’s ideological and cultural separation from the North has given rise to a persistent “othering” discourse which has led to the emergence of the Gothic as a dominant mode of southern representation focusing on such things as transgression, degradation, distortion, and excess (Goddu 1997, 76). As Larry Griffin notes, the tendency to Other the South in popular culture is symptomatic of the South’s historical positioning as America’s “evil twin” exceptional in its failed experiment with secession and nationhood, and differentiated from the North by its poverty, its backwardness, its religiosity, and its prolonged resistance to racial justice (2006, 7). Such perspectives see southern distinctiveness as a projection of sociohistorical conditions configured (at least in mediated contexts) in terms of otherness and Gothicity and are indicative of wider discourses in southern studies that speak, in more general socio-historical and socio-political terms, about the South as a site of aberrance. As southern historian James Cobb has noted, the South is a space with “a panorama of appalling and indelible imagery” described by W. J. Cash in his seminal work of southern history, The Mind of the South, as a “savagely racist,” “intellectually stunted” and “emotionally deranged society” (Cash quoted in Cobb 2005, 1). “Everproblematic” when defined in relation to the “triumphantly superior” North, the South’s positioning in a persisting North-South polarity sees the sources of southern difference evident in such “distinctive” southern practices as white supremacy, agrarian culture (inseparable from the slavery upon which its historical success rested), and a particularly “un-American” experiment with human bondage (Cobb 2005, 2). As Cash says, to find evidence for a prevailing southern difference one need not look beyond southern characteristics that are consistent across the eras: violence, intolerance, an aversion for and suspicion towards new ideas, and a too great attachment to racial values and a tendency to justify cruelty and injustice in the name of those values (1991, 428–429). As C. Vann Woodward states in The Burden of Southern History, such characteristics can be understood within the context of the South’s “unique historic experience” (2008, 16). For Woodward, The inescapable facts of history were that the South had repeatedly met with frustration and failure. It had learned what it was to be faced with

40 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

economic, social, and political problems that refused to yield to all the ingenuity, patience, and intelligence that a people could bring to bear upon them. It had learned to accommodate itself to conditions that it swore it would never accept, and it had learned the taste left in the mouth by the swallowing of one’s own words. It had learned to live for long decades in quite un-American poverty, and it had learned the equally un-American lesson of submission. (2008, 190)

In the South’s drive towards modernity in the twentieth century, the gap left by the old monuments of southern regional difference such as the sharecropper, segregated railroad carriages, or the lynching bee (Woodward 2008, 5) were adequately filled by the southern people’s unique experience of generational scarcity and want in the “land of plenty” (Woodward 2008, 18). Prevented from accepting the legend that American principles and ideals eventually prevail, the South assumed a set of specific regional beliefs based on long decades of defeat and failure in the provinces of economic, social, and political life (Woodward 2008, 19).

The Distortions of Southern Myth Making Another aspect of southern distinctiveness, one that perhaps contradicts the idea of the South as aberrant, “emotionally deranged,” and beleaguered by defeat and failure, equally fuels the discourse around the South’s otherness. This is encapsulated in the construct of the South as a romantic space of sentiment and nostalgia. Drawing upon the discourse of southern difference – specifically in the way it works to contrast the South with the North – the romanticizing of the South is underpinned by a version of southern otherness in which otherness is attributable to the South’s reluctance to abandon the narrative of a glorified past. Firmly rooted in the powerful ideological positioning of the Old South as exalted and noble, this nostalgically encoded fiction is encapsulated in the vision of the South as a site of traditionalism, old-fashioned values, and southern hospitality, structured around the seductive idea of the South as an “authentic” culture (Palmer 2011, 95). Contrasting quite starkly with the image of an othered South plagued by the horrors of its past, the idea of a South othered by a sustained adherence to notions of authenticity and Old-World traditions may appear to emanate from an entirely different conceptual framework. However, while divergent in their foundational tenets, these seemingly irreconcilable

THE SOUTH AS REGION

41

understandings of the South, as Patrick Gerster writes, both support and confirm southern difference in the way they imagine the South in opposition to, and as distinct from, “mainstream” America (1989, 1126). As Gerster notes, these dual images around southern difference tend to fall into two general categories: the “benighted South,” characterized as semi-savage, poor, and morally degenerate, and the “sunny South,” characterized as utopian and mythic (1989, 1126). These seemingly conflicting mythologies emanate from early sectional conflict and can be identified within what George Tindall refers to as the general frameworks of the “plantation idyll” and the “abolitionist critique” (1989, 1098). The abolitionist critique took shape in the era of Confederate defeat in the Civil War and became solidified in the twentieth century through a plethora of images and events such as the violent responses in the South to the Civil Rights movement, the seemingly unabated practice of southern lynching, and the regressive implications of religious fundamentalism (Tindall 1989, 1098). The plantation idyll, on the other hand, had its origins in the popular construct of the Old South – an imagined space of kindly plantation masters with their mint juleps, happy slaves singing in the fields, and coquettish belles being wooed by gallant beaus (Tindall 1989, 1097). As Cobb notes, the plantation idyll has been promulgated so energetically and persuasively that it has become one of the region’s most exportable commodities resulting in a mythic vision of the Old South that is ostensibly apologist in its implicit Confederate sympathies (2005, 77). The intersection of the “sunny South” and the “benighted South” can be located, therefore, in a shared inclination to foreground southern difference as a cultural identifier. While the “benighted South” is perhaps easy to imagine in terms of difference and otherness, the “sunny South” seems less amenable to this positioning. However, this can be illustrated using two examples from southern history and culture to show how the “sunny South,” like the “benighted South,” has been characterized according to a logic of delineation that sustains and perpetuates the greater project of southern exceptionalism. Firstly, consider the discourse around southern hospitality and the way in which it has helped to prop up the construct of the “sunny South” for over two centuries. An important vehicle for self-definition amongst southerners, southern hospitality has consistently functioned as a foundational narrative that links the South of the past to the South of the present, while reinforcing cultural beliefs about the South’s uniquely separate culture within the United States (Szczesiul 2017, 7). As Anthony Szczesiul writes, “the discourse of southern hospitality forms an axis” around which numerous

42 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

perceptions of southern culture revolve (2017, 7). This includes ideas of home and community, the sense of a distinct regional identity, and a strong sense of regional pride (2017, 8). Due to its persistence in preserving and disseminating notions of the uniqueness of the South, southern hospitality has thus been seen as a “natural” attribute that one thinks of “when one thinks about the South” (Szczesiul 2017, 169). Secondly, since the time of the emergent travel and tourism industries in the postbellum era, the “uniqueness” of the South has proven an effective marketing strategy, employing the discourse of the “sunny South” to promote an escape from the modern industrial North into a “Dixie fantasyland of the past” (McIntyre 2011, 7). As Rebecca McIntyre says, a nascent southern tourism industry spoke to a northern bourgeoisie’s desire to experience a simpler life. The “sunny South” therefore provided a refuge in which the tourist could relax in the leisurely atmosphere and pleasure-loving culture of a pre-modern world (2011, 7). Into the twentieth century, as Karen Cox notes, the summoning of the allure of the Old South coincided with the emergence of mass consumer society with products and services themed around the mammy, the southern belle, the southern “colonel,” the house servant, and southern hospitality providing cultural meaning that consumers all over America had come to recognize (2011, 151). Such discourse around southern hospitality and Old South mythology is just as vibrant in the twenty-first century with the southern tourist industry offering travellers all over the United States, and all over the world, the chance to engage with the Old South through plantation tours that unproblematically present the southern past in terms of nostalgia, hospitality, and romance (McIntyre 2011, 151). A number of obvious contradictions structure the idealized image of the Old South since this image involves a disjuncture between the mythology that surrounds the antebellum era and its actuality. This can be understood in Barthesian terms as a “conjuring trick” (1972, 142). As Roland Barthes argues in his analysis of myth, the ideological function of myth is to remove history from language by reducing complex phenomena to simple traits that come to be seen as def initive of such phenomena. This process of “haemorrhaging” or “emptying” history operates by naturalizing myth, which replaces reality with alternative narratives that seem “natural,” thereby leaving history devoid of any real historical qualities (Barthes 1972, 142). Although yielding sufficiently to criticism and ridicule to discredit its validity as a legitimate picture of southern history, the idea of the Old South as thing of splendour and delicacy has nonetheless survived (in the most part) into the twenty-first century as a southern trope that celebrates the South as a space of tradition and old-fashioned “authentic” values (Palmer

THE SOUTH AS REGION

43

2011, 91). As Tara McPherson writes, in recounting a December 2000 Louisiana plantation tour, “at home after home” the tour focused loving attention on the grandeur of the mansions we moved through, encouraging the visitor to listen “to the fascinating history” of a bygone era’s wealthy lifestyles. Tour guides in hooped skirts stressed the authenticity of the objects on display, while the “loveliness” of the homes “became the overarching rationale for the tours, as the period’s interracial past disappeared along with the history of slavery” (2003, 42). As Landon Palmer notes, rooted in the notion of authentic “southern values” is a conflation of related concepts such as “rural values” or “small-town values” (2011, 91). Though much of the South is far from rural, the concept of “southern values” is underpinned by the cultural myths of southern regionalism that see an intrinsic link between the South’s agrarian past and the idea of southern-ness, despite the fact that agrarianism in the South was wholly contingent upon the practice of slavery (Palmer 2011, 91).1 The South’s “authenticity,” although constructed out of a history that the myth renders largely invisible, is an enduring idea that implies a certain innocence or wholesomeness in relation to southern culture and its values. The conceptualization of the “sunny South” as a construct rooted in Old World sentiment and “authentic” values is one that is informed, therefore, by the distortions inherent in the mythmaking process. As Barthes suggests, for something to function effectively as myth it needs to be “emptied” of history, which has the effect of distorting reality (1972, 142). The myth of the Old South erases the “important moral and ethical dimensions” (Szczesiul 2017, 177) of its origins and conceals its construction as myth ensuring that it operates instead as a distortion that nevertheless seems natural – or something that “goes without saying” (Barthes, 1972, 143). Through this process, the “sunny South” has become an accepted myth informing popular understandings of southern culture. And while remaining a persistent and successfully deployed framing narrative in broader constructions of southern identity and southern difference, as a distorted version of history 1 This link was forged in the early twentieth century by the authors of I’ll Take My Stand: The South and Agrarian Tradition (1930), a manifesto written by twelve prominent agrarians including John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Stark Young, John Gould Fletcher, John Donald Wade, Frank L. Owsley, Lyle Lanier, H. C. Nixon and Henry Blue Kline. The manifesto celebrated rural values over industrialism and endorsed the “southern way of life” over the “prevailing American way of life” (Tindall 1967, 577–578). I’ll Take My Stand’s utopian vision offered an image of the South in which southerners lived serenely and harmoniously – a quest borne of concerns over the maintenance of regional identity and southern traditions (1967, 582).

44 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

it has served as little more than an agenda for normalizing the atrocities of the southern past.

Cohesions and Divisions: Finding Southern Identity Whether underpinned by the construct of the “sunny South” or the “benighted South,” the positioning of the South as separate from the North has, for better or worse, informed the notion of southern distinctiveness through a discourse that Others the South (to some extent inadvertently), by appealing to the uniqueness of southern identity, history, and culture. In examining the roots of southern identity, Cobb writes that the most common foundation of group identity is a shared sense of a common past (2005, 6). In the South, it is this common past that is most often evoked in order that southern cultural distinctiveness can be attributed with a context and a cause, since it is in the South that the resonances of American history seem to be most keenly felt. As Cash has argued, the influence of the past manifests in the South in a way that sees southern identity informed by a perceived rupture between the values and traditions of the Old South and the move towards progress that came to characterize the New South. This rupture encouraged a discourse of sentimentalism towards the pre-Civil war era in which the Old South became imagined in purely idealistic terms (Cash 1991, 127). As Cash writes, The growth of the Southern Legend was even more sentimental than it was grandiloquent; it moved, more powerfully even than it moved toward splendor and magnificence, toward a sort of ecstatic, teary-eyed vision of the Old South as the Happy-Happy Land. (1991, 127)

This “ecstatic and teary-eyed” vision of the southern past looms large in Edward King’s 1875 record of journeys The Great South, where a visit to Hollywood cemetery in Richmond, Virginia elicits an emotional response from King when he encounters the graves of hundreds of Confederate dead “buried under the shadow” of a rough stone pyramid (1875, 631). Recalling a day in late May when the “gray-coated veterans and the militia regiments parade in solemn procession” to the cemetery, while ladies dressed in black wander silently and tearfully amongst the graves, King is unable to resist the sentimentalism associated with the Civil War, claiming that the grief is too deep for words and too sacred to be associated with the “vulgar details of politics” (1875, 631). Such “vulgar details” are no doubt those associated

THE SOUTH AS REGION

45

with the abolition of slavery that King cannot bring himself to address in case he sullies the memory of those buried southern soldiers. Of course, people have everywhere and eternally sentimentalized the causes of their wars, but rarely, as Cash point out, for anything so “crass and unbeautiful” as the preservation of slavery (1991, 127). While the triumphs of the Old South, and its subsequent positioning in terms of its “sunny” disposition tend to underpin certain constructions of southern distinctiveness and identity, the tendency to romanticize defeat, exemplified in King’s observations, has also contributed to the foundations upon which the South’s identity has been built. As Woodward notes, the fact that the South has been at variance with the North since the end of the Civil War is partly based on the South’s inability to adopt the American ideology of success, or in other words, the profound conviction that nothing is beyond its power to accomplish. Consequently, the South has assumed its own set of specific regional beliefs based on the realities of defeat and failure which have been interpreted as resilience in the face of adversity and, ultimately, these qualities have become collectively cherished as a unique aspect of southern identity (2008, 18–19). Southern history has therefore played a major part in the way in which the South has defined itself as distinct from the nation. Indeed, it has been woven into the fabric of the southern experience in a way that reflects the complexities of the region’s connection to, and problematic relationship with its past. As southern author Carson McCullers has observed, the distinctiveness of the southern identity is the result of a cynicism borne of the South’s violent and painful history (2005, 263). With poverty in the South unlike anything known in other parts of the country – children are born and die or if they don’t die, they live and struggle (McCullers 2005, 260). In this environment, life and death comes and goes, while the immutability of material goods becomes highly valued making it difficult, at times, to prioritize a person’s life over such assets as a bale of hay (2005, 260). This has led to the development of a distinctive southern “type” with certain recognizable psychological traits that have emerged from the efforts of the southerner to survive in extreme and appalling circumstances (McCullers 2005, 260). As Larry Griffin has noted, while southern identity might be contradictory and contested, it continues, nevertheless, to serve as a mainstay of southern mythological self-understanding (2006, 7). Southern identity construction is key in understanding the way in which southern distinctiveness has become commodified and popularized in screen contexts. Therefore, it will be useful, at this point, to briefly consider southern identity in the context of identity studies more broadly.

46 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Vivian Vignoles, Seth Schwartz, and Koen Luyckx note that in the field of identity research, the core issue that has been addressed is the implicit or explicit response to the question, “Who are you?” (2011, 2). While this sounds straightforward enough, the question masks a considerable amount of complexity: “you” can be singular, it can refer to groups and larger categories, or it can comprise “who you think you are” as well as “who you act as being” (Vignoles et al. 2011, 2). Several levels of definition have thus emerged around the response to this question but particularly useful to the discussion of southern identity is the approach examined by Deborah Schildkraut known as the “collective approach” which allows the question “Who are you?” to be conceptualized in terms of “identity attachment” – a phenomenon whereby national identification markers override identification with either ethnic or “nation of origin” markers (Schildkraut, 2011, 845–846). This notion of identity attachment affects thoughts and behaviours towards the group to which individuals feel attached, and this includes obligations to community, feelings of “linked fate,” and a sense that the group is worth fighting for (Schildkraut 2011, 852). While the focus of Schildkraut’s analysis is specifically on American national identity, the concept of identity attachment is equally applicable to southern regional identity since as Vignoles et al. point out, a theoretical framework that employs a collective model of identity must necessarily encompass all types of groups including regional, national, social, family, or religious groups with which members identify (2011, 3). Individuals who self-identify as southern, therefore, can be understood as participating in a process of identity attachment since “southern” implies that those things outlined by Schildkraut such as a linked fate or a sense that the group is worth fighting for, underlie the identification process (2011, 852). This sense of group allegiance is largely maintained in the South by the perceived threat to the southern identity by an oppositional North. As Cobb explains, [H]istorically identities have not existed in isolation, but always in relation to other perceived oppositional identities against which they are defined. Hence, there could have been no South without a North and regardless of reality, the perception of significant differences between these two [is] vital to sustaining the identity of either. (2007, 6)

The notion of a collective southern identity can thus be defined by the perception of what it means to be southern in relation to a North comparably positioned, whether in a purely reciprocal process or not, as an oppositional source of identity (Cobb 2007, 7). As Schildkraut points out, one consequence

THE SOUTH AS REGION

47

of identity attachment is the perception of threat to the group by external devaluation or discrimination, which has the effect of making the group behave in a defensive fashion by essentially closing its ranks (2011, 852). “Southern,” therefore, understood as a collective phenomenon of mutual attachment and oppositional identification, emanates from the belief that southern values and priorities are fundamentally at odds with those of other Americans (Cobb 2005, 33). This has cultivated a discourse of difference around southern identity creating a strong regionalist stance that informs not only white southern identity but African American identity as well since many African American southerners see the South, rather than Africa, as their cultural homeland. In a study from the University of North Carolina undertaken between 1991 and 2001, the question, “Do you consider yourself a southerner, or not?” was asked of 17,600 southerners with seventy-five percent of respondents saying that they thought of themselves as southern. This was true for both African Americans and whites, leading to the conclusion that most southerners have a consciousness of their region as a distinctive place in the American landscape (Griffin 2006). As Cobb notes, author Toni Morrison has consistently presented the South as a vital link to Africa seeing the South as the basis, not just of black suffering and struggle, but also of black identity (2007, 279). In Morrison’s Beloved (1987) the plantation “Sweet Home” is presented as a place of togetherness, a quality that was lost when the family moved North (Cobb 2007, 279). As Sethe explains to her daughter Denver, Sweet Home “is where we were. All together.” Whether based on real or imagined ideas of cultural separation, therefore, oppositional identif ication through identity attachment has helped to sustain and perpetuate southern distinctiveness alongside such internally divisive issues as race. As John Shelton Reed notes, to identify as a southerner is to participate in a regional affiliation. “Southern” is a reference group that people use to orient themselves and may be observable in such things as an attachment to, and affection for southern customs, traditions, and habits, a strongly perceived sense of difference to northerners, or an unabashed hostility toward the “Yankee” North (Reed 1983, 15–16). This construction of difference – bound up with the processes by which southern identity has separated itself through a collective notion of region – emanates from the South’s history, with some southerners orienting themselves according to the conflicts and divisions (such as anti-Yankee sentiment) associated with the past. It is important to note, however, that conceptions of identity, difference and cultural distinctiveness, which have their origins in historically established conflict and opposition, are in no way exclusive to the American

48 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

South. As Peter Kolchin has suggested, North-South oppositions and the concept of southern identity can be understood within geopolitical or geo-historical frameworks, since in an increasingly globalized environment it has become necessary to examine the South within broader national and international contexts. Since an understanding of what is “southern,” has meaning only in opposition to what is “not southern,” most attempts to generalize on the nature of southern distinctiveness have done so, at least implicitly, in the context of how it contrasts to the North, when the more pertinent issue is how it contrasts to the much broader concept of the “un-South” (Kolchin 2009, 567). What Kolchin is suggesting by this notion of the un-south is that while the South is undoubtedly a place with its own “history and character” (2009, 565), traditional oppositions are too narrow and parochial given that in a globalized environment the South is part of a larger geographical entity and therefore its oppositional status can be conceptualized in the broader geopolitical terms of the “Global South.” An issue such as slavery, for example, can be understood in a global framework and analysed according to its occurrence in societies such as Russia, Italy, and the ancient world rather than solely in relation to its function and effects within American society (Kolchin 2009, 571). Similarly, southern economic problems can be understood in relation to the world economy rather than the narrower approach in which it is only understood in comparison to the economic conditions of the North, while notions of southern backwardness can be compared to European backwardness in such contexts as the Italian South which is understood, in a similar way to the American South, as somewhat regressive and defined by such things as poverty and out-migration (Kolchin 2009, 572–573). As Cobb has similarly observed, while the South’s determination to maintain a distinctive identity confirms its regionalist outlook, it is this very outlook that aligns it with wider global patterns in which moves toward homogenizing pressures are equally resisted (2007, 329). However, the context in which the South is seen to share the semantics of other global divisions that organize nations according to concepts such as “First” versus “Third World” or “developed” versus “underdeveloped” breaks down at the point where the Global South is identified with non-democratic government, exclusion from economic development, and exclusion from global politics (Pinheiro 2017, 58) since this does not apply to American society. One factor, however, that does align the American South with the Global South is its regular association with the notion of otherness whereby the South is considered the “alternative” rather than the “norm” (Wagner 2017, 8). Therefore, while simple distinctions between rich and poor, “advanced”

THE SOUTH AS REGION

49

industrial societies and “developing” societies might not suffice to establish a natural affiliation between the American South and the Global South, the discourse around otherness performs this function by considering the way the North is normalized as the dominant American culture. Such divisions between North and South, when weighed in a broader global framework, thus move beyond parochial oppositions to northern antagonism (Kolchin 2009, 578) to include the realities of racial inequality, the threat the South presents to discourses of progress, and its construction as beleaguered geographical and cultural terrain. The efforts of identity construction in the South, by those who identify as southerners, have nevertheless hinged upon the antipathies and divergences in the relationship between southerners and their perceived Yankee antagonists. This is crucial in understanding the way the South has been established as a specific representational space, inextricably integrated with the social, cultural, and political dynamics that have become indispensable to southern screen communication (Aitken & Zonn in Jansson 2005, 270). Whether in the context of global conceptualizations of identity and difference, or in contexts that understand the construction of southern identity predominantly in terms of North-South opposition, efforts to position the South as the counterpoint to the rest of America have contributed significantly to the enduring notion of the South as Other (Cobb 2005, 327). According to S. Brent Plate, the concept “otherness” can be used to denote that which resides outside the margins of dominant culture or cultural representation (1999, 4). While the South cannot necessarily be said to reside “outside the margins” since it functions within the framework of broader American politics and ideology, the outsider status that determines something as other can refer to what has been pushed aside or otherwise exiled from the realms of dominant culture (Plate 1999, 4). Thus, the South’s troubled history of race relations, its designation as the “bible-belt” due to the religious fundamentalism and evangelical fervour of its lower-classes (Cobb 2005, 325), its political conservatism, and the nature of its contributions to popular culture such as the hillbilly stereotype, or the “redneck reality” genre of television have, to a large extent helped to position the South within a discursive paradigm that sees it deviating significantly from the American “norm.” According to Cobb, the roots for the South’s otherness were long ago embedded in American culture. This was a result of attempts, not only to advance the tenets of regional distinctiveness that the South fervently supported, but also in the push toward the promotion of a North whose ideological distance from the South was intended to preserve an image of a triumphant America (2005, 4). Apparent since the late eighteenth

50 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

century, distinctions between the North and South that situated the South as the Other originally functioned to fulfil a need for a proximate source of opposition and contrast that England had served pre-revolution (Cobb 2005, 3). As Cobb notes, The muskets of the American Revolution had hardly fallen silent before northern novelists, scholars, journalists, and other popular writers (who sometimes wrote authoritatively about places they had never visited and described scenes they had never witnessed) began constructing a vision of America that was based almost exclusively on the northern model and used the southern states primarily as an example of what the nation was not and must never become. (2005, 4)

Surfacing in the early national era and maturing in the heat of antebellum sectional conflict, a vision of the North as the norm, and the South as its antithesis became a firmly established principle in the national discourse. The notion of identity requires a definition of what it is not, as much as it requires a definition of what it is. American national identity was thus constructed according to northern sensibilities and perceptions, with the South becoming a negative reference point against which the North, with its more favourable national image, could be defined (Cobb 2005, 3). This is hardly surprising given that in its embryonic phase, a major impediment to building a nation committed to the principles of liberty, equality and democracy was a southern economy, society and culture “shaped and sustained by human bondage” (Cobb 2005, 3). While legal in the northern states as well as in the southern states in the pre-revolutionary era, as times and laws changed, slaveholding became “securely fixed” in the mind of both northerners and southerners as one of the integral components of the southern way of life (Cobb 2005, 19). Given this cultural construction, the South became a perfect foil and convenient suspect for the construction of a privileged national identity that positioned the South as the negative for a snapshot of an America that saw itself as tolerant, enlightened, moral, and just (Jansson in Cobb 2005, 327–328). Dating back, then, to the earliest days of American independence, and later stirred by sectional conflict over the rights of the slaveholding South, the othering of the South can be understood as a tenacious and enduring ideological construct. Attributable to the North’s insistence that it was the “essence of the nation” (Cobb 2005, 215) southern otherness is therefore a matter determined predominantly by a binarism that in constructing the geographic ideas “America” and “the South” as opposites, results in a picture

THE SOUTH AS REGION

51

of a virtuous America that must, by the nature of binarisms, be placed in opposition to a degenerate South (Jansson 2003, 295). This process has performed the ideological function of othering the South in such a way that the upholding of an exulted national identity is assured. Drawing on Edward Said’s concept of the Occident and the Orient, Jansson suggests that in the same way that the Orient helped to define Europe by constructing it as different and set apart from the Occident, America has orientalized the South by representing it as a troubled mythic land, different from the nation as a whole (2003, 295). As Jansson says, America is composed of many regions and for one of those regions to serve as Other it must be distinguished from national standards (2003, 298), and it is precisely this difference from national standards that has led to South’s positioning in popular culture as a site space mostly at odds with wider American values and agendas.

Works Cited Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Random House, 1972. Cash, W. J. The Mind of the South. Canada: Random House, 1991. Cobb, James C. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Cox, Karen. Dreaming of Dixie: How the South was Created in Popular Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Faulkner, William. Requiem for a Nun. New York: Random House, 1994. Gerster, Patrick. “Stereotypes.” In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson & William Ferris. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Goddu, Theresa. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Griffin, Larry. “The American South and the Self.” Southern Cultures 12 (3):6–28, 2006. Jansson, David. “Internal Orientalism in America: W. J. Cash’s The Mind of the South and the Spatial Construction of American National Identity.” Political Geography 22 (3):293–316, 2003. Jansson, David. “‘A Geography of Racism’: Internal Orientalism and the Construction of American National Identity in the film Mississippi Burning.” National Identities 7 (3):265–285, 2005. King, Edward. The Great South. Hartford, Conn: American Publishing Company, 1875.

52 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Kolchin, Peter. “The South and the World.” The Journal of Southern History 75 (3):565–580, 2009. Makowski, Elizabeth. Mason-Dixon Line. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson & William Ferris, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. McCullers, Carson. “The Russian Realists and Southern Literature.” In The Mortgaged Heart. Edited by Margarita G. Smith. New York: Penguin, 2005. McIntyre, Rebecca. Souvenirs of the Old South: Northern Tourism and Southern Mythology. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011. McPherson, Tara. Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Random House, 1987. Palmer, Landon. “Gender, Regional Identity, and the Civil War: Politics of the North and South in Sweet Home Alabama and June Bug.” In Southerners on Film. Edited by Andrew B. Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Perry, Marc. State-to-state Migration Fows 1995–2000. https://usa.ipums.org/usa/ resources/voliii/pubdocs/2000/censr-8.pdf, 2003. Accessed June 26, 2021. Picone, Michael. “Cajun French and Louisiana Creole.” In Languages and Dialects of the U.S. Edited by. Marianna Di Paolo and Arthur K. Spears. New York: Routledge, 2014. Pinheiro, Cláudio Costa. “The BRICS Countries: Time and Space in Moral Narratives of Development.” In The Moral Mappings of South and North. Edited by Peter Wagner. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. Plate, S. Brent. “Introduction: Images and Imaginings.” In Imag(in)ing Otherness: Filmic Visions of Living Together. Edited by S. Brent Plate & David Jasper. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Reed, John Shelton. Southerners: The Social Psychology of Sectionalism. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Schildkraut, Deborah. “National Identity in the United States.” In Handbook of Identity Theory and Research. Edited by Koen Luyckx Seth Schwartz, Vivian, L. Vignoles. New York: Springer, 2011. Schwartz, Seth et al. “Introduction: Toward an Integrative View of Identity.” In Handbook of Identity Theory and Research. Edited by Koen Luyckx Seth Schwartz, Vivian, L. Vignoles. New York: Springer, 2011. Szczesiul, Anthony. The Southern Hospitality Myth: Ethics, Politics, Race, and American Memory. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2017. Tindall, George Brown. The Emergence of the New South 1913–1945. Louisiana State University Press, 1967. Tindall, George. Myth, Manners, and Memory. In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson & William Ferris. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

THE SOUTH AS REGION

53

Wagner, Peter. “Finding One’s Way in Global Social Space.” In The Moral Mappings of South and North. Edited by Peter Wagner. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. Woodward, C. Van. The Burden of Southern History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968.

Filmography Deliverance. John Boorman. United States: Warner Bros, 1972.

2.

From Sectionalism to Swamp People: Conceptualizations of Southern Otherness Abstract In chapter 1, the positioning of the South in the national narrative was shown to have emerged from key historical events and cultural inclinations that have functioned to Other the South as both a “benighted” space – resulting from its history of slavery, its poverty, and its aberrance; and an idyllic or “sunny” space – resulting from its unique cultural identity and the tenacious nostalgia that structures and preserves the vision of a romantic Old South. While the discussion contextualized the positioning of the South as Other primarily within socio-historical frameworks, this chapter draws on examples from historical and contemporary media to examine the South as a space othered by discourses that emerge as much from within the South itself, as they do from oppositional rhetoric applied from without. Keywords: Tourism, Redneck Reality, Swamps, Progress, National Narrative, Internal Otherness, Commodified South

The othered South as a mediated space dates back, at least, to the post-Civil War era. As an appealing concept that has contributed to the preservation of the myth of southern exceptionalism and difference, the South as Other has arguably become more popular in the twenty-first century as streaming services and free-to-air television networks compete for audiences eager to engage with exotic, degenerate, and grotesque southern stories and characters. From the gloom and ugliness of True Detective’s desolate landscapes, the Gothicized swamps and reconstructed alligator tussles of Swamp People (2010–present), the excesses and extremes of Tiger King and Murder in the Bayou (2019), to the deprivations depicted in “redneck reality” shows like Call of the Wildman (2011–2014) and Here Comes Honey

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch02

56 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Boo Boo (2012–2014), the South as a space of strangeness is situated in a contradistinctive relationship with the (allegedly) un-gloomy, un-Gothic, and un-redneck North.

Representing the South: Swamps, Rednecks, and Steel Magnolias The othering of the South did not necessarily originate with the commodification of the South in the late-nineteenth century when travel writers where tasked with selling the region to northern tourists to whom the South seemed a peculiar and unfamiliar place (McIntyre 2005, 35). But it certainly helped. In national magazines and travel books that sold in the hundreds of thousands, imagery crafted for “bona-fide tourists and armchair travellers” alike (McIntyre 2011, 4) painted a picture of the post-war South as a Gothic landscape of ruined plantations and gloomy swamps. Focusing on such things as the mysterious nature of the swamps and their apparent capacity to offer tourists a “dark adventure” and a “thrilling escape into the unknown,” tourist magazines frequently evoked the tropes of a “cheap Gothic novel” to emphasize the aberrations and horrors of the southern wetlands (McIntyre 2005, 33). One such article, appearing in New York’s Appleton’s Journal in the 1870s, claimed that “no imagination” can conceive “the grotesque and weird forms” of Florida’s Ocklawaha River. Limbs of wrecked or half destroyed trees, the Appleton’s journalist writes, “partially illuminated,” and covered in moss or wrapped in decayed vegetation seem “huge, unburied monsters” (quoted in McIntyre 2003, 33). Edward King, similarly, in his 1876 travel memoir The Great South describes the Louisiana swamplands as a “grotesque water wilderness” with vistas as endless as a hashish vision (1875, 71), while other writers sensationalized the southern swamps through Gothic imagery that imagined ghouls springing from the mist and holding carnivals in the swamp’s “dank recesses” (McIntyre 2011, 94). In the twenty first century, as Anthony Wilson observes, there is still a surprisingly vigorous swamp tourism industry in the South, which markets the swamps in such a way that claims of cultural authenticity are finely balanced with the promise of supernatural horror wrapped up in myths of Voodoo curses, swamp monsters, and sunken graveyards (2006, 176–180). Promoted for the hideousness of its landscapes, the South, as Rebecca McIntyre notes, seemed far removed from the “calm, pastoral and seemingly normal landscapes idealized in the North” (2005, 34). Moreover, the South’s ruined plantations, which acted emblematically to suggest the tragic downfall of a once thriving civilization, when combined with images

FROM SECTIONALISM TO SWAMP PEOPLE: CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF SOUTHERN OTHERNESS

57

of rotting “disease-ridden swamps,” summoned a medieval aesthetic that recalled the shattered hopes of the Old South in Gothic terms of ruin and decay (McIntyre 2005, 33). Interpreted within this Gothic framework, the landscapes of the South functioned as a material reminder for the northerner of the moral decadence of the entire region (Wilson 2006, xiii). As Wilson notes, at the time of European settlement the “unthreatening expanse of golden marshes” that comprised the wetlands of New England was easily reconcilable with a pastoral vision, yet the swamps of the South – teeming with alligators, submerged cypress trees, and mysterious dark waters – were cast in forbidding terms (2006, xiv). Partly compounded by attitudes towards its earliest denizens, the Native Americans, and wholly unsuited to any kind of agriculture, the swamp was thus perceived, and consequently promoted as the embodiment of Godlessness, evil, and savagery (Wilson 2006, xv). Thus, the more horrible and foreboding the southern landscapes were in the imagination of the northerner, the more appealing they became as sites that satisfied a broader agenda around the moral and material inferiority of the South. If the travel literature of the late-nineteenth century set the stage for the representation of the South as the symbolic embodiment of degradation and strangeness, it was in film and fiction writing that these ideas were maintained and facilitated in the twentieth century. In H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu, a statuette is discovered in a southern Louisiana swamp which is so horrific it is determined to have an association with rites more diabolic than Voodoo. When police are sent to the swamps to investigate, they find themselves surrounded by ugly roots and “malignant hanging nooses of Spanish Moss” before coming across a spectacle so terrifying it causes one officer to faint (1982, 85). Recalling Dante’s underworld where the damned, splattered with swamp mud, gurgle a hymn about the eternal mire, the police find a “horde of human abnormality” howling and squawking like something from the “gulfs of hell” (1982, 86). The southern swamp is thus established as a fitting site in the story for the seeds of a religion, sown in antiquity, to emerge in early-twentieth-century Louisiana as a terrifying diabolical cult. As a representational space, swamps have proven a rich site of inspiration for fiction writers and filmmakers alike who evoke, in crudely symbolic terms (or in the case of Dante’s Inferno, in literal terms), the underworld as the swamp’s natural equivalent. On screen, the swamp has provided a convenient go-to site for the depiction of terror and the nightmarish with its colonnades of ancient Cypress trees and strange unfamiliar sounds making it an apt milieu for natural and supernatural horrors to emerge. As

58 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Southern Comfort. Director: Walter Hill. Year: 1981. © Columbia/EMI/Warner /Album. Album / Alamy Stock Photo

Wilson says, in the 1930s and 1940s, while Hollywood was busy sanitizing the plantation South for popular consumption, it was also developing the idea of the southern swamp as a breeding ground for all manner of horror (Wilson 2006, 164). Starting in the 1930s and continuing into the heyday of B movie production, plots revolving around swamp monsters (Attack of the Giant Leeches [Bernard Kowalski 1959], Curse of the Swamp Creature [Larry Buchanan 1966]), criminals escaping into hellish swamps (I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang [Mervyn LeRoy 1932], Swamp Women [Roger Corman 1956]), and heroes forced to battle serpents and alligators in horrific swamp environments (Swamp Fire [William Pine 1946], Swamp Country [Robert Patrick 1966]), filmmakers depicted the “swamp-ridden South” as its own particular ferocious and inhospitable hell (Wilson 2006, 165). The swamp’s vilif ication was further perpetuated through its association with the Cajun people who f irst settled the wetlands in the mid-eighteenth century. In popular films such as Southern Comfort (Walter Hill 1981), and The Waterboy (Frank Coraci 1998) the swamps are depicted as a kind of “anti-Eden” (Herbert-Leiter 2011, 188) while the Cajun people who inhabit them are depicted as “strange, dangerous creatures” existing in an othered relationship with contemporary American culture (Hebert-Leiter 2011, 192).

FROM SECTIONALISM TO SWAMP PEOPLE: CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF SOUTHERN OTHERNESS

59

The preservation of such negative tropes associated with the South has been propagated, almost as vigorously, from within the South through a tendency in southern fiction to depict the distorted, the degenerate, and the psychologically or physically deficient as everyday realities. In the novels of William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams, southerners are typically portrayed as violent, intolerant, racist, or simple-minded rednecks (Cobb 2005, 327). Flannery O’Connor herself has acknowledged that southern authors gravitate towards situating the South in an othered relationship to the North. She has claimed that this is due to fact that the southern writer brings to life experiences that most people are “not accustomed to observe every day” (1984, 40). These experiences, O’Connor suggests, manifest in wild, violent, and grotesque events that combine conceptual discrepancies (1984,43) and bring “maimed souls to life” (1984, 42). The implication here is that the southern condition is ideally suited to twisted and distorted imagery, which sees southern otherness consequently sustained, in large part, by the techniques of southern story telling itself. This is a tendency equally evident in texts far removed from the literary arena that are indicative of an expanding fascination with “redneck behaviour” as spectacle entertainment (Leiter 2011, 3). Small-screen forays, for example, into southern reality television such as Swamp People (2010–2015), Rat Bastards (2012–2015), Call of the Wild Man (2011–2014), and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (2012–2014) share representational affinities with southern fiction in the sense that they disseminate an internalized otherness which functions to set the South and southerners apart from national discourses of progress and advancement. In Swamp People and Rat Bastards, the swamp is spectacularly stereotyped as a place so mysterious it borders on the supernatural while the Cajun people are shown to live a crude and backwards existence with the swamp’s aberrant qualities constructed as inextricably linked to the aberrations of the Cajun lifestyle. In Call of the Wild Man, Kentucky animal trapper Ernie “the Turtleman” Brown earns an income by rescuing Snapping Turtles for the purposes of relocation. Portrayed as living largely as a recluse, shunning modern conveniences, and being generally proud of his lack of education, the Turtleman is frequently filmed bathing outdoors in makeshift tubs, inventing ways to fix problems using his “hillbilly ingenuity,” or dancing while his sidekick Neal plays the banjo. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo similarly capitalizes on the uneducated redneck trope in a series that revolves around a family from McIntyre, Georgia whose ignorance is exploited for entertainment. The family, consisting of sisters Honey Boo Boo, Chubbs, Chickadee, and Pumpkin, and parents Mama June and Sugar Bear, lays bare

60 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

“Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” Alana (Honey Boo Boo) covered in mud from the Summer Redneck Games. © PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

its most intimate problems for the cameras. Episodes focus, for instance, on the weight problems of many of the family members (even as the series revels in scene after scene of junk food consumption with Honey Boo Boo’s addiction to cheese balls functioning as a running joke across multiple seasons), sexual disfunction including but not exclusive to Mama June’s waning libido, and the family’s response to such highly anticipated events as the Redneck Olympics where contestants bob for pig’s feet and compete in the mud pit belly flop. Presented as glimpses into worlds characterized by their difference from mainstream America, the images and characters in these popular series are encoded as Other through a process that is as much a construction of representation as it is a commodification of otherness propagated, not only by the program producers, but by the participants in the programs themselves. A pronouncement, for example, by alligator trapper Willie from Swamp People that he “can’t read much or nothin’ and can’t spell” but knows all he needs to know to make a living on the bayou, or Ernie the Turtleman’s self-proclaimed hillbilly sensibility suggest that the characteristics embodied in the image of the archetypal simpleminded southern redneck, are, to some extent, bankable representations of southern otherness rendered authentic via a process of tacit endorsement.

FROM SECTIONALISM TO SWAMP PEOPLE: CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF SOUTHERN OTHERNESS

61

If the othering of the South has served a northern ideological agenda that sees the South’s resistance to northern principles as a justification for the North’s disavowal of the South, then the idea that the South is complicit in its othering is slightly puzzling. What function could the othering of the South by southerners serve in the construction of a favourable cultural identity? How do images of brutal, uneducated, or simple-minded southerners resist the North’s dismissal of the South as a place at odds with the tenets of wider American values? According to Deborah Barker and Kathryn McKee, for America to maintain a national narrative based around such principles as progress and limitless opportunity, it is obliged to forget both the regional and ethnic differences (such as Cajuns, rednecks, and hillbillies) that disrupt that narrative (2011, 5). David Jansson similarly suggests that the mythic ideas that surround America’s identity, which function to construct it as one that privileges progress, the sharing of equal rights, and the striving upward to greater power and prosperity, are ideas that are most valued in the national discourse (2003, 268). However, the cultural values espoused by Swamp People’s Willie in his dismissal of literacy as a necessity on the bayou, Ernie “the Turtleman” Brown’s flaunting of his missing front teeth as he proclaims himself the “poorest famous guy around,” or Honey Boo Boo’s constant hollering about how she’s running out of cheese balls, make visible the elements that disturb the national narrative because they are stark reminders that southern values may, in fact, adhere to un-American frameworks. In other words, these images are antithetical to national discourses of progress, equality, and limitless opportunity. As Jansson’s distinction (discussed in chapter 1) between the geographic ideas “America” and “the South” show, the extent to which the conflation of “national” with “northern” is a factor in the way the South is conceptualized since the traditional tendency is to understand American culture as only that which occurs above the Mason-Dixon line (2003, 295). Thus, conceptions of “national” narrative, or “American” identity can be understood as “northern” notions of narrative and identity. Within the broader framework of southern identity and the North-South divide, therefore, the othering of the South by the South can be seen in terms of the South’s challenge to, and disruption of both the national narrative and the national identity fuelled whether consciously or not, by efforts to retain some vestiges of southern distinctiveness in the face of totalizing national discourses. This occurs equally in texts that Other the South through appeals to the “sunny South” whereby contemporary images and icons are drawn from a mythic southern past, fashioned into new emblems of mediated southern-ness. This can be seen quite distinctly in the film Steel Magnolias

62 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

(Herbert Ross 1989), for example, which depicts the fictional southern town of Chinquapin as an idyllic place of rolling green landscapes, underwritten by a nostalgia that has its roots in old southern customs and traditions (McPherson 2003, 166). Within this space, regional stereotypes and eccentric behaviours are presented as manifestations of southern-ness rendered specifically in terms of their departure from national or northern values. As McPherson notes, the film’s delineation of southern-ness derives, in part, from a strong focus on place to paint a sentimental portrait of southern life (2003, 166). In the film’s opening scene, the camera follows Annelle through tree-lined streets and shaded lanes that recall the oak-draped paths of plantation tourism. Through the dappled light, “we embark on a loving tour of small-town life. The settings are lush and idyllic, including lovely flowers, polite mail carriers, and big, beautiful houses with broad green lawns” underwriting a sense of both nostalgia and stability as markers of a unique southern-ness” (McIntyre 2003, 166–167). Steel Magnolias thus participates in a process that superimposes exoticism on the fictional southern spaces by representing those spaces as rooted in traditions that mark the South as different. This difference predominantly resides in a narrative that welds southern-ness to authenticity, and valorizes stereotypes intended (presumably) as faithful representations of white southern femininity. Thematically similar to Steel Magnolias, the television series Hart of Dixie (2011–2015) also draws on the alleged authenticity of the South to present the small fictional town of Bluebell, Alabama as a space of old-fashioned values and principles projected through the lens of southern eccentricity. The series’ fish-out-of-water narrative situates New York doctor Zoe Hart within a South whose customs and values are incomprehensible to the northerner. Encoding the South as Other through Zoe’s outsider perspective that sees characters and events attributed with an intrinsic strangeness, Bluebell is rendered as exotic, Brian Lowry has noted, “as the dark side of the moon” (2011, 8). The series offers up spectacles of promenading modern-day southern belles, sprawling plantation mansions, and seemingly endless town parades, while demonstrating a firm adherence to the values of the southern past. This places the South, in Hart of Dixie, in an othered relationship to Zoe’s native New York (a metonymic device to indicate the North more generally) through its positioning of Bluebell as a kind of time capsule fundamentally at odds with broader national discourses of progression or advancement. As Jansson points out, when difference is perpetuated through such things as regional stereotypes, a discursive space is produced that facilitates othering (2005, 268). In separating the imagined space of “the South” – whether

FROM SECTIONALISM TO SWAMP PEOPLE: CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF SOUTHERN OTHERNESS

63

via regional stereotypes, eccentric behaviours, or otherwise – from that of “America,” the South becomes inscribed as “different” within the nation-state, and as a result, is construed as Other (Jansson 2005, 268). This othering of the South, moreover, is as much a feature of the South’s positioning as “benighted” as it is of its positioning as “sunny.” The normalizing discourses around American values, politics, culture, and history that are arguably based primarily on the wants and needs of the North, has seen southern otherness emerge as a counter narrative that, while highly problematic, is indicative of the fierceness with which the South holds onto its sense of identity and difference. In mediated constructions of the South, symbols of otherness such as regression, aberrance, abnormality, exoticism, innocence, and distortion all serve to intensify the gap between “American” and “southern.” This sees the South functioning, on the one hand, as the representative for a multitude of national wrongs, while on the other, it functions as a consistently reliable commodity through the deliberate and calculated co-opting of southern otherness. As Honey Boo Boo herself proclaims in a blatant example of self-identification, no doubt insisted upon by the adults controlling her image but nonetheless typical of the commodification of southern otherness, “you better redneckognize” (extratv 2012), and in this simple neologism, the South as Other is reinforced as a legitimate, conspicuous, and persistent cultural construct.

Works Cited Barker, Deborah and Kathryn McKee. American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011. Cobb, James C. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Leiter, Andrew. Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Herbert-Leiter, Maria. “Reel Horror: Louisiana’s Vanishing Wetlands and the Threat of Hollywood.” In Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. Edited by Andrew Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Jansson, David. “Internal Orientalism in America: W. J. Cash’s The Mind of the South and the Spatial Construction of American National Identity.” Political Geography 22 (3):293–316, 2003. Jansson, David. “‘A Geography of Racism’: Internal Orientalism and the Construction of American National Identity in the film Mississippi Burning.” National Identities 7 (3):265–285, 2005.

64 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

King, Edward. The Great South. Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1875. Lovecraft, H. P. “The Call of Cthulhu.” In The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre. New York: Ballantine, 1982. Lowry, Brian. “Hart of Dixie.” Variety. September: 8, 2011. McIntyre, Rebecca. “Promoting the Gothic South.” Southern Cultures 11 (2):33–61, 2005. McIntyre, Rebecca. Souvenirs of the Old South: Northern Tourism and Southern Mythology. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011. McPherson, Tara. Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. O’Connor, Flannery. Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald, Mystery and Manners. London: Faber and Faber, 1984. Wilson, Anthony. Shadows and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture. Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 2006.

Filmography Attack of the Giant Leeches. Bernard L. Kowalski. United States: American International Pictures, 1959. Curse of the Swamp Creature. Larry Buchanan. United States: American International Television; MGM, 1966. I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Mervyn LeRoy. United States: Warner Bros, 1932. Southern Comfort. Walter Hill. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1981. Steel Magnolias. Herbert Ross. United States: TriStar Pictures, 1989. Swamp Women. Roger Corman. United States, 1956. Swamp Fire. William Pine. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1946. Swamp Country. Robert Patrick. United States, 1966. The Waterboy. Frank Coraci. United States: Buena Vista Pictures, 1998.

Television Series Call of the Wildman. United States: Animal Planet, 2011–2014. Hart of Dixie. United States: CBS Television, Warner Bros Television, 2011–2015. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. United States: TLC, 2012–2107. Murder in the Bayou. Matthew Galkin. United States: Showtime, 2019. Rat Bastards. United States: American Chainsaws, 2012.

FROM SECTIONALISM TO SWAMP PEOPLE: CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF SOUTHERN OTHERNESS

65

Swamp People. United States: History Channel, 2010–Present. Tiger King. Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin. United States: Netflix, 2020. True Detective. Nic Pizzolatto. United States: Warner Bros. Television Distribution, 2014–2019.

YouTube Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Chile: You Better Redneckognize. extratv. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=FQOvRVo4ZQE, 2012. Accessed May 25, 2021.

3.

Ghosts Fierce and Instructive: The South as Haunted Terrain Abstract Southern author Flannery O’Connor once noted that the shadows cast by ghosts of the South are both “fierce and instructive” (1984, 45). In this chapter the South will be explored in the context of its construction as haunted geographical and cultural terrain, beleaguered by its history of slavery, civil war, and the subsequent dismantling of the myths of the Old South. As an incessant and long-standing affliction, this spectrality has been understood as having manifested most markedly in fictional contexts where it is seen as an expression of the anxieties and insecurities around the inescapability of historical inheritance. Keywords: Haunting, Modernity, Industrialization, The Civil War, The Difficult Return, Nostalgia

Myth, as Barthes asserts, is not constructed to deny things, but on the contrary, its function is “to talk about them” albeit in ways that turn reality inside out (1972, 142). Such concepts as the “sunny South,” and “southern hospitality” indeed talk about the South, but only by reorganizing the South into a nostalgic site of myth expunged of its troubling history. In the late-nineteenth century, as industrialization and urbanization became established across the northern states of the U. S, and the rise of mass consumerism and mass culture led to cultural anxieties about encroaching modernity, many Americans felt an antipathy towards the modern world and longed for a return to the pastoral ideal (Cox 2011, 1). While this seemed elusive in the context of rapid progress and development in the North, the dream of a simple life still seemed possible in the South (Cox 2011, 3). A renewed discourse about the South, one that “talked” about the South in a way that employed the “moonlight and magnolias”1 image, thus emerged 1 According to Earl Bargainnier the phrase “moonlight and magnolias” has two distinct but related meanings. It is most commonly used as a derogatory epithet for excessive manifestations

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch03

68 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

as a sentimental pining for the past. Consequently, this backward-looking pastoralism was exploited within the rising marketplace of consumer goods, with advertisers linking their products – everything from Aunt Jemima’s pancake flour to Avon fragrances inspired by the femininity of the southern belle – to idyllic images of the antebellum South (2011, 4; 54). As Karen Cox says, these icons of southern nostalgia, [G]ave national advertising agencies a treasure trove of stories and characters and an identity with which to sell products, and as advertising became more sophisticated so too did the imagery. The mammy, the southern belle, the bearded and mustachioed southern colonel, the male house servant or “uncle” figure, the “pickaninny,” the opulent southern plantation, and even that hard-to-define quality known as “southern hospitality,” all appeared in national advertising for products ranging from flour and coffee to cleaning supplies and liquor. (2011, 36).

If southern hospitality is hard to define, it has always been easy to sell. As Szczesiul points out, southern hospitality, which began as a set of antebellum planters’ social practices in a slave economy, has functioned as “free-floating nostalgic image, an effective commercial concept, and a consumer commodity” (2017, 8). It has stood as a symbol of regional pride and southern exceptionalism successfully deployed for over two centuries to promote a range of lifestyles based on the notion of the distinctive southern identity (Szczesiul 2017, 177). Yet it conveys a reverence and nostalgia for a time when the South’s ideological positioning in North South tensions compelled the South to define itself as a distinct and separate culture, becoming a form of shorthand for a host of attributes of “southern culture” not least of which was its racialized cultural hierarchy (Szczesiul 2017, 12). As Cox notes, underpinning much of the imagery around southern hospitality and the pastoral idyll, was a larger historical and cultural association of black people with servitude. This is especially true of the image of the mammy. Acting as a symbol of “Dixie” – a concept synonymous with the Old South – the mammy became a southern stereotype representing a master/servant relationship of a bygone era, and well into the mid-twentieth century was still functioning to convey a sense of leisure and relaxation associated with of plantation fiction where it is a term of derision. The other less pejorative meaning of the phrase refers to the myth of an antebellum golden age (1989, 1136). In Gone with the Wind (1939) Rhett Butler admonishes Scarlett for appealing to imagery associated with a pre-Civil War South, or in other words, to the notion of a romantic Old South.

Ghosts Fierce and Instruc tive: The South as Haunted Terr ain

69

notions of loyal African American employees willingly serving their white employers (Cox 2011, 39). Since the time of reconstruction, such images have indelibly inscribed the South as a space of leisure, nostalgia, hospitality, romance, and the uncomplicated rural life (Cox 2011, 37). While these images did not survive completely intact into the late-twentieth century, with the release in 1990 of Ken Burns’ impressively researched and spectacularly popular series2 The Civil War, came a revitalization of certain discursive practices that tapped into this Old South sentiment in some problematic ways. As McPherson has noted, while The Civil War takes a sober approach to historic events and adds to an important revisionist project in terms of the position of slavery in the period before and during the war (2003, 116), it nevertheless evokes a nostalgia that seems to be cut loose, in many ways, from reality (2003, 118). The series is marked by longing and despair, which shapes the Old South in terms of loss, and functions to distance the narrative from the racial inequality over which the war was predominantly fought (McPherson, 2003, 117). According to McPherson, Burns populates the empty spaces of history with a seemingly endless parade of faces, smoke, and fallen soldiers, but the effect is to freeze these locations in the service of nostalgia. More specifically, the visual deployment of actual spaces or landscapes overdetermines their possible valences of meaning vis-à-vis a narrative of loss and despair. (2003, 117)

The view of the South that The Civil War shapes is of a past South, a lost South (McPherson 2003, 117) structured by an overwhelming sense of melancholy for which the series offers no alternative voice. Additionally, the series paints military figures such as Robert E. Lee as a man with a tender heart (despite the 250 slaves he owned), to facilitate a nostalgic longing for the graciousness of the southern gentleman from days gone by (McPherson 20013, 119). As Gillian Brockell writes in The Washington Post, Burns’ reliance on Shelby Foote to provide details of the war, drips with Lost Cause rhetoric: Stonewall Jackson looks out over a battlefield eating a peach; a lonely Confederate soldier has a conversation with an owl; a slave trader 2 The New York Times reported in September 1990 that The Civil War attracted more viewers for the opening episode than had been recorded in public television history, with Neilson reports showing that in many U.S cities The Civil War had more viewers than programs airing on NBC, ABC, and Fox in that time slot (Carter 1990). The series overall was watched by one in six Americans alive at the time, including President George H.W. Bush (Brockell 2020).

70 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

and Ku Klux Klan member is “born to be a soldier the way John Keats was born to be a poet” (Brockell September 26, 2020). Similarly, as Keri Leigh Merritt observes in the Smithsonian Magazine, the series downplayed slavery, instead concentrating on valiant soldiers, hard-fought battles, and heart-wrenching tales of romantic love and loss (April 23, 2019). Overall, the rhetoric of The Civil War is not vastly different to the rhetoric that structures the southern pastoral narratives of nineteenth-century tourist literature and early-twentieth-century advertisements. By framing southern history through the lens of sentiment and longing, Burns’ series obscures the realities of slavery with images of silhouetted canons, faded photos of dead soldiers, and the mournful strains of the Ashokan Farewell3 to punctuate scenes with the resonances of war refashioned as melancholic defeat. As McPherson observes, we (the audience) are moved by a precise strain of nostalgia that is mired in loss, a “loss that is, but should not be, separated from the end of slavery” (2013, 124).

Eerie Silences and Acoustic Shadows While such contradictions inherent in the narrative of Burns’ documentary position certain aspects of the series as emptied of history in the Barthesian sense, this emptying is offset, to some degree, by the way in which The Civil War evokes an image of the South as a haunted site. In Episode Five: “The Universe of Battle,” the narrator refers to a strange phenomenon whereby, from only a few miles away, and despite the flashes and smoke of canons, some battles made no sound. The narrator’s description of these “eerie silences,” a phenomenon that journalists at the time referred to as “acoustic shadows,” is indicative of the way the series is underwritten with a spectrality that allows it to be understood in terms of what Jansson refers to as “the difficult return” (2007, 410). In the practice of remembering, the difficult return is the impulse to confront the “unworked-through” past in an attempt to meet the challenge of what it means, not to live in the past, but in relation with the past (Jansson 2007, 410). Imbuing southern spaces with the ghostly reverberations of battle, Burns’ documentary employs certain formal and narrative techniques to “remember” the “unworked-through” past, thus 3 Despite assumptions about its historical origins as a Civil War-era southern waltz, Ashokan Farewell was written in 1982 by Jay Unger as the closing song for a summer arts school at the Ashokan Center in the Catskill mountains of Upstate New York. Unger composed the song in the style of a Scottish lament (Garber, 2015).

Ghosts Fierce and Instruc tive: The South as Haunted Terr ain

71

emphasizing the past’s haunting effect on the present. In scenes where newly shot images of empty landscapes are juxtaposed with war-time images of the same sites, The Civil War shows a modern-day South haunted by historical burden. Viewing the South’s past as a burden is therefore a way of recognizing the past’s claim on the present, and it is through this act of turning attention to the past that the past plays a role in the process of the “difficult return” (Jansson 2007, 410) since it allows history to be addressed through the shedding of light on issues that reside in the national closet (Jansson 2007, 418). While in Barthesian terms Burns’ series might “talk about” the Civil War in a way that “empties” it of history, its amnesiac engagement with the past is usefully overturned, to some extent, by its employment of the difficult return as a mode of address that aestheticizes haunting, therefore going some way towards restoring reality to myth. As Barry Curtis points out, the invocation of haunted-ness functions to restore attention to something – the idea of “ghostliness” suggesting the symbolic point at which the past and the present converge (2009, 24). The concept of haunting can thus be understood as particularly relevant to southern culture broadly since many historical markers of southern-ness – slavery, the destruction of the Old South, racial inequality – position southern history in terms of its reverberations in the contemporary South. As Woodward notes, if the South is indeed haunted, the source of this haunting is a tortured conscience that has seen the South participate in the American rhetoric of self-admiration and the perfection of American institutions, while living for half the time since the Declaration of Independence with slavery and the other half with its aftermath (2008, 20). Moreover, the age-long experiment with human bondage and the subsequent, often violent responses to emancipation, have ensured tragedy and violence are inextricable parts of the southern heritage (Woodward 2008, 21). While the American national mythology has focused heavily on America’s innocence, the South’s focus, by comparison, has been predominantly on its guilt (Woodward 2008, 21). This guilt has ensured that the South has remained basically pessimistic in its outlook, ultimately unable to convince itself that its “peculiar evil” was anything but catastrophic and thoroughly un-American (Woodward 2008, 21). Guilt, in Woodward’s terms, can thus be conceptualized as an inheritance conferred by history that haunts the South through a disruption of the American narratives of optimism and triumphalism (Goddu 1997, 18). As Goddu argues, these contradictions that haunt America’s self-image are the scourge that undermines the notion of American exceptionalism since they render America decadent, tyrannical, and oppressive (1997, 18). This

72 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

alternative cultural narrative situates American history as tainted, and in an attempt to ameliorate this image America has adopted a national discourse that positions the South as the embodiment of all the irrational impulses from which the nation wants to divorce itself (Goddu 1997, 4). The South thus becomes the Other – the repository for all the sins of the nation’s past (Goddu 1997, 76), or has Cobb has observed, an aberrant space that poses a serious threat to America’s loftiest ideals and aspirations (2005, 2), and it is through this process that ghostliness and haunting functio as a staple of representations of the region.

The Dead and the Un-Dead: Bringing the Past to Life The construct of the haunted South is thus a response to way the South resonates with the history and legacy of slavery (Schroeder 2016, 421). In the nineteenth century Charles W. Chesnutt’s wrote Southern Gothic folk tales that played in the gaps between the real and the supernatural, with ghosts appearing and disappearing to remind the reader of the past’s hold over the present. In the story, “Hot-Foot Hannibal,” for example, the ghost of a slave appears at the edge of a swamp and frightens the horses when a carriage full of white people passes through the site. The story destabilizes and blurs the spaces between the living and the dead and demonstrates the way in which the ghost functions as a reminder of what has been forgotten. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Ellen Douglas’s Truth (1998), haunting is imagined as the remnants of racial relations from the past that manifest in the present (Yaeger 2005, 105). In Beloved, the spirit of a dead baby haunts a family who have escaped slavery, the ghost reigniting remembrance in way that it addresses the “unworked through” past. In Ellen Douglas’s collection of family stories, Truth, Douglas uncovers the secrets of her forebears in relation to their oppression, mistreatment, and murder of slaves. This evokes Erica Moore’s claim that the memoir is a type of Gothic haunting due to the way the memoirist’s words creep silently onto the page to reveal a recently unearthed, now un-dead script (2016, 169). Understood in O’Connor’s terms, the ghosts of Morrison and Douglas are instructive insofar as they register the harm inflicted, or the loss sustained by social wrongs done in the past (Gordon 2011, 2). Such southern hauntings are tied up with the difficult return, or in other words, the bringing forth of what might have been previously buried, unseen, or relegated to history. According to Avery Gordon, haunting refers to what is hidden from view: people, places, history, knowledge, memories, ways of life, and ideas (2011, 3). It can describe those

Ghosts Fierce and Instruc tive: The South as Haunted Terr ain

73

instances when home becomes unfamiliar, when one’s bearings on the world lose direction, when the “over-and-done-with” comes alive, and when what has been in the blind field comes into view (Gordon 2011, 2). The haunted South can be understood in relation, not only to explicit narratives of slavery and racial oppression, but also to adjacent concepts that trouble the South such as social decay, racial violence, and the notion of a South whose history of loss taints the present. In crime novelist James Lee Burke’s In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (1993), the “over-anddone-with” comes into view in a narrative that posits a parallel between the degradations of the South during the Civil War and the present-day South in which corruption and deterioration have made their marks in southern society. Detective Dave Robicheaux, investigating a race crime from the past after the corpse of an African American convict is found in the swamp, is confronted by visions of Confederate soldiers in the wetlands of southern Louisiana and struggles to make sense of the ghosts who appear as bloodied and desperate men facing imminent death and defeat. Unsure whether the ghosts are real – in the sense of being embodied manifestations of once living soldiers – or imagined – as the result of his tenuous grip on reality – Robicheaux obsessively scrutinizes the swamps in an attempt to reconcile the violence of past with the seemingly haunted and haunting present. The South as “tainted” terrain, a construct that has seen Chesnutt, Morrison, Douglas, and Burke turning to the South’s past to ground their fiction within narratives of haunting, has, for both Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris acted as a mode by which the South can be rendered in terms of vampirism, fantasy, and the supernatural (Cavallaro 2002, 36). The vampires in the fiction of both Rice and Harris can be understood as the embodiment of the concept of the past in the present insofar as vampires act as material reminders of the difficult return. Immortality, as it is understood in the context of vampirism, denies forgetfulness since in securing sentience the vampire retains memories from which it can never escape. Embedded within a system of forced remembrance conferred by immortality, the vampire is therefore a symbol of the inescapability of history since it disallows the forgotten narrative, reinforcing instead the idea that the phantoms of the past are always present, in the present. As Ken Gelder argues, slavery and racism exist in the United States “as a sort of undead thing,” a concept that plays out in the work of both Rice and Harris whose vampires are framed around themes and iconography associated with slavery, plantations, the Civil war, and race (2016, 406). The vampire’s embodiment of the inescapability of the past constitutes a thematic engagement with southern history that structures, perhaps most

74 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

explicitly, the character of Vampire Bill from HBO’s True Blood (2008–2014). Adapted from Charlaine Harris’s series of books collectively titled The Southern Vampire Mysteries (2001–2013), True Blood posits a world in which vampires co-exist with the living and includes a plot point in the first season involving Bill’s return to his family home in Louisiana. Turned into a vampire while fighting on the side of South in the Civil War, Bill comes to realize, from the vantage point of the twenty first century, that the war was far from glorious. Upon his return to the house where he resided as a human in the mid-nineteenth century, Bill is struck by the inherent problems with his old beliefs about the cause of the war, yet his need to stay in the house during daylight hours affords him no real escape from his former self. Forced, therefore, to live with his prejudices, the old house is rendered an emblematic and material embodiment of the difficult return. Aware that he needs to seek atonement for his former Confederate sympathies, Vampire Bill is thus infused with the quality of forced remembrance, his guilt alleviated only by his inclusive stance towards a diversity of races and species.

“We ain’t all Baptists down here Sonny”: Voodoo as Active Remembrance As a screen text that revels in the tropes of the Southern Gothic: the legacy of slavery, the past in the present, the ruined plantation or abandoned house, 4 the mysterious swamp, and the ever-present Spanish moss, True Blood encapsulates the qualities that make the Southern Gothic not only aesthetically alluring but thematically relevant due to the way it reactivates the past through the shedding of light on the South’s occluded history. The 2005 film The Skeleton Key is similarly preoccupied with “uncovering” history in its specific address to the cultural anxieties that underpin America’s past. Unfolding within an old Louisiana plantation house, the film centres around the bodily possession of white plantation owners by two deceased African American house servants, Cecile and Justify, who use Voodoo5 4 While the abandoned house is in no way exclusively a southern phenomenon, it lends itself to Southern Gothicity in the way it evokes faded beauty, lost lives, and a sense of the South as a space of ruin. Members of the Facebook group “Abandoned Louisiana” (https://www.facebook. com/search/top?q=abandoned%20louisiana) have embraced this aesthetic through user-based photo uploads that capture the decay, ruin, and gloominess of abandoned places all over the state of Louisiana. 5 Much of the analysis around pan-African spiritualism rightly insists on examining the culturally specific uses of terms such as Hoodoo, Conjure, Vodun, Vodoun, Santeria, Shango, and

Ghosts Fierce and Instruc tive: The South as Haunted Terr ain

75

to possess consecutive owners of the house. The film situates the South’s racial history as always present due to the way in which possession welds the past and present together in a contemporaneous relationship. As Jessica Balanzategui suggests, if the Gothic is generally preoccupied with the “unsettled slip-zones between histories, presents, and futures,” the Southern Gothic places the spectres of slavery firmly in the present through the inescapability of the American past (2019, 94). The Skeleton Key’s “ghosts,” do not haunt in the sense that they lurk in the shadows of the old house as spirits from a forgotten time, but rather, they take possession of the house and its multi-generational occupants in an always-in-the-present act of revenge against their oppressors. The Skeleton Key thus demonstrates the extent to which the ghost, as Avery Gordon suggests, is not necessarily simply a dead person, but rather, a social figure – a form by which something lost, barely visible, or seemingly not there, makes itself known, and in doing so becomes a “seething presence” meddling with taken-for-granted realities (2008, 8). The bodily possession implemented by Cecile and Justify can thus be read as a political act of “meddling” that strikes unavoidable comparisons between the “taking” of the bodies of the white occupants of the house and the physical “taking” of African people from their homelands for the purposes of slavery. As Balanzategui observes, the revelation that Cecile and Justify live on through the bodies of white people not only subverts white and black relationships that structure racial hierarchies in the South, both past and present, but by extension the broader relationship between the present of the American South and its history (2019, 100). Similarly driven by a plot around bodily possession, the 1987 film Angel Heart employs haunting in such a way that it articulates xenophobic fears of Voodoo and African spiritual beliefs, even as it seems to bypass specific references to slavery. Voodoo’s significance in the film is interesting insofar as the “haunting” of the protagonist Harry Angel by the soul of a dead crooner Johnny Favorite emerges from a partnership between African religious practices and Eurocentric Christian beliefs. The story revolves around an attempt to reverse a Faustian bargain using Voodoo to facilitate a “body swap” enabling Johnny Favorite to renege on a deal with the devil by adopting a whole new persona. The details of the body swap are shown via flashback sequences to 1943, with the film’s primary action taking place Candomble, which in the context of ethnographic investigation is crucial to an understanding of diasporic identity. For the purposes of this discussion, however, “Voodoo” is sufficient as a generic signifier that operates across popular screen texts to denote a multiplicity of associated religious beliefs and practices.

76 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

in 1950s New Orleans when Harry is hired by the enigmatic Lou Cypher to track down Johnny as part of a “missing persons” case, eventually leading Harry to the truth that he is the person Cypher is looking for. The film speaks to certain tensions around the suppression and delegitimization of black religions, while signifying a cultural and historical agenda that problematically demonizes, both literally and figuratively, pan-African religion. As Albert Raboteau points out, from the beginning of the slave trade, white guilt over the inherent cruelty of slavery was assuaged through an emphasis on converting slaves to Christianity to “help” them avoid the situation where they would likely “die as pagans” (2004, 96). Although the slave owners’ control over the slaves was the desired end-result of forced conversion, African spiritual beliefs nevertheless persisted on American soil to become interpreted, in the white Christian imagination, as a form of black magic (Osbey 2011, 6). Voodoo was thus deemed “devil worship” (although there is no devil in African religion), an analysis informed almost exclusively by racialized notions of the Other (Khair 2009, 45). Angel Heart therefore gestures implicitly towards slavery in the sense that Harry’s search for Johnny exposes anxieties around the importation of “black” religions to America – scenes of Voodoo ceremonies and the sudden appearance of a mojo hand are used to confirm its malevolence – while simultaneously positioning Voodoo as form of resistance to white Christianity in its employment as a method of challenging the devil, Hell, and notions of eternal damnation. As black musician Toots Sweet tells Harry, in a statement thick with the rejection of white religious imperiousness, “we ain’t all Baptists down here sonny.” While Harry is ultimately unable to avoid the inevitable “pay day” where he will relinquish his soul to the devil, Angel Heart’s positioning of Voodoo as an almost indiscernible, but satisfying acknowledgement of African religion sees the film functioning as a text that pushes back, to some extent, against narratives of oppression associated with slavery and its aftermath. As Christopher Lloyd points out, while it might be a cliché to say the South is an inherently Gothic region whose cultural fabric is woven by haunting, traumatic memory, and lingering violence, the fact that the Gothic continues to define the way the way the South is represented demonstrates the power of the Southern Gothic to reactivate and address the South’s history (2016, 79). Southern author William Faulkner once noted (his quote now taking on a regrettably platitudinous dimension due to its predictable application to anything and everything associated with the South) that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past” (1994, 73). The troubling history that haunts the South’s self-image may have been relegated to the shadows, but it is within

Ghosts Fierce and Instruc tive: The South as Haunted Terr ain

77

Angel Heart. Director: Alan Parker. Year: 1987. Stars: Lisa Bonet. USA / Canada / UK. © Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

these shadows that the “never dead” past can be seen with the most clarity. As Barry Curtis observes, haunting is on the side of the overlooked. It demands that understanding and reparations be given their due (2009, 24). Ghosts enter at the most vulnerable and neglected points and represent the anxiety that the past can never be fully subjugated, guilt never fully expunged since they alter the experience of linear time by modifying linearity so that the past and the present are never separated (Gordon, 2011, 2). To haunt, therefore, in the context of the South is to generate remembrance, and it is through remembrance, through journeying into the shadows cast by the “fierce and instructive” ghosts of the South that the southern past proves, paradoxically, to be most effectively illuminated.

Conclusion As a culture that has rejoiced in its uniqueness, a culture, where “southern” has become an identifying idiom that indicates that the South and the southerner is different (Woodward 2008, 5), the South has had to negotiate its difference within a discursive framework that positions it as not only separate from broader national values, but also, as the nation’s Other. Constructed as existing outside of “normal” American culture, the South has

78 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

actively participated in this withdrawal from, and rejection of the cultural values of the North, while in turn, the North has positioned the South in opposition to the national mythology upon which its exulted status depends. In this play of imposed separation and self-conscious differentiation, the South’s otherness has thus been forged. Significantly, this othering can be understood as having occurred in multiple ways. In the image of the “benighted South,” the South is positioned as a place culturally regressive and burdened by the legacies of history. In the image of the “sunny South,” cultural regression and the legacies of history are seen as the defining features of southern regionalism. In whatever way the South’s difference is represented, the processes that have created these images have emanated from attitudes towards the southern past that have seen the past indelibly marked upon the southern present through the positioning of the South as a distinctive cultural and representational space. However, the problems inherent within the construct of southern distinctiveness, particularly those that depend on the nostalgic image of an Old South, have led, in various mediated contexts, to southern narratives that bear the unmistakable traces of occluded voices and spectral fragments. While emanating from a southern past mired in conflict and injustice, these voices and fragments have nevertheless remained vehement in their refusal to be supplanted by sentiment or relegated to another time. The examination in Section One of southern cultural identity, beliefs, values, traditions, and the discursive practices that have worked to affirm specific understandings of the South, is an undertaking that illustrates how these factors not only constitute a cultural and historical context for screen representations of the South, but for other comparable and interrelated forms of southern representation as well. As such, the origins and effects of southern distinctiveness and its role in the shaping of southern regionalism and identity, the role of northern political agendas and oppositional ideology in the construction of southern otherness, and the conceptualization of the South as a space haunted by history, understand the place of the South in the cultural imaginary as inseparable from, and fundamental to the way in which it is represented in a variety of mediated contexts. In Section Two, these ideas will be taken up in relation to the South’s positioning as not only a separate space with a distinct identity, but more specifically, as a space of alterity rendered Gothic through the underpinnings of genre. As Jay Ellis has noted, southern representation has persisted in drawing connections between “genre and region” (2013, xxvii). This connection of the Gothic with southern spaces sees the Gothic functioning as a lens through which southern narratives participate in long established generic

Ghosts Fierce and Instruc tive: The South as Haunted Terr ain

79

discourses of ruin, decay, and dark troubled lineage. At the same time, however, the southern offers the Gothic a chance for generic renewal since it suggests a reinterpretation of Gothic space in which concepts such as haunting, otherness, or the returning past are performances of Gothicity reconfigured within frameworks that create, as much as they are created by, the delineative practice of genre allocation.

Works Cited Balanzategui, Jessica. “The Skeleton Key, the Southern Gothic and the Uncanny Decay of Teleological History.” In Elder Horror: Essays on Film’s Frightening Images of Aging. Edited by Cynthia J. Miller & A. Bowdoin Van. McFarland, 2019. Bargainnier, Earl F. “Moonlight and Magnolias Myth.” Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Random House, 1972. Brockell. Gillian. “Re-watching ‘The Civil War’ during the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd protests.” The Washington Post. September 26, 2020. https://www. washingtonpost.com/history/2020/09/26/ken-burns-civil-war-breonna-taylorgeorge-floyd-shelby-foote/. Accessed April 29, 2021. Burke, James Lee. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. Harper Collins, 1994. Carter, Bill. “Civil War sets an audience record for PBS.” The New York Times. September 25, 1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/25/movies/civil-warsets-an-audience-record-for-pbs.html. Accessed May 14, 2021. Cavallaro, Dani. The Gothic Vision: Three Centuries of Horror, Terror and Fear. London: Continuum, 2002. Chesnutt, Charles Waddell. “Hot-Foot Hannibal.” In: The Conjure Woman. Project Guttenburg. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11666/11666-h/11666-h.htm, 2004. Accessed June 12, 2021. Cobb, James C. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Cox, Karen. Dreaming of Dixie: How the South was Created in Popular Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Curtis, Barry. Dark Places: The Haunted House in Film. London: Reaktion Books, 2009. Douglas, Ellen. Truth: Four Stories I am Finally Old Enough to Tell. United States: Plume, 1999. Ellis, Jay. On Southern Gothic Literature. In Critical insights: Southern Gothic Literature. Edited by Jay Ellis. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2013. Faulkner, William. Requiem for a Nun. New York: Random House, 1994.

80 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Garber, Megan. 2015. “Ashokan Farewell: The story behind the tune Ken Burns made famous.” The Atlantic. September 25, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/ entertainment/archive/2015/09/ashokan-farewell-how-a-20th-century-melodybecame-an-anthem-for-the-19th/407263/. Accessed May 30, 2021. Gelder, Ken. “Southern Vampires: Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris and True Blood.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Edited by Susan Castillo Street & Charles L. Crow. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Goddu, Theresa. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Gordon, Avery. “Some Thoughts on Haunting and Futurity.” Borderlands 10 (2):1‒21, 2011. Harris, Charlaine. The Southern Vampire Mysteries. Ace Books, 2001–2013. Jansson, David. “The Haunting of the South: American Geopolitical Identity and the Burden of Southern History.” Geopolitics 12 (3): 400–425, 2007. Khair, Tabish. The Gothic, Postcolonialism and Otherness: Ghosts from Elsewhere. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Lloyd, Christopher. “Southern Gothic.” In American Gothic Culture: An Edinburgh Companion. Edited by Joel Faflak & Jason Haslam. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. McPherson, Tara. Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Merritt, Keri Leigh. “Why we need a new Civil War documentary.” Smithsonian Magazine. April 23, 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-weneed-new-civil-war-documentary-180971996/. Accessed May 23, 2021. Moore, Erica. “Haunting Memories: Gothic and Memoir.” In Gothic Landscapes. Edited by Sharon Yang & Kathleen Healey. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Random House, 1987. O’Connor, Flannery. Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald, Mystery and Manners. London: Faber and Faber, 1984. Osbey, Brenda Marie. “Why We Can’t Talk to You about Voodoo.” Southern Literary Journal XLIII (2): 1–11, 2011. Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion the “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Schroder, Anne. “Voodoo and Conjure as Gothic Realism.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Edited by Susan Castillo Street; Charles L. Crow. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Szczesiul, Anthony. The Southern Hospitality Myth: Ethics, Politics, Race, and American Memory. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2017.

Ghosts Fierce and Instruc tive: The South as Haunted Terr ain

81

Woodward, C. Van. The Burden of Southern History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Yaeger, Patricia. “Ghosts and Shattered Bodies, or What Does it Mean to Still be Haunted by Southern Literature?” South Central Review 22 (1):87–108, 2005.

Filmography Angel Heart. Alan Parker. 1987. United States: Tri-Star Pictures. The Skeleton Key. Iain Softley. 2005. United States: Universal Pictures.

Television Series The Civil War. Ken Burns. United States: PBS, 1990. True Blood. Alan Ball. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 2008–2014.

Websites “Abandoned Louisiana.” Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/search/ top?q=abandoned%20louisiana. Viewed January 29, 2021.

Section Two Gothic Visions, Southern Stories

4. Crumbling Structures and Contaminated Narratives: Genre and the Gothic Abstract This chapter examines certain Gothic texts such as The Castle of Otranto (Walpole 1764), Frankenstein (Shelley 1818), Dracula (Stoker 1897), and Wuthering Heights (Brontë 1847) within the generic framework that has traditionally determined the parameters of Gothic representation and discusses the extent to which these parameters have been destabilized post-eighteenth century. Critically engaging with conceptualizations of the Gothic as a mutable and unfixed form, the chapter argues that this generic destabilization is not only a consequence of the Gothic’s appearance in more contemporary contexts, but also as a consequence of the Gothic’s emergence in such specific locations as America, or the South. Keywords: Genre, Mode, Imitative Arts, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Law and Counter Law

The Gothic, as a category of representation, tends to evoke a loose assortment of images, themes, and narrative conventions associated with its presence in various textual or cultural contexts. How these conventions, themes, and images are understood is often determined by qualifying terms that designate particular types of Gothic according to their engagement with a number of factors including certain historical periods (such as Victorian Gothic), specific cultural milieus (such as suburban Gothic), or particular national and regional narratives (such as Australian Gothic, Scottish Gothic, Canadian Gothic, New England Gothic, Caribbean Gothic and Maori Gothic).1 In such instances, where the Gothic is adapted to particular 1 There are numerous Gothicized interpretations of national and cultural histories have led to the Gothic’s emergence in an array of regional and national narratives. The Australian

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch04

86 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

environs or eras, its connection to its original form is loosened, with new variations on classical ideas establishing themselves in reinterpreted Gothic landscapes. Such is the case with the American Gothic. In Gothic America, Teresa Goddu notes that inquiries into the defining characteristics of the Gothic become confused when accompanied by the modifier “American” since in an American context the Gothic lacks the self-evident validity and qualifying imagery of its British counterpart (1997, 3). Indeed, the British Gothic, which allegedly emerged in 1764 with the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, drew on themes and imagery far removed from an American setting. Medieval in its iconography, Walpole’s novel was driven by themes of cursed heritage, ancestral haunting, decay, entrapment, and architectural dereliction, providing the foundation for a Gothic style that subsequent works of popular Gothic fiction such as Frankenstein or Dracula faithfully maintained and emulated. Recognisable according to certain tropes and characteristics, the British Gothic’s status as a genre has rested partly on its association with particular authors such as Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, and Matthew Lewis, and partly on its connection to the circumstances of time and place that saw it emerge in a distinct time period and unfold within particular locations and settings. The American Gothic, on the other hand, the assuredness of its location notwithstanding, cannot, as Goddu has claimed, be pinned down to a definable time period, nor can it necessarily be associated with a recognized coterie of authors (1997, 3). In its importation to America the Gothic became unfixed from its traditional signifiers to develop in ways that saw it elude the generic associations of classical Gothic form, while nevertheless referencing several conventions (albeit in transmuted forms) of the traditional Gothic to which it owed its aesthetics and atmospheres (Goddu, 1997: 4). Yet, as unfixed and elusive as the American Gothic may be, the branch of American Gothic we call “Southern Gothic” seems to further unfix the Gothic since it reinterprets the framework through which such texts can be understood Gothic, for example, is a broad category of representation encompassing such regional Gothics as Tasmanian Gothic and outback Gothic, as well as a uniquely Aboriginal Gothic in which the “subversive and transgressive qualities of the European Gothic” are turned against the most notorious Gothic perpetrator, the white invader (Althans 2010, 29). American Gothic, similarly, encompasses multiple regional Gothics, perhaps the most notable being New England Gothic which unites authors as disparate in style as Nathaniel Hawthorne, H.P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King – all of whom have successfully transformed New England’s history and legends into Gothic narratives (Ringel 2014, 139). While these ideas offer great potential for analysis, the aim of this book is to focus solely on-screen representations of the Gothic in the context of the American South.

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

87

(in terms of both production and interpretation) as Gothic. If “American” modifies Gothic, “Southern” similarly modifies American. This presents a challenge, not only to concepts of genre that tend to preoccupy the field of Gothic studies no matter how broad or flexible those concepts might be, it also insists that the framework of classification implied by the regional qualifier “Southern” take into account the specificity of place that determines the Gothic as something other than American, something that can be understood as a category with its own particular conventions. As Goddu has noted, the Gothic is easily destabilized due to the fact that despite its formulaic nature, and despite its easily listed elements and effects – haunted houses, ghosts, villains, gloomy landscapes, madness or terror – the “essence” of the Gothic is extremely mutable (1997, 5). Maggie Kilgour has also suggested that the Gothic is a “shadowy and nebulous” genre as difficult to define as any Gothic ghost since it is a “Frankenstein’s monster,” assembled out of the bits and pieces of other literary forms (1995, 3–4). Engaging with the idea of the Gothic as a “nebulous,” “mutable,” and “unfixed” form, attention will now turn to tracking the Gothic’s emergence in the eighteenth century as a literary style that revelled in the supernatural and the macabre, through to the Romantic and Victorian periods where it laid claim to new urban and rural locations, and finally to the twentieth and twenty first centuries where it has been supplanted, in some ways, as a formal aesthetic yet vigorously reinstalled in other ways in a variety of forms.

Genre Line ‒ Do Not Cross! If the Gothic, as Goddu says, is destabilized and mutable as a site of meaning, then the application of genre as a fixed system of analysis might seem slightly limited as a tool for understanding the way the Gothic has mutated and diverged along its path to present-day Gothic representation. It is therefore necessary at this point to consider the Gothic along (perhaps more flexible) modal rather than generic lines to analyse whether mode is any more forgiving as a framework for understanding the Gothic in its myriad manifestations and permutations. To see any given Gothic text within a generic framework is to see it driven by a larger project of constructing categories as instruments of meaning (Fowler in Sinding 2002, 182) that help clarify the traditions and affinities which inform that text’s operation within wider spheres of representation. It can also be driven by the need to differentiate the Gothic from other “higher” literary forms since its association with the hackneyed, the feminine, and the

88 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

popular has attributed the Gothic with a lack of respectability (Goddu 1997, 5). In more general commercial terms, repetitive patterns, ingredients, and formulae encapsulated by such categorizing concepts as “genre” or “Gothic,” can be understood as being governed by the law of commodity capitalism in the sense that industrial and market concerns are often drivers of such taxonomies (Neale 1999, 23). Whatever the reason for employing genre as a classificatory system, genre allocation is a pursuit that is enacted either retrospectively or prospectively. This is evident when shared characteristics from a given corpus of texts are extracted so that decisions can be made about the admissibility of texts proposed for membership, or alternatively, where a generic corpus is determined preceding a search for items to allocate to it. Either way, it is a matter of constructing an inclusive set or class of objects that can function as a codified system of belonging (Hill 2007, 63–64). Yet as Jacques Derrida has argued, the structures that underpin genre bring to light the problematic nature of limits that are invoked when the word “genre” is uttered (1980, 56). As Derrida says, “as soon as genre announces itself, one must respect a norm, one must not cross a line of demarcation, one must not risk impurity, anomaly, or monstrosity” (1980, 57). In other words, any process that specifies what a given genre is allowed to include or exclude, or what norms are being invoked or imposed, involves a system of rigorous differentiation based on allocating types, kinds, or sorts to one or other of the categories for which they are eligible (Hill 2007, 58). This presupposes formal or structural perspectives that direct certain texts, for example those designated Gothic, toward generic inclusion and categorization while leaving others outside the category to be identified by alternative generic codes when they fail to display conventions typical of the genre. To understand the Gothic as a mode, on the other hand, is to adopt an approach to the Gothic, and by extension the Southern Gothic, that appears to operate within a slightly more expansive system of analysis. Taking up this idea specifically in relation to cinematic texts, David Martin-Jones has noted that the advantage of considering certain types of films in terms of mode allows great potential for understanding the way in which a film might cross the boundaries of an individual genre (2009, 26). Examining a given film’s modal qualities means referring to the elements of expression as stylistic or aesthetic processes that may exist in interactive relationships with other modes as well as with elements of genre (Martin-Jones 2009, 26). As Carol Margaret Davison says, a mode describes a certain aesthetic or form that has exceeded the thematic or formal structures of genre to become mapped onto a variety of texts across a variety of platforms (2009, 17). The Gothic may be just such a mode since it was first referenced and

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

89

constituted as a genre but has since become detached from its generic constraints to collide with a number of styles and forms (Davison 2009, 18). These conceptualizations of the distinction between mode and genre, however, are informed by underlying assumptions around classificatory systems that are themselves contested frameworks of understanding. This necessitates, therefore, an interrogation of some of the limitations around the notions of both genre and mode to establish some guiding principles that help to contextualize the Gothic’s manifestation in the narratives of the South within a flexible, yet practical framework. This can be achieved by engaging with Derrida’s notion of genre, which explains the way notions of limits around the concepts genre and mode both demarcate and simultaneously cause the degeneration of those demarcations, leading to a concept of the Gothic that is as boundary-less as it is contained.

A Collision of Styles and Modes In Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic (1995), Anne Williams states that attempting to define the Gothic is problematic since, as a category, the Gothic has an especially complex status (1995, 18). While any appeal to the literary handbooks may result in definitions that characterize the Gothic according to such things as décor and mood, haunted castles, mysterious heroes or villains, beleaguered heroines, ghosts, terror, “the nostalgic melancholy of ruins,” and “remote times and places,” there are many works that have a “strong Gothic flavour while violating all the handbooks’ criteria” (1995, 14). To complicate matters further, the Gothic has changed in the last two centuries, highlighting the need for a type of analysis that considers the nature of those changes (Williams 1995, 14). For Williams, any thoughtful analysis of the Gothic should challenge approaches that seek to organize, delineate, and define the Gothic within either, “inherited literary concepts,” or those that understand the Gothic in relation to genre (1995, 13). As Williams argues, As long as we think of genre in terms of ‘drawing the line’, of distinguishing things inherently Gothic from things that are not, we will be trapped. Not every castle is Gothic, not every Gothic has a castle. Nor is every portrayal of the supernatural Gothic (consider Paradise Lost), nor are all Gothics concerned with “real” ghosts (consider Ann Radcliffe). (1995, 15)

To construct a model of the Gothic, therefore, that takes into account the narrative and thematic fluctuations of the Gothic, it is necessary to step

90 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

back from the premise that understanding the Gothic is a question of identifying a collection of generic conventions. As Fred Botting has noted, the circulation of Gothic forms and figures over more than two centuries makes defining the Gothic as a homogeneous generic category exceptionally difficult (2005, 9). The changing features and meanings of the Gothic are evidence that the Gothic is more usefully conceptualized as a modal rather than as a generic form of cultural production. As Botting states, the diffusion of Gothic features across a variety of texts and historical periods “distinguishes the Gothic as a hybrid form, incorporating and transforming other literary forms as well as developing and changing its own conventions in relation to newer modes of writing” (2005, 9). It is therefore difficult to define a fixed set of Gothic conventions since the Gothic is a mode that exceeds genre and categories and is restricted neither to a literary school nor to a particular historical period (Botting 2005, 9). “Science fiction, the adventure novel, modernist literature, romantic fiction and popular horror writing” often resonate with Gothic motifs that are transformed according to different cultural anxieties (Botting 2005, 9). Catherine Spooner has similarly noted that to understand the Gothic purely according to its generic function is to preclude the Gothic’s influence on the numerous texts that bear strong Gothic traces, since the Gothic was one of the most “widely used modes” of the twentieth century (2007, 46). Evidence for this can be seen, for example, in the works of William Faulkner whose novels recast Gothic archetypes and themes (such as the Gothic heroine or the familial curse) as twentieth-century American equivalents. Similarly, James Joyce’s Dubliners (1914), with its “oppressive city streets and spoiled priests,” or T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) with its cast of tarot readers and the walking dead simply rework traditional Gothic themes and iconography into more modern contexts. Containing Gothic incidents, episodes, imagery, moments and traces, these texts, cannot conveniently be labelled Gothic in the same way as the novels of Walpole or Shelley, yet the Gothic exists nonetheless as one tool among the many employed in the service of conjuring up terrors (Spooner 2007, 40). Thus, to define the Gothic as a genre with a crucial connection to certain Gothic traditions is to position the Gothic in a narrow relationship with the texts that bear its characteristics. However, to give genre its due, the Gothic can be understood as a genre that has taken on modal characteristics over the course of time. As Davison points out, while the Gothic’s taxonomy of themes and formal elements have been the subject of much dispute and disagreement, the fact that this taxonomy exists is beyond debate (2009, 16–17). In the twenty first century, “rampant, unqualified and broad-based

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

91

definitions” threaten to delegitimize the Gothic via its frequent and effortless application to any event, site or mood that is slightly sombre or disturbing (Davison 2009, 16). Understanding the Gothic’s “generic history” is therefore the key to a “critically responsible and rewarding discussion” of the Gothic that considers the foundational iconographic, thematic, ideological, and technical propensities that have led to the various generic transmutations of the Gothic from its emergence in the eighteenth century through to the present day (Davison 2009, 17). A mode, as Davison notes, can be thought of as something that commences as a genre, yet because genres have a relatively circumscribed existence in space and time, they may pass exhausted into modal form, with their conventions and themes becoming mapped onto other texts (2009, 17–18). This process allows for traditional Gothic iconography and conventions from the eighteenth century to be understood as informing such Romantic era works of literature as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre (Brontë 1847), The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne 1850), Moby Dick (Melville 1851), or Great Expectations (Dickens 1860) according to a taxonomy that advances the Gothic’s relevance while not necessarily containing overtly Gothic themes and aesthetics. While the Gothic is not a discrete form but rather, “a collision of styles and modes” distilled in a variety of forms into a diversity of genres (Davison 2009, 20), incorporating genre into Gothic analysis is important in order that amorphous formulations and catch-all categorizations are avoided, thereby allowing the cultural resonances and resilience of the Gothic to be accurately illuminated (Davison 2009, 20).

Genre and Mode In attempting to understand the relationship (if one exists) between modes and genres, whether that relationship consists in conceptualizing modes as exhausted genres, or even as processes largely divorced from one another in most respects, it is necessary to consider the distinction between genres and modes within the frameworks set out by Gerard Genette, Alistair Fowler, and John Frow respectively. In critical practice, the topic of genre has provoked extensive debate and prompted a multitude of approaches that have contributed to the rich, if highly contested field of genre theory. While genre theory is a vast and complex scholarly landscape, for the purposes of the arguments in this book, genre theory will only be examined as an engagement with genre in the context of its relationship to mode in order that these concepts can be discussed with reference to Gothic representation. In this way, the Gothic and the Southern Gothic can be examined within frameworks that

92 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

have traditionally described Gothicity, allowing the frameworks themselves to be analysed for their usefulness as classifying structures. To this end the perspectives of Genette, Fowler, and Frow will be considered, since they have directly addressed the notion of mode within the broader field of genre studies and have developed ideas around the application of mode specific to its function in classificatory systems. According to Genette, genres and modes are best conceptualized as systems of meaning whose underlying principles are separated by respective structural differences. For Genette, conceptions of mode and genre are largely attributable to Aristotle’s understanding of these functions as they relate to the imitative arts. In Poetics, Aristotle collectively refers to epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and the music for pipe or lyre as “imitation” (1996, 3), by which he means there are certain crafts that can be deemed imitative. According to Aristotle, specific types of imitative arts can be differentiated from each other in three respects: their different medium of imitation, their different objects, or their different modes (1996, 3). In Genette’s understanding of Aristotle’s three categories, Aristotle’s notion of medium, which is concerned with the question “in what?” in the sense of whether expression is in prose or in verse, or in gestures or in words corresponds to what we call “form” and does not, therefore, form part of Aristotle’s system of genres (Genette 1979, 12). Rather, Aristotle’s conception of genre comprises only the aspects “object” and “mode” (Genette 1979, 12). For Aristotle, “object” refers to objects imitated and consists of human beings in action exhibiting certain traits recognizable in relation to the actions of ordinary people, while “mode” refers to the way one may imitate each of the objects and therefore corresponds to the linguistic aspect of representation (Genette 1979, 11), or in other words, the manner of enunciation. Thus, in an Aristotelian model of genre, mode determines the way in which a genre is expressed narratively, therefore locating the essential difference between genres and modes within a framework that sees genres as literary categories and modes as categories that belong to linguistics (Genette 1979, 64). In more precise terms, mode is a non-literary or pre-literary property of language, and genre is a specifically literary realization of an underlying mode (Hill 2007, 59). When an author/poet speaks in his or her own name, or delegates all speech to third person characters, or even alternates between the two in “mixed narration” the author is engaging the “modal” dimension of language, or the formal conditions of possibility governing the structure of historical objects called genres. Genre, on the other hand, is a consequence of the formal conditions and structures of modes that establish such linguistic acts as mixed narration, and it is the mode of mixed narration, according

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

93

to Genette, that at a certain point in history gave rise to the genre of the novel, subsequently spawning sub-genres such as the epistolary novel, the Gothic novel, the detective novel and sub-sub-genres such as the hard-boiled detective novel, the noir novel, the British whodunit and so on (Hill 2007, 59). Genette has laid the foundation for a structuralist understanding of the respective concepts “genre” and “mode” that sees genre essentially in a subordinated relationship to mode. As Hill says, Genette’s approach understands modes as the governing conditions of the particular historical objects called genres, and these conditions determine that while genres operate within modal structures, modes do not operate within generic structures (2007, 60). Alastair Fowler, however, sees this dynamic as essentially reversed. Explaining the relationship genre has to mode with reference to the example of Jane Austen’s Emma (1815), Fowler claims that although genre terms are “notoriously inconsistent” they exhibit at least one regularity: they can always be put in noun form whereas the terms for mode tend to be adjectival (1982, 106). As Fowler notes, in instances where Emma is referred to as a “comic novel,” what is meant is that it is “by mode comic” (1982, 106). Although we might not traditionally categorize Emma according to the generic conventions associated with comedy, we can nevertheless understand Austen’s novel as comic in an adjectival sense (1982, 106). Thus, the term “comic” describes one possible mode within which Austen’s novel operates, and this process is one that works in conjunction with, but outside of generic structures. This notion that mode sits outside of generic categories stresses the conjunctive, yet independent nature of the relationship mode has to genre and suggests that while genre and mode describe classes of things in different ways, modes cannot exist without genres since they are structurally dependent on genres. In other words, modes require an antecedent genre from which they can be extended in order that they can function. The modal qualifier “comic,” conveys no information about the external form of the work since this is not the function of mode (Fowler 1982, 107). Rather, mode relies on the capabilities of genre to imply an external form by which mode is subsequently extracted. This reliance, however, is contingent upon the historical endurance of the genre. Since modes are not historically circumscribed in the way many genres may be, they have achieved a certain level of independence from external embodiments. A genre, even an extinct genre, may have generated many modal transformations (Fowler 1982, 167). Less dependent on an external form than the “fixed” genre, and not limited by a structural carapace, a mode is versatile – it is able to enter into new affiliations (Fowler 1982, 167). John Frow concurs with Fowler’s concept of the adjectival dimension

94 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

of mode, noting that modes can be understood as extensions of certain genres “beyond specific and time-bound formal structures to a broader specification of “tone” (2006, 106). Rather than standing alone, modes may be qualifications or modifications of genres specifying certain thematic features and modalities of speech but not the formal structure through which a text is to be realized (Frow 2006, 106). Modes start their lives as genres but over time take on a more general force which becomes detached from generic structures (Frow 2006, 106). Like Genette, Frow sees genres as historical objects and modes as functions of linguistic and descriptive realms. For both Fowler and Frow, the Gothic is one example of the way in which the external form of the romance novel has yielded a mode that has outlasted the genre to which the modal qualifier “Gothic” originally applied. Emerging as the Gothic romance, and surviving, quite spectacularly in its modal form, the Gothic mode has subsequently manifested in literary forms as diverse as the maritime adventure, the psychological novel, the crime novel, the short story, the film script, and various science fiction subgenres (Fowler 1982, 111). Thus, according to Fowler’s and Frow’s conceptualization of mode, “romance novel” indicates the external form or generic code of a given text designated as such, whereas “Gothic,” where it is used to describe the Gothic romance, refers to the modal dimension in which the particular text operates. To revisit Teresa Goddu’s idea that in the case of American Gothic, “American” modifies Gothic, what seems to be clear is that “Gothic,” which according to Fowler and Frow operates as a mode, is understood by Goddu as a genre, whereas “American” describes the mode. Alternatively, if both “American” and “Gothic” can be understood as modes, this precludes an external generic form against which mode can define itself, which in Fowler’s understanding is a necessity since it conveys crucial generic information. In Genette’s terms, “American” and “Gothic” may both refer to the manner of enunciation of the generic object of the novel. In other words, since Genette understands mode as a formal property of language, as opposed to genre which is a literary realization (such as a novel) of an underlying mode, “American” and “Gothic” are both modal and suggest very little about genre. In the case of the Southern Gothic then, to apply either Genette’s, Fowler’s, or Frow’s models is to invite definitions around genre and mode that attempt to situate texts within structuralist frameworks of ever-increasing sub-genres dominated by constituent properties with fluctuating meanings and status. To understand genre as a function of texts, as Genette does, is to place the novel in a relationship with its modal qualifier, such as in Fowler’s example of the romance novel, whereby “romance” implies the mode, which

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

95

spawns the sub-genre of the Gothic romance, the sub-sub-genre of the American Gothic and the sub-sub-sub-genre of the Southern Gothic. If the sub-sub-sub-genre of the Southern Gothic also happens to be by mode comic, in the way Fowler suggests that a text such as Emma is, then the distinction between mode and genre becomes further blurred and attempts at classificatory clarity progressively derailed.

Limits and Laws Considering Goddu’s assertion, then, that the American Gothic is difficult to classify in generic terms (1997, 4), the Southern Gothic can similarly be seen as prone to the same taxonomic uncertainty. Unable to be comfortably designated to either category of genre or mode using the frameworks established by Genette, Fowler, or Frow, and lacking in strict formulaic or conventional characteristics, the Gothic and the Southern Gothic are perhaps best understood in the terms set out by Jacques Derrida in his 1980 essay “The Law of Genre.”2 As Derrida says, when speaking of genre, limits and lines are drawn, and when limits and lines are established “norms and interdictions are not far behind” (1980, 56). In Derrida’s understanding of the way in which genre allocates and orders texts, the term “genre,” when it is uttered or conceived of, summons a law of “do” or “do not.” Therefore, as soon as the word “genre” is sounded, as soon as one attempts to conceive it, a limit is drawn (1980, 56). This confirms an assumption of purity around the notion of genre, a purity that is reaffirmed whenever a genre is mixed or its limits are compromised by mistake, through transgression, or a lapse, since to establish limits in the first place is to presuppose lines that should not be crossed (Derrida 1980, 57). Put another way, the law that constitutes genre brings with it the idea that there is a purity about genre that must be respected. Yet, to suggest a line of demarcation, to suppose a law exists that disallows impurity, is to accept the existence of a counter law that 2 This application of Derrida’s ideas of genre, however, is not intended as a Derridean analysis of genre, nor is it an overt critique of structuralist approaches to genre and mode. But rather, its aim is to understand the generic dimensions of the Gothic, a complex, changing, and multifaceted form of expression, with reference to Derrida’s understanding of genre. It primarily focuses on Derrida’s notion of genre boundaries and the way in which they imply an expectation of generic purity that is thwarted in the act of invoking boundaries. While it heavily references Derrida’s ideas in relation to genre, its overall intention is to engage with the Gothic in a way that allows the diverse, and in many ways, divergent manifestations of the Gothic to be examined outside of discourses of inclusion or exclusion.

96 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

allows impurity since a law that seeks to “repress what was not possible in the first place” can “hardly be of much use” (Hill 2007, 62). Derrida calls this “the law of the law of genre” (1980, 57). The law of the law of genre determines that the separation between genres is affected straight away by a disruption that can be understood in terms of corruption, contamination, or impurity (Derrida 1980, 57). This disruption shows itself as soon as generic decisions are made and generic boundaries are set up, because as soon as the law attempts to impose its norms it is immediately accompanied by a counter-law that signals the possibility that the line has already been crossed. As Hill explains, the fact that the law exists in the first place is an acknowledgment of the inevitability of violation and is little more than an admission that the law that prohibits genres from crossing the line, far from being a founding principle to be obeyed in all circumstances, is itself already preceded by a counter law of heterogeneity, impurity, and contamination (2007, 62). According to Derrida, by its very nature the law of genre invites and commits us in advance not to cross genre lines (1980, 57), yet the power of discrimination on which genre relies f inds itself thwarted from the outset by a counter law that emphasizes the impossibility of rigorous and uncontaminated categorization (Hill 2007, 63). As Derrida sees it, “this can be said of genre in all genres,” whether that is a question, as Genette has conceptualized it, of modes – those things understood as functions of language; or artistic or literary genres – those things understood as functions of texts (1980, 56). To distinguish between mode and genre as Genette does is to subscribe to the long-held philosophical distinction that separates the allegedly natural (language) from the historico-cultural (texts) (Hill 2007, 60). For Derrida, this distinction is unsustainable since it relies on an artificial construct that sees nature and history in opposition to one another (1980, 60), and, importantly for Derrida, does not allow for the essential element of impurity that is the precondition on which all marks create and recreate meaning. Similarly, in Fowler’s and Frow’s respective approaches to genre that see genre as an external structure affected by a variety of descriptive modal qualifiers, there exists a marked distinction between what constitutes an external structure and what doesn’t. That the modal dimension of classificatory systems is, for Fowler, one in which an “overall external structure is absent” (1982, 107), it is therefore implied that genres and modes are bound by a certain precision that posits them as either inside or outside, internal or external to, the structures that determine the relationship each concept has to the other, as well as the relationship each category has to a given text. In this model there is no acknowledgement of

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

97

the extent to which the categories “mode” and “genre” are already collapsed concepts when understood in terms of contamination, since to see them as separate concepts is to contaminate the borders between them that allow this separation to be conceived of. A distinctive trait of genre then, is that the law and the counter law are intertwined; one may not appear without summoning the other. Rather than relying on the expectation of purity for its classificatory abilities, Derrida insists that genre’s state as already impure renders its boundaries contaminated thus allowing for the inherent iterability that gives genre the ability to be endlessly repeated. As Jonathan Crimmins explains, Law and counter-law form a coequal pair. A specific genre demands, at once, purity and impurity from each of its instances: each instance must be like the others and also different from them. If there were no impurity the genre would collapse into self-identity. If there were no purity the genre would cease to function. (Crimmins 2009, 50)

This iterability, or function of repetition is a condition of anything that can be understood as participating in a broader form of something to which the single thing belongs (Lucy 2004, 59). As Niall Lucy says, for a thing to be what “it” is, it must be able to be repeated (2004, 59). Every sunset is a singular sunset and an example of sunsets in general. Tonight’s sunset will be repeated tomorrow night, but it will be a different sunset, therefore, while each sunset is unique it is also an instance of the same, the general, to which the category “sunset” refers (Lucy 2004, 59). Therefore, whether in relation to sunsets or texts, this interplay of sameness and difference conditions every singularity, and repetition is never pure since it always leads to alteration (Lucy 2004, 59). Thus, mode and genre cannot be understood as existing in strict contradistinction, since this not only impedes the impurity that is a necessary component of classificatory systems, it also denies the extent to which the opposition between the transcendental and the empirical – or the natural and the non-natural – is itself predisposed to contamination due to the conceptual boundaries that (attempt to) separate these two frameworks. Rather than being conceived of as entirely separate with clean limits marking each category, the concepts “mode” and “genre” depend on each other. What might be understood as “natural” calls out to the concept of the “non-natural” whenever it claims to be organized around principles that designate it truer or better than the non-natural. Yet the natural can only be recognized when the non-natural rubric is utilized (Crimmins 2009, 49). From the standpoint of either one or the other of these concepts,

98 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

their independence is undermined by the impurity with which they are marked.

Inside and Outside In terms of classificatory systems then, all examples of a given genre are already contaminated and impure as soon as one attempts to conceive “genre” (Derrida 1980, 56) whether in terms of the boundaries between genres, between modes and genres, or between “literature and its others” (Derrida 1980, 81). However, Derrida insists that every text “participates in one or several genres” (1980, 65). This seemingly unavoidable pre-condition of all texts leads Derrida to a concept of genre that is, as he says, “as singular as it is limitless” (1980, 59). In this formulation Derrida suggests that genre can be understood according to the concept of enfoldment or “invagination” – a medical term derived from embryology that refers to an internal organ folded inside out (Wortham 2010, 76) – whereby the whole and the multitude of parts are continually remaking and reconstituting each other in an infinite play of reversibility and alteration. In invoking invagination as an “internal pocket larger than the whole” (Derrida 1980, 59), or as Hill has explained it – “an inside pocket large enough to contain the overcoat into which it is fitted” (2007, 69), a form is imagined whereby the boundaries between belonging and not belonging are eliminated. Rather than being fixed in time and space, genres exist as sites in which the outside is always able to pass inside and the inside pass outside making it diff icult, if not impossible, to reliably cling to indicators of genre as anything other than borderless and edgeless spaces of continual modif ication (Hill 2007, 68). Through the idea of invagination, Derrida sees genres participating in a process in which a given text necessarily points outside itself to the texts that came before it, the texts that follow it, and the texts it resembles (Crimmins 2009, 540). Inside and outside are therefore displaced (in the sense of whether a text is inside a genre or outside a genre) by a notion of reversibility that precludes easy distinctions between that which may be said to imitate and that which may be said to be imitated (Hill 2007, 70). In this poststructuralist interpretation of genre in which genres and texts reconstitute each other, where each performs against the other, and where limits are already breached in the act of imposing limits, both genres and texts are seen to exist in a relationship of enfoldment in which neither “inside” nor “outside” acquire stable self-identity (Wortham 2010, 77).

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

99

An Inexhaustible Stream of Referents: Koontz’s (and Shelley’s) Frankenstein The implications for the Gothic, and by extension the Southern Gothic, are significant. Firstly, Derrida’s assertion that every text “participates in one or several genres,” and further, that there can be “no genreless text” (1980, 65), situates genre as a key component of Gothic representation. To understand the Gothic as either a mode that has emerged out of the vestiges of genre, or a mode operating in contradistinction to genre no matter how flexible that notion of genre might be, is to see the Gothic succumbing to the kinds of classificatory models in which the law of contamination cannot function. And since the law of contamination upsets taxonomic certainty thereby allowing for generic iterability, the Gothic can thus be conceptualized, like all genres, as always contaminated. Put another way, since iterability can be understood as a principle that affects all genres through alteration, this suggests that while all singular Gothic texts may be instances of the same, in order that they continue to function as sites of meaning they must necessarily also be different. Thus, hybridization, contamination, and degeneration order the Gothic through each performance or instance of its articulation.3 Secondly, texts can be understood as not belonging inside or outside of genres (since texts and genres are constantly turning inside out to divide and overflow the whole according to the logic of invagination), but rather, can be understood as participating in multiple ways in one or several genres, yet there are nevertheless limits around genres that are stationed on the threshold to simultaneously demarcate the boundaries of genre and interrupt that demarcation (Hill 2007, 66). This concept of genre challenges formulations of the Gothic that impose generic limits on the Gothic. For Derrida, the paradoxical nature of limits ensures that with the summoning of limits comes the assuredness that those limits will be breached, since in the absence of limits there is nothing to resist, nothing, in fact, against which participation and iterability can be said to perform. As Frow has noted, in stressing the importance of edges and margins, Derrida simultaneously stresses the open-endedness of generic frames (2006, 16). Moreover, genres can be understood as instances of “re-marking” 3 It is important to note that Derrida’s idea of genres as always hybridized and resistant to categorization is not new. As Leslie Hill points out, in this sense Derrida was not saying anything critics did not already know. However, Derrida’s ideas run more deeply than questions of simply defining genres, rather, they address the structure of generic attribution itself, which turns on a seemingly insurmountable paradox that the particular characteristic that attributes a text to a given genre is necessarily not part of that genre (Hill, 2007, 63).

100 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

whereby they alert us to what marks them as genre, yet what marks them as genre does not belong to the genre. Since “genre” as a concept cannot itself be a genre, it is therefore excluded from the principle of inclusion. This sees genre constituted by non-closure in the sense that while we can see certain sets of things as genres, the inability to draw a line around them leaves them unable to be closed off as a finality (Crimmins 2009, 58). 4 The capabilities that therefore allow such genres as the Gothic or the Southern Gothic to exist ensure that the edges or limits of the genres are brought into question in the act of attempting to attribute generic status. While this may suggest that genre essentially negates itself – since in Derridean terms the very limits and demarcations by which we understand genre determines that they are already illimitable – in invoking the notion of invagination Derrida presents a non-teleological and atemporal logic of genre that imagines genre as having no inside or outside, no easily defined beginning or ending, and no fixed borders. This allows for the modification of the Gothic by the terms “American” or “Southern” to be understood as modifications that, while separated from what Goddu refers to as the “canonical British Gothic,” require no formal connection to a canon to be conceptualized as Gothic. While the idea of a canonical British Gothic seems to suggest a generic origin against which all other manifestations of the Gothic exist in a relationship of comparative likeness, in Derrida’s conceptualization of genre, all texts are already repetitions, there is no discernible origin of a given genre, but rather, only an inexhaustible stream of referents that point inside and outside at the same time as they are remade and reconstituted through the act of articulation. Further, it is not only likeness to, or proximity to the British Gothic that allows the Gothic to function in such seemingly 4 As Crimmins rightly points out, Derrida’s ideas are adapted from “the code of set theories” (2009, 51), a philosophical approach to classes or sets developed by Bertrand Russell. As Russell states in Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, “… a class is not a member of itself. Mankind, for example, is not a man. Form now the assemblage of all classes which are not members of themselves. This is a class: is it a member of itself or not? If it is, it is one of those classes that are not members of themselves, i.e., it is not a member of itself. If it is not, it is not one of those classes that are not members of themselves, i.e., it is a member of itself” (1963, 136). This led, for Russell, to a conceptualization of “impure” classes. The connection between Derrida’s ideas and Russell’s mathematical logic is clear. Derrida’s recasting of the relationship between members and sets into the study of genre demonstrates the extent to which genres possess the same resistance to containment within absolute boundaries. This parasitical economy dictates that the law of genre (one aspect of which is that a class that designates cannot be a member of itself) is a law structured by a law of impurity, thus creating an endless and borderless mimetic chain (Crimmins 2009, 51). Moreover, in attempting to classify, the classifications themselves become disrupted as the boundaries that seem to contain members in a set ostensibly become members of the set.

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

101

diverse contexts as “Southern” or “American.” Rather, it is in the invoking of boundaries that attempt to confirm a normative position around the British Gothic that attention is drawn to the possibility of a threshold and thus, the demarcation having been summoned, the British Gothic is already rendered a site of contamination. Only in this way, via notions of contamination that create the possibility for transgression of definitional strictures, can the Gothic genre be seen as a dynamic form whose reconstitution relies on the collapse of its structures in order that it can perform as an open-ended site of transition and reinterpretation. Illustrative of this is a novel titled Frankenstein by American author Dean Koontz. In Koontz’s novel the sameness and difference that constitute the borderless space of genre sees the novel in a relationship not only with the texts that came before it, but also with the texts that it resembles and imitates. Koontz’s novel reconstitutes the Gothic through contaminating the edges around which it functions as an instance of the same and an instance of alteration. Through its articulation of the Gothic, it renders the Gothic impure since genres can only be sustained when their use as an iterable mark is assured. Thus, Koontz’s text participates in a relationship with genre that taints the Gothic as much as it responds to its prior tainting. Koontz’s Frankenstein belongs to a general form of which it is a contaminated instance. In Koontz’s text, the monster, here named Deucalion, enters the chapel of the Abbey in which he resides, Raising one hand to trace the contours of the ruined half of his once handsome face, Deucalion murmured, “He is risen.” Looking at the crucifix, the monk said, “That ain’t exactly news, my friend.” “I refer to my maker, not yours.” “Victor Frankenstein?” That name seemed to echo across the vaulted ceiling as no other words had echoed. “Victor Helios, as he most recently called himself. I saw him die. But he lives again. Somehow…he lives.” (Koontz 2011, 4)

Later in the novel, one of Frankenstein’s creations spots him on the street in small-town America, Erika saw someone she knew. He approached along the sidewalk. A man in hand-tooled black cowboy boots, jeans, and a black leather jacket too consciously and fussily stylish to have been sold at any store in rustic Rainbow Falls. Tall. Fit. Handsome in a severe way. Victor. Victor Helios,

102 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

alias Frankenstein. Her husband-by-decree, her tormentor, her master whom she must obey, her maker. She believed him to be dead. Or if not dead, not anywhere near Montana. (Koontz 2011, 59)

As Paul O’Flinn has noted, “there is no such thing as Frankenstein, there are only Frankensteins, as the text is ceaselessly rewritten, reproduced, refilmed and redesigned” (2002, 105). In Koontz’s rewriting of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the author pits the redesigned figure of Victor Frankenstein, a cowboy living in twenty first-century America with an estranged wife and a keen sense of style, against two New Orleans private detectives and the monster of Shelley’s original creation. While it cycles through Gothic iconography and emblems such as vaulted ceilings, crucifixes, and notions of tyranny or subjugation that were established in some classical works of Gothic fiction, it simultaneously transitions between noir, science fiction, the western, and horror. Its Gothicity exists in its relationship with its predecessors, attributed, as it is, with the presumption of Gothicity since Shelley’s Frankenstein – from which Koontz’s Frankenstein springs in an act of iterability – is itself a reinstatement of Gothic genericity whose manifestation in the Romantic era re-worked Gothic ideas of monstrosity, secrecy, and transgression established in earlier Gothic texts. Enfolded within the dynamic space of Gothic representation, Koontz’s novel exposes the very boundaries that mark classical fiction from pulp fiction, and the Gothic from other generic matrices since it acknowledges that it is not only possible to cross the boundaries but that it has already occurred in the act of invoking the boundaries. The very edges of Koontz’s Frankenstein bleed into all other genres and all other texts to reinstate genre through the process of iterability. It is a text that takes part in the Gothic and refuses any notions of Gothic fidelity. It evokes boundaries that never amount to demarcation, but rather, function as reversible folds within other folds thus highlighting the extent to which all texts and genres operate at the ever-changing (and contaminated) edges of classification. This framework of enfoldment applies to all genres and all generic signifiers. As Ken Gelder says, if we look at vampires in Hollywood cinema, for example, the differences are perhaps more striking than the similarities (2001, 86). From Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) to Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983), Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987), or the Twilight series of films, each new vampire film engages in a process of familiarization and defamiliarization by recognising audiences’ prior knowledge of vampires gained via engagement with various literary or cinematic texts, while providing enough points of difference for newness to maintain itself (Gelder 2001, 86). While

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

103

later vampire films must assert their difference from earlier ones, they are nevertheless highly conscious of their predecessors. They can draw on or modify aspects of their predecessors, parody them or recreate them (Gelder 2001, 86) but to do so they must destroy them to make something new. As Derrida says, lodged within the heart of the law of genre is a law of impurity that determines that repetition must occur if a text or a work of art is able to function generically, yet it is through repetition that the text or the work of art is always made generically impure (1980, 57). Generic purity is therefore impossible. There is no perfect example of any genre. Genres destroy themselves as they remake themselves, and this allows the Gothic to be considered as a form that is in no way bound to notions of time and place, to themes and archetypes, or to conventions and traditions.

Collapsing Walls and Crumbling Barricades: Re-building the Gothic Castle The destructive and simultaneously regenerative quality of Gothic genericity is perhaps most obviously rendered in the image of the ruined structure. The importance of genre boundaries is in their ability to act as sites of transition against which beginnings, endings, borders, and margins can perform and react (Hill 2007, 67). Gothic motifs, then, from one textual instance to another, must necessarily remain in a constant process of crumbling into disrepair. The ruined edifice, therefore, may be an apt symbol of the destabilization that allows the Gothic to remain generically viable. The Gothic castle, for example, has deterioration pre-inscribed at the very instance of its appearance. Ubiquitous in Gothic imagery, the castle emerged (or re-emerged) in Horace Walpole’s 1764 Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto. The novel whose plot, the author claims, came to him in a dream, is the result of a predilection for nostalgia in the eighteenth century towards the medieval age of chivalry with its virtuous damsels, its moats and drawbridges, and its venerable ecclesiastics (Varma 1987, 12). Concerned primarily with the thwarting of an ancient ancestral curse, the novel’s medieval setting allows for the utilization of imagery around the darkened spaces of tunnels, catacombs, and towers to function symbolically as clues to the hidden secrets and taboo practices that take place within. The plot, which points to an even more distant past via an ancient ancestral curse, is analogous with the edgelessness of the Gothic since it refers outside itself to a much earlier period, therefore disrupting notions of temporal specificity or generic origination.

104 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Even though it is commonly agreed amongst Gothic scholars to be the first instance of Gothic literature, Walpole’s novel can be seen more accurately as an instance of iterability in its appropriation and adaptation of several already existing images and ideas. As Kilgour points out, British folklore, ballads, romance, Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy, Renaissance ideas of melancholy, the graveyard poets, and German novels are just some of the traditions and influences out of which early Gothic writing such as Walpole’s novel were assembled (1995, 4). In terms of the castle, as an icon of Gothic representation it is a reinterpreted motif taken from narratives of the past and positioned within a new framework as an emblem of reinvention. According to Botting, the image of the castle, “decaying, bleak and full of hidden passageways,” harked back to a past of barbarity and superstition, and like other Gothic signifiers revelled in the boundlessness and over ornamentation that represented a move away from the symmetry and clarity of eighteenth-century aesthetics (2005, 2). As Varma says, the Gothic castle evoked notions of power and impenetrability and was vital in the summoning of the strange and the mysterious that came to be hallmarks of Gothic representation (1987, 19). Yet the castle’s image is one whose ruination is demanded as a precondition of its evocation. That its crumbling walls are a symbol of power, boundlessness, or impenetrability ensures its employment as imagery is already in a state of giving way to new interpretive instances of the “ruined edifice.” Thus, the Gothic castle, seemingly inexhaustible in its abstractions, emerged with structural ruin as a consistent characteristic. As Kilgour has noted, Walpole’s novel was an attempt to create something new from the past, to revive the past via a new narrative form (1995, 17). Yet this “new” form was immediately undermined not only by imagery of decay and collapse, but also by the fact that the Gothic was itself a hybridized form made up of conflicting impulses (Kilgour 1995, 17). This fed upon and mixed the wide range of literary sources out of which the Gothic emerged and from which it never fully disentangled itself (Kilgour 1995, 4). The Gothic’s origins can therefore be understood as an assemblage of the already said, a collection of styles and ideas whose iterability manifested as Gothic imagery inherently impure and already participating at the edges of existing dialogues and narratives. That the plot of The Castle of Otranto allegedly came to Walpole in a dream further enfolds the story between the space of the textual and non-textual in an act of indeterminacy that prevents all attempts to find a definable beginning for the Gothic and instead reaffirms its edges as already defective. The Gothic castle, as part of a performance against boundaries and limits, displays its collapsed walls and broken facades in a way that

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

105

suggests both limits and the destruction of those limits; something torn down and endlessly rebuilt.

From Otranto to Usher: Gothic Structures as Generic Renewal Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky. (Stoker 2003, 15)

If Walpole’s castle emerged as an already contaminated Gothic signifier, its re-materialization as the “vast ruined castle” in Stoker’s Dracula can be understood as similarly already making way for its successors. Dracula’s castle announces its similarity to the castles that preceded it – and in this way participates in the Gothic as an already stated aesthetic – yet in the same moment it implies that its decaying structures are anticipating new formulations and manifestations. In various literary works such as Dickens’ Great Expectations, Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables (1851), Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), or Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1929), the dilapidated structures of the Gothic emerged as new configurations of the ruined edifice that were themselves already in the process of collapsing into disrepair, their similarity and difference to the castles of the classic Gothic both separating them from and binding them to their Gothic antecedents. New formulations and manifestations of ruin, moreover, can be seen as embodied, not only in the image of ruined structures, but also, as Botting has noted, in images of ruin indicative of other emblematic forms of degeneration. Dracula and The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Stevenson 1886), two significant Gothic works that emerged in the Victorian era, are concerned with the degeneration of society prompted by attempts in the late-nineteenth century to come to grips with the effects of scientific discovery and societal change (Botting 2005, 88). Due to the emergence of theories around such things as magnetic, chemical, and electrical forces, the divination of greater powers became imaginable. Therefore, in Dracula, the idea of telepathic thought transference can be understood as a response to such discoveries, framed in terms of the horror it evoked at the prospect that it was a distinct possibility (Botting 2005, 90). In The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, concerns about ruined societies emerged as an effect of scientific analyses that identified human nature itself as a threat to the domestic order through the criminality and moral indifference all humans

106 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

allegedly harbour (Botting 2005, 89). This broader understanding of ruin, that sees environmental and cultural factors manifesting in Gothic texts as threats to the stability of social order, recasts the symbol of structural instability represented by the crumbling castle as instability around social mores driven by the establishment of new scientific and societal paradigms (Botting 2005, 88). Decay, ruin, and degradation, therefore, exist in a relationship with the Gothic, and with genre more generally, in a way that sees them not only bound to the architectural structures of Gothicity, but equally to symbolic and figurative structures. The themes of decay in Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher exist as both architectural decay and symbolic decay since, while the house itself is in a state of architectural ruin, the family is correspondingly in decay as its members die from an unknown and incurable disease (Botting 2005, 79). Further, Roderick Usher is haunted by voices and sounds, which may or may not emanate from the house or from the tomb of his dead twin sister Madeline. As the house falls into an ever-widening fissure at the conclusion of the story, as the “mighty walls” rush asunder (Poe 2004, 238), the disintegration of the Usher family sees the interplay of both physical and psychological collapse expressed in terms of degradation and ruin. And on a broader generic level, this signals the anticipation of future Gothic manifestations that may be rebuilt through new contextual arrangements.

Works Cited Althans, Katrin. Darkness Subverted: Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film. Germany: Bonn University Press, 2010. Aristotle. Poetics. London: Penguin, 1996. Austen, Jane. Emma. Auckland: The Floating Press, 2009. Botting, Fred. Gothic. London: Routledge, 2005. Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Auckland: The Floating Press, 2008. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Camberwell: Penguin Australia, 2009. Crimmins, Jonathan. “Gender, Genre, and the Near Future in Derrida’s ‘The Law of Genre’.” Diacritics. 39 (1): 45–60, 2009. Davison, Carol Margaret. History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1764–1824. Cardiff University Press, 2009. Derrida, Jacques. The Law of Genre. Trans. Avital Ronell. Critical Inquiry. 7 (1): 55–81, 1980. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 2003. Eliot, T.S. The Wasteland and Other Poems. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2011.

Crumbling Struc tures and Contaminated Narr atives: Genre and the Gothic

107

Fowler, Alistair. Kinds of Literature. London: Clarendon Press, 1982. Frow, John. Genre. London: Routledge, 2006. Gelder, Ken. Reading the Vampire. New York: Routledge, 2001. Genette, Gerard. The Architext: An Introduction. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Goddu, Teresa, A. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of the Seven Gables. New York: Penguin, 1986. ‒‒‒. The Scarlet Letter. Auckland: The Floating Press, 2008. Hill, Leslie. The Cambridge Introduction to Derrida. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Jones, Timothy. “The Canniness of the Gothic: Genre as Practice.” Gothic Studies 11 (1): 124–133, 2009. Joyce, James. The Dubliners. Penguin Classics, 2000. Kilgour, Maggie. The Rise of the Gothic Novel. London: Routledge, 1995. Koontz, Dean. Frankenstein. London: Harper, 2011. Lucy, Niall. A Derrida Dictionary. Carlton: Blackwell, 2004. Martin-Jones, David. Global Cinema: Genres, Modes and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Penguin Publishing Group, 2013. Neale, Steve. Genre and Hollywood. London: Routledge, 1999. O’Flinn, Paul. “Production and Reproduction: The Case of Frankenstein.” In Horror, The Film Reader. Edited by Mark Jancovich. London: Routledge, 2002. Poe, Edgar Allan. Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Poems, Tales, Criticism. New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Ringel, Faye. “New England Gothic.” In A Companion to American Gothic. Edited by Charles Crow. Oxford: John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 2014. Russell, Bertrand. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1963. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Arrow Books, 1980. Sinding, Michael. “After Definitions: Genre, Categories and Cognitive Science.” Genre. 35 (2): 181–220, 2002. Spooner, Catherine. “Gothic in the Twentieth Century.” In The Routledge Companion to Gothic. Edited by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy. Hoboken: Routledge, 2007. Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. London: Penguin, 2006. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Penguin, 2003. Varma, Devendra. The Gothic Flame: Being a History of the Gothic Novel in England: its Efflorescence, Disintegration, and Residuary Influences. New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1987.

108 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Walpole, Horace. “The Castle of Otranto” Project Gutenberg, 2014, http://www. gutenberg.org/files/696/696-h/696-h.htm. Accessed February 25, 2021. Williams, Anne. Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Wortham, Simon Morgan. The Derrida Dictionary. London: Continuum, 2010.

Filmography The Hunger. Tony Scott. United Kingdom/United States: MGM/UA Entertainment Co., 1983. The Lost Boys. Joel Schumacher. United States: Warner Bros., 1987. Nosferatu. F.W. Murnau. Germany. Film Arts Guild, 1922. The Twilight Saga. Catherine Hardwicke; Chris Weitz; David Slade; Bill Condon. United States: Summit Entertainment, 2008–2012.

5.

Manifesting the Other Abstract The concept of the “Other” emerges from discursive practices whereby dominant groups seek to stigmatize difference, real or imagined, in order that the “Other” can be set apart from what is considered the “norm.” In U.S. discourse the South has been consistently othered, the consequences of which are its ideological, political, and cultural positioning as America’s dark underbelly. Yet this idea of the South as Other is structured around a binary that informs Gothic representation more generally, often manifesting in the image of Gothic dualism. This chapter argues for a model of otherness that takes its cues from Aristotelian conceptualizations of otherness yet highlights the impossibility of otherness as a strict binary concept. Keywords: The Other, Binaries, Undecidability, In-betweenness, Ontology, Dualism

As Anne Williams has noted, the Gothic has systematically structured its narratives around the concept of the Other (1995, 18). While an ever-changing set of Gothic conventions can express many dimensions of otherness, it nonetheless exists as a cognitive structure that has informed the medieval and barbarous in Walpole’s Otranto (1995, 20), through to the monstrously unnatural in Stoker’s Dracula (1995, 21). Notions of otherness are broadly consistent with some of the most ancient categories of otherness in Western culture and can be traced back to Pythagorean binaries – employed by Aristotle in The Metaphysics – which describe reality according to such opposites as male/female, straight/curved, right/left, light/darkness, or good/evil (Williams 1995, 18–19). Since there is a privileging in these binary categories that denotes the dominant aspect of the opposition as superior, cultural assumptions have developed in Western discourse that attribute the subordinate aspect of the opposition with a lesser status. These subordinate categories have informed the overall Gothic tendency to revel in this

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch05

110 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

shadowy realm, the realm that Aristotle referred to as “the line of evil,” of which transgression and taboo seem apt manifestations (Williams 1995, 19). One of the organizing principles of The Castle of Otranto, for instance, is an otherness that positions the dark ages as a time of barbarity and superstition, set in indisputable contrast to the “enlightened and civilized” period in which the novel was produced (Williams 1995, 20). Frankenstein and Dracula similarly pivot around a binary logic which manifests as a predilection for darkness over light and thus attributes both respective figures with powerful Gothic potential through an association with the clandestine, the supernatural, and dark corrupted morality (Williams 1995, 21).

Other Voices, Other Realms: Unfixing Gothic Dualism This binary inversion that re-orders the normally inferior axis of otherness – such as darkness, in a way that privileges the “line of evil,” is often seen as the essence of the Gothic. Interestingly, in reconfiguring the hierarchical nature of the binarism by placing dark over light, or evil over good, discloses the dualism that is largely naturalized in more conventional binary usage (for example, light over dark or good over bad) resulting in the construct of “Gothic dualism” or “the monstrous double,” upon which, as Jack Halberstam says, the Gothic depends (1995, 54). As Heidi Strengell points out, Gothic dualism quite often refers to the essential duality embodied within a single character – for example, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Frankenstein’s monster, Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights – when this is accompanied by the presumption that the duality centres on an understanding of the polarity of good and evil (2003, 2). This understanding of the dualistic nature of Gothic otherness, however, relies on oppositions imposed by the axes of a binarism, and as various forms of poststructuralist analysis have shown, no binary opposition can ever be wholly sustained since there is always necessary and inevitable contamination that unfixes the structures of all oppositions. As Jansson says, in the seemingly opposite poles of any binary, the identity of one aspect cannot be understood except as linked to the identity of the other (293, 2003). Thus, to understand otherness in the context of the Gothic, this necessary coexistence or co-dependence of binary axes must be considered. A resistance to oppositions can thus be mounted on the basis that in the construction of a binary (such as light and dark), the line that delineates between one thing and another calls to mind the delineation itself and in doing so interrupts the opposition. In other words, while demarcation is

Manifesting the Other

111

necessary to understand the difference between things, this difference is marred by the invoking of the two sides of the opposition at the same time, rendering the opposition irreducible to one thing or the other (Hill 2007, 67). Contaminated, therefore, by the prospect of what is a distinct probability – that that the opposition is always already compromised – all concepts that suggest an alternate or opposing state exist on the precondition that they are already impure. To understand this in the context of the vampire as a figure of Gothic otherness, for example, is to see the vampire not so much a figure revelling in the subordinate axis of an Aristotelian binarism, but rather, the vampire’s otherness is located in its embodiment of the already crossed boundary between life and death. In calling on the boundary the vampire simultaneously invokes the separation of the categories along with the impossibility of their independence, and therefore announces its othered status by the very nature of its existence as a dead yet living being. As Manuel Aguirre has observed, while it has become customary to appeal to the boundary between the ordinary world and some “other” world as the key to the Gothic, such definitions fail to do justice to the nature of the boundary itself (2017, 300). In binary notions of reality, between, on the one hand, a normal orderly world, and on the other, an abnormal world of mysterious monasteries, haunted castles, or ruined abbeys, all such motifs can be seen as conforming to the rationale of the second space – a space that simultaneously partakes of and opposes the ordinary reality (Aguirre 2017, 301–303). Yet, as Aguirre argues, Our inability to grasp the Other makes it disorientating, hence terrifying; and not least among its terrors is the fact that characters cannot quite tell it from their own world: it is part of and yet profoundly alien to the human realm. Inherently ambiguous, its position vis-a-vis the human subject is best viewed as liminal; that we cannot determine its boundaries is congruent with the fact that the Other partakes of the nature of boundaries: it is a threshold area or a threshold force. (2017, 303)

As a figure that appears across a variety of Gothic texts, the vampire is thus configured as Other because its interpretive undecidability allows it to thwart all decision-making. As a threshold force, the vampire necessarily remains in between life and death, or as Staci Poston Conner suggests, in a state of “undeadness,” which precludes clearly defined boundaries between life or death (2019). To attribute the vampire to one category or another is consequently impossible because the necessity of any decision one way or the other ensures that there is no outcome not untainted by the spectre

112 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

of the alternative. Undecidability, as Niall Lucy explains, is the result of a process whereby questions about whether something is this or that are raised. And since a moment always exists in decision-making in which the idea of an alternative outcome is a real possibility, undecidability conditions every final decision as haunted by what might have been (Lucy 2004, 150). As the example of the vampire proves, any decision about the nature of the vampire’s existence as either alive or dead results in a situation whereby the notion of life is haunted by the spectre of death and the notion of death is haunted by the spectre of life. The vampire as Gothic Other therefore exists on the border of the conceptual territory that it delimits (Aguirre 2017, 304), but importantly, it fully embraces both axes. The association of vampires with bats, an association that structures particular Hollywood representations of vampires such as Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) or Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), also destabilizes the notion of clear boundaries between concepts with the metamorphosis from vampire to bat and back again suggesting a decision is necessary yet is ultimately thwarted by an othering that results in the colonization of its own borders. As Anna Powell has noted in her analysis of Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan 1994), the seminal event of the film – Louis’ transformation into a vampire – is one whereby Louis’ former human point of view is expired allowing his perspective to simultaneously change and stay the same (2009, 95). In Louis’s transfiguration from bodily death to rebirth Louis becomes suspended between life and death in a way that suggests a temporal undecidability common not only to the vampire narrative but to the Gothic narrative more broadly. This is similarly the case in Alex Proyas’s The Crow (1994), a film in which Eric Draven embodies ontological undecidability through his re-emergence into the world as a living corpse with a telepathic connection to a crow. Aware of his own status as dead, Eric is a f igure haunted by uncertainty since he interacts, in most sequences in the film, with the world of the living. In these “living” spaces, his non-living presence is facilitated by his psychic connection to the crow, and any separation of categories is thus rendered impossible as the boundaries between oppositional notions of alive and dead, human and non-human become unfixed by undecidability. As Aguirre says, the Gothic seems to construct two ontological zones: the domain of rationality and the domain of the Other (2017, 299). Yet far from revelling in this binarism, the binarism itself is afflicted by undecidability. While the vampire/bat construct effectively highlights the problematic nature of the Other as one axis of a binary, the figure of Batman, (which emerged as a character in DC Comics in the 1930s and was subject to multiple iterations, many of them with strong Gothic overtones) presents

Manifesting the Other

113

a configuration of the vampire/bat reconstituted in the image of otherness represented by the bat/man. Rather than a simple dual identity, when operating as Batman the character is neither one thing nor the other because any definitive marks of separation have become inhabited by the threshold. While there is in fact a “real” Bruce Wayne, undecidability complicates the dualism when Bruce operates as the crime fighting Batman because it positions him as simultaneously bat and man. A more complex example of this can be seen in Frankenstein’s monster – a being constructed from corpses into a creature with an undeniable sentience. As Crimmins points out, Frankenstein was written at a moment in history when matter could no longer be dismissed as inert. Rather, the forces of gravity, magnetism, and electricity showed matter to be invisible, dynamic, and active across distances (2013, 2). Shelley’s monster therefore embodies more than just a schism between dead flesh and a living brain which animates the flesh in an approximation of “life.” Instead, in collapsing the duality between the material (body and brain) and the immaterial (thought, spirit, soul), an intermediate characteristic is revealed which sees the intermediate standing in for the whole (Crimmins 2013, 2). The monster embodies both death and life, the material and the immaterial, matter and non-matter thus proving the extent of the monster’s intermediate status. As Crimmins has observed, the fact that Frankenstein began with the collaborative play of friends as much as with the solitary play of a dream, foregrounds the prominence of vacillation in Shelley’s novel which is a novel mostly concerned with the middle states of being (2013, 1). The idea that Frankenstein “began” at all is itself a slippery concept since Shelley’s novel reinvents the biblical myth of Adam in which God took soil from the ground and “formed a man out of it” (1976, 5), affirmed in the monster’s desperate challenge to his maker “I ought to be thy Adam” (1980), which in turn is enfolded within the Promethean myth of Greek mythology where Prometheus formed humans out of mud, and the myth of Enki the ancient Mesopotamian god who made humans out of clay. These likely progenitors of both Dr Frankenstein and his creature evidence the way undecidability complicates all oppositions including beginnings/ endings, human/non-human, material/immaterial, thus posing a challenge to Gothic dualism as a binary construct. In Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990) the creature, re-fashioned for the twentieth century in the character of Edward, challenges such binarisms in a simultaneous embrace of the concepts human and non-human, man and machine, animate and inanimate. Edward’s ontological status is not a choice that can be reconciled in terms of this or that, rather, he can only exist as an open-ended construct since

114 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

he comes into being incomplete. “I’m not finished,” he tells the bewildered Avon lady Peg Boggs upon revealing the scissors he uses for hands. In his unfinished form there is the suggestion that Edward is coded as just one figure in an enfolded space of ever-evolving figures who exist to reiterate antecedent texts and genres while leaving open the way for subsequent re-imaginings. As Aguirre says, so much of the Gothic experience is in the irregular, the bewildering, the disorienting, and the perplexing because the threshold, the space that embodies otherness, cannot be reliably comprehended (2017, 303). In Gothic works such as Wuthering Heights, The Fall of the House of Usher and Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms, incomprehension structures the narratives in such a way that it disorients, due to the complications inherent in the quality of “undeadness.” In Wuthering Heights entities exist as spectral voices heard in dreams, or they emanate from walls and windows of dwellings that seem to harbour the memories of the departed. In The Fall of the House of Usher Madeline’s flushed cheeks belie her deceased status, and her subsequent escape from the tomb is thrown into doubt as her brother Roderick becomes increasingly haunted by the family’s cataleptic illness, leading to his slow descent into insanity. Similarly, in Other Voices, Other Rooms an entity appears as a ghostly image of a woman in an old Mardi Gras costume in the window of a decaying southern mansion, yet the source of the image remains largely unexplained. These spectral voices and images, whether they emanate from the living or the dead, the dream state or the waking state, are structured by an undecidability that renders them wholly unsustainable as dualisms that require a choice between one thing and another.

The Gothic South: Conjuring the Other As Alexandra Warwick has argued, the Gothic has no form or shape of its own. It is unknowable in conventional terms, only made manifest in a kind of translation in which “name and form” are given through conventions of image and narration (1999, 84). This “name and form” can also be given through a dependence on the irreconcilable difference encapsulated in the image of the Other (Khair, 2009, 132). As Tabish Khair says, Gothic entities are not reducible to one thing or another – the Gothic stranger may be within the walls of the city, evil and good may be parts of the same person – and thus, the Other dissolves into the self to occupy the space of in-betweenness (Khair 2009, 145). As discussed above, this conceptualization of otherness eliminates

Manifesting the Other

115

the primary and secondary relationships that constitute standard binarisms and can be understood, therefore, as essentially non-hierarchical. Consistent with poststructuralist critiques of oppositions, this non-hierarchical configuration of otherness may be challenged on the basis that it seems to collapse differences between things into a seamless whole since it appears to eliminate the differentiation that otherness relies upon (Plate 1999, 5). Yet, in conceptualizing otherness in such a way that it maintains its dynamic tension, or as Plate explains, as a relationship between others rather than between subject and object is to see otherness marked by the logic of codifferentiation (1999, 5). This configuration of otherness allows all concepts to harbour the trace of the Other since no singular image is merely one thing or another, but rather, is always afflicted by the spectre of what it is not. But how does undecidability or the non-binary approach to oppositions affect the “Other” of socio-political and historical considerations of the South, and by extension, the way the South is imagined as Other in the Southern Gothic on screen? The approach to southern othering discussed in chapter 2 seems to rely on a hierarchical construct that subordinates the South in a binary relationship with the North, therefore aligning the South with Aristotle’s “line of evil” rather than with a poststructuralist idea of spectral co-haunted otherness. However, this is not necessarily the case. As Staszak says, the criterion that allows things to be divided into two groups – one that embodies the norm and another that is defined by its faults – is due less to the difference of the Other than to the point of view and the discourse of those who perceive the Other as such (2008, 1). In the spatial and cultural othering of the South, northern agendas have historically devalued the South and relegated it to the margins of the national discourse. Yet, as discussed in chapter 2, this is not simply a one-way designation that functions to stigmatize or distance the South from the broader national identity. While northern discourse has certainly contributed to the construction of the South as Other, the South itself has been complicit in this process as a means of retaining an identity built around the uniqueness or distinctiveness of its culture and history. Therefore, the hierarchical “them and us” principle that underpins a binary view of the Other is complicated by the “self othering” that has configured the South as Other from within its own ranks. Southern othering is therefore not simply attributable to an asymmetrical relationship of power relations whereby one group (for example, the North) constructs itself as the in-group in order to set itself apart as superior to the out-group (for example, the South) (Staszak 2008, 2). Rather, self-identifying as the out-group, the South perceives its otherness in terms that tenaciously and consistently uphold its separation from the dominant in-group.

116 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

This process of self-identifying as Other does not render the South any less othered. Instead, it draws attention to the delineations that sustain otherness as a functioning construct. As a mediated space, the South is haunted by, as much as it haunts what it seems to resist or oppose. This is a condition of oppositions. While the demarcation itself prevents categories falling into self-identity, it never constructs entirely separate singular realities. Between the two seemingly opposing concepts North and South there is an imaginary line that is brought to the fore when one or the other is invoked, and it is only through this invocation of opposing axes that the othered South can mean anything at all. Moreover, in conjuring an image of the Gothic South, the Gothic principle of the “boundary space” or “threshold space” that Aguirre identifies, actualizes otherness to mark the Southern Gothic genre in specific ways, most significantly as one irreducible to the space of the irrational. Instead, the limits between the irrational and the rational are permanently inconclusive, structured by an endless or drawn-out state of incomprehension or undecidability (2017, 303–305). Southern Gothic screen texts can be understood, therefore, as texts that are given name and form via images, narratives, themes, tropes, and aesthetics that are encoded as Other through the evocation of boundaries that highlight the haunted nature of all oppositions. And as haunted or as inconclusive as those boundaries might be, we understand the Gothic South as an othered space, nonetheless. We understand it as space of decay and ruin, a space of the grotesque where the obscene and the degenerate emerge in exaggerations of characters or situations, and we understand what Tennessee Williams meant when described the South as a space “of an underlying dreadfulness” in the modern experience (Frye 2009, 14). And in this space, which is othered from within and without simultaneously, we understand that the spectres who inhabit the “southern” come forward to haunt in a way that ensures the maintenance of boundaries while simultaneously throwing those boundaries into question. Just as the stranger is within the walls of the city, or good and evil are part of the same entity (Khair 2009, 145), the Other haunts the South with the traces of an absent presence that cannot be separated since this configuration is part of its structure as Gothic imagery.

Conclusion The undecidability that positions the Gothic as haunted by ghostly traces sees decision-making stalled at the place where the spectre of the Other

Manifesting the Other

117

inhabits the threshold space. As neither fully present nor fully absent, neither simply one thing or another, f igures such as Dr Frankenstein’s monster, Edward Scissorhands, Eric Draven, and Count Dracula embody the trace of the Other since the condition of undecidability is embedded in their very manifestation. In The Castle of Otranto, the threat of an ancestral curse is deferred inasmuch as it is always possible, since it is suspended between its manifestation and its subjugation, neither completely there nor completely not there it unsettles categories with its absent presence. In the half-heard voices in Wuthering Heights and The Fall of the House of Usher, boundaries between the ghostly and the corporeal collapse into a struggle that designates them always undecidable and therefore always haunted by what they are and what they are not. In the figure of Batman undecidability renders it impossible to distinguish the boundaries between where one personality ends and the other begins since the singular figure is preconditioned by division and can therefore only embody the threshold. Such imagery has its basis in the fact that undecidability embodies the otherness of the singular idea that exists only insofar as it represents something other than itself. Otherness, in a poststructuralist sense, is what makes it possible to conceptualize the difference between opposing concepts, yet opposing concepts are always haunted by the spectre of what might be otherwise possible, and therefore they are never fully one thing or another. In this space of otherness, Gothic representations of the American South function within the borderless configuration of an endlessly reconstituted genre which refuses strict notions of generic purity through its conceptualization as enfolded topology. With no discernible origin and no inherent teleology, but rather, operating as an already contaminated re-statement of pre-existing tropes and signifiers, the Southern Gothic on screen is remade with every new instance of its articulation, which sees the destruction of its borders functioning, paradoxically, as the necessary condition of its own existence.

Works Cited Aguirre, Manuel. “Thick Description and the Poetics of the Liminal in Gothic Tales.” Orbis Litterarium. 72 (4): 294–317, 2017. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Camberwell: Penguin Australia, 2009. Capote, Truman. Other Voices, Other Rooms. Penguin Modern Classics, 2004. Conner, Staci Poston. “Horror More Horrible from Being Vague, and Terror More Terrible from Ambiguity”: Liminal Figures in Poe’s “Berenice” and Gilman’s “The Giant Wisteria.” The Edgar Allan Poe Review. 20 (1): 77–95, 2019.

118 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Crimmins, Jonathan. “Gender, Genre, and the Near Future in Derrida’s ‘The Law of Genre’.” Diacritics. 39 (1): 45–60, 2009. Frye, Steven. Understanding Cormac McCarthy. University of South Carolina Press, 2009. Good News Bible. New York: American Bible Society, 1976. Halberstam, Jack. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Hill, Leslie, The Cambridge Introduction to Derrida. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Jansson, David. “Internal Orientalism in America: W. J. Cash’s The Mind of the South and the Spatial Construction of American National Identity.” Political Geography 22 (3):293–316, 2003. Kane, Bob and Bill Finger. “Batman.” National Comics Publications. United States, 1939. Khair, Tabish. The Gothic, Postcolonialism, and Otherness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Lucy, Niall. A Derrida Dictionary. Carlton: Blackwell, 2004. Plate, S. Brent. “Introduction: Images and Imaginings.” In Imag(in)ing Otherness: Filmic Visions of Living Together. Edited by S. Brent Plate and David Jasper. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Poe, Edgar Allan. Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Poems, Tales, Criticism. New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Powell, Anna. “Duration and the Vampire: A Deleuzian Gothic.” Gothic Studies 11(1): 86–98, 2009. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Arrow Books, 1980. Staszak, Jean-François. “Other/otherness.” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2008. Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. London: Penguin, 2006. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Penguin, 2003. Strengell, Heidi. “’The Monster Never Dies”: An Analysis of the Gothic Double in Steven King’s Oeuvre.” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, 1900 to Present 2 (1): 1–11, 2003. Walpole, Horace. “The Castle of Otranto” Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg. org/files/696/696-h/696-h.htm, 2014. Accessed, June 1, 2021. Warwick, Alexandra. “Lost Cities: London’s Apocalypse.” In Spectral Readings: Towards a Gothic Geography. Edited by Glennis Byron and David Punter. London: Macmillan Press, 1999. Williams, Anne. Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Manifesting the Other

119

Filmography Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Francis Ford Coppola. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1992. The Crow. Alex Proyas. United States: Miramax Films, 1994. Dracula. Tod Browning. United States: Universal Pictures, 1931. Edward Scissorhands. Tim Burton. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1990. Interview with the Vampire. Neil Jordan. United States: Warner Bros, 1994.

Section Three The Southern Gothic on Screen

6. Locating the Gothic South Abstract The notion of “southern” in the context of screen representation is one that does not easily conform to demands for geographical authenticity. In other words, actual filming locations have little bearing on the extent to which a film or television series can be understood as “southern.” This chapter clarifies what constitutes “southern” in the Southern Gothic to determine what makes a given film or television series southern, leading to the inevitable question, “what makes a film or television series Southern Gothic?” This is addressed by looking to the various ways in which the South reveals itself on screen as both an imaginary space that intersects with its real-world referent, and a visual legacy that constructs the South around specific Gothic themes and aesthetics. Keywords: Southern/Not Southern, Southern Imaginary, The Blink, Categorization, Landscape

Defining the genre “Southern Gothic,” the single concepts “southern” and “Gothic,” or even genres themselves, is a project fraught with pitfalls. As soon as we try to attribute a text with particular generic characteristics, we draw attention to the complications involved in expecting genres or texts to adhere to pre-defined norms and conventions. If any norms or conventions at all can be applied to the classification of the Southern Gothic on screen, they undoubtedly rest on the obvious stipulation that a Southern Gothic text must be at least both ‘southern” and “Gothic.” These stipulations, however, tend to reveal that such categories are as divided as the borders of generic demarcation. “Southern,” for example, if it is to be posited as a condition for Southern Gothic genericity, seems to ensure that the exclusion of films deemed “not southern” can be applied to any film or television series made outside the South. Yet in reality, regional fidelity is an unreliable marker of a southern screen text’s southern-ness. Many southern screen texts can be labelled “southern” in the sense that they are shot in actual

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch06

124 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

southern locations. For example, Little Chenier: A Cajun Story, Eve’s Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997), Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Clint Eastwood, 1997), Mud (Jeff Nichols, 2012), Cape Fear (1991), Deliverance, This Property is Condemned (Sydney Pollack, 1966), The Apostle, Southern Comfort, Rectify, and Season One of True Detective all utilize southern sites for the portrayal of specifically southern narratives and plots. A Streetcar Named Desire, however, a film that according to Scott Jordan Harris, captures the “quintessence of New Orleans,” is remarkable for the fact that only one scene in the film was shot in New Orleans with the bulk of the filming taking place in Burbank, California (2012, 20).1 The 1958 film The Defiant Ones, a racial drama about southern chain-gang convicts, contains no scenes that were filmed in the South, but rather, all scenes were filmed in California, while the 1996 film Sling Blade, a film about a mentally impaired ex-convict in small town Arkansas, includes street scenes shot in Canada that were intended to represent the rural South. Similarly, The Night of the Hunter, The Skeleton Key, To Kill a Mockingbird, Cape Fear, and the television series True Blood all have considerably more segments filmed in non-southern locations than in southern locations. It may, therefore, be impossible to settle on borderlines that structure Southern Gothic screen texts, where a strict limit between what is southern and what isn’t requires clarification.

Mapping the South: Defining Southern Screen Spaces As David Greven notes, the South in the Southern Gothic can refer to a wide range of “Souths.” This can encompass locations as far apart geographically and culturally as Appalachia (The Night of the Hunter, Deliverance, The Devil all the Time) and the bayous of southern Louisiana (The Skeleton Key, Southern Comfort, The Beyond, Dark Waters [Andre De Toth 1944]) (2016, 475). As a screen space, the South is undoubtedly geographically complicated, and perhaps best conceptualized, as Deborah Barker and Katherine McKee have, as a largely fictional space of conflicting images, ideas, attitudes, practices, accents, histories, and fantasies about a shifting geographic region (2011, 2). While the mediated South might be fictional, it also intersects unavoidably with the South as a cultural, historical, and political reality. And it is at 1 The only scene shot in New Orleans is the opening scene where Blanche arrives at Stella’s French Quarter apartment in a streetcar on the “Desire” line. The Desire streetcar line ceased operation in 1948 requiring one of the cars to be brought out of retirement for the sequence.

Locating the Gothic South

125

this intersection that the Southern Gothic on screen can be understood as both an engagement with the traditional tensions and anxieties around “southern” as a material site, and a stylized space that envisions the South as a contradictory and ever-evolving collection of tropes, clichés, geographies, and stereotypes. For Barker and McKee, the problems inherent in defining the South as a screen space can be addressed through the concept of the “southern imaginary” – a concept that integrates the (contested) boundaries of traditional regional identif ication, with the inflections that emerge through the countless representational methods by which the South has been, and still is evoked (2011, 2). As an imaginary space, the South takes on a variety of meanings that converge to locate the South as a screen space that may shape ideas about the South for audiences, without necessarily offering access to a real, historically knowable South (Barker and McKee 2011, 1). The concept of the southern imaginary, therefore, signifies an idea of “southern” that is assembled from perceptions of place and identity tied up with a visual legacy that constructs the South in terms of a relationship to various southern tropes, communities, and character types.

“Where that Vodun shit goes down”: The South as Symbolic Terrain If the South as a screen space can shape ideas – even fictional ideas – about the South, as Barker and McKee argue, this is undoubtedly achieved (at least partly) through the visual capabilities of landscape. According to Graeme Harper and Jonathan Rayner, settings and landscapes in screen contexts can function both metonymically and metaphorically. On the metonymic level, landscape signals incompleteness and may be based on a range of designations: a skyscraper may designate a city while a ramshackle farmer’s hut may designate an agrarian existence. On the metaphoric level, however, landscape and setting function to signal the transference of an image or an idea to an alternate frame of reference (Harper and Rayner 2010, 20). As with its use in literature, metaphor in film and television functions to “deepen our understanding of a subject or theme” to enable the audience to “extend its relationship with the text” (Harper and Rayner 2010, 20). In other words, while the setting for a screen text may be actual, it may also function thematically by offering displaced representations of desires, beliefs, or values integral to the overall narrative (Harper and Rayner 2010, 21). In Hush…hush, Sweet Charlotte, for example, the primary setting is a seemingly haunted dilapidated plantation house targeted for demolition. While the

126 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

True Detective. Director: Cary Fukunaga. Year: 2014. Stars: Matthew McConaughey. © HBO / Album. Album / Alamy Stock Photo

house performs the Gothic function of haunting through its plantation setting and its association with the traumatic southern past, it also suggests a broader metaphoric dimension that addresses the undoing and destruction of the southern elite in a New South that wants to distance itself from the remnants of slavery. In HBO’s True Detective the industrial landscape of Louisiana’s “cancer alley”1 evokes a thematic connection between the toxic and ruinous characteristics of the region and the embodiment of such qualities in the actions and psyches of the inhabitants of the area. In wide shots of oil refineries lining the Mississippi river, or scenes that draw attention to the murky haze of the mysterious wetlands (indisputably inspired by photographer Richard Misrach’s Petrochemical America)2 we understand the logic of Detective Rust Cole’s assessment of Louisiana’s backwaters as the kind of place “where that Vodun shit goes down.” As Martin Lefebvre notes, Sergei Eisenstein understood film landscape as the “freest element of film, the least burdened with servile narrative 1 The stretch along the Mississippi river from Baton Rouge to south of New Orleans has been dubbed “cancer alley” due to fact that, as a corridor of oil refineries, chemical waste dumps, and heavy industrial plants, clusters of neurological diseases, cancers, and stillbirths have been recorded at higher rates than the national average (Koeppel 1999). 2 A number of Misrach’s photos are used in True Detecitve’s opening credit sequence.

Locating the Gothic South

127

tasks” and thus “the most f lexible” in conveying “moods, emotional states, and spiritual experiences” (Eisenstein in Lefebvre 2007, xii). This conceptualization of landscape, for Lefebvre, is one that allows landscape to be distinguished from mere background space or subservient settings where action and events take place. It highlights the extent to which film landscapes “lie in excess” of their narrative function (Lefebvre 2007, xii). As Warren Zanes notes, screen images of the South are constructed around an alleged southern “essence” that emanates from its distinctive characteristics (1998, 10). Regardless of whether this essence is real or imagined, the effect is to entangle the real South and the mediated South in a relationship that separates it from the wider national identity and, by extension, from all other representational spaces (Zanes 1998, 11). The swamps and bayous in the television series Swamp People, for example, serve to locate the action at specific geographical sites. This is reinforced by the voice over providing precise location information such as, “The Landrys head to Big Beau Bayou” or “Meanwhile, just north of the Florida Everglades” and so on. But whether the filming actually takes place at these sites is immaterial. The landscapes in the series primarily function as metaphor due to the way in which they are ideologically inscribed as uniquely and definitively southern, drawing on a wider historical tendency to construct the mediated South, first and foremost, in terms of place. Given the metaphorical operation of Southern Gothic screen spaces, southern settings and landscapes can therefore be freed from concerns of authenticity based on simple geographical arrangements. Instead, in the interplay between actual geographic space and thematic space, southern screen spaces can be understood as mediated bearers of various ideological or cultural meanings which, regardless of whether they are authentically southern, do the work of constructing the South according to the conventions of the Southern Gothic genre. As a broadly interpreted notion of “southern,” such ideas around landscape can be extrapolated to questions about the validity of southern representation in the hands of non-southern filmmakers. Richard Nelson in the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture writes, “One should make a distinction between film and television productions actually made in the South” and film and television productions made “about the South” (1989, 927). According to Nelson, local production bases should be utilized resulting in more “realistic pro-southern images” than could ever be achieved from a “Hollywood art director” recreating the South “on a California back lot” (Nelson 1989, 927). As Bruce Brasell has noted, there have been a number of academic attempts to define regional film – including regional films from the South – which subscribe to the general definition that a regional film is a film not simply

128 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

about a region, but one that comes from a region (2011, 294). Yet, as Brasell argues, such approaches privilege geographical and cultural accuracy as a crucial component of the definition of “regional” (2011, 294). Brooke Jacobson, for example, has claimed that regional films should be distinguished by the degree to which they portray actual conditions of life as experienced by the population in a given locale (1991, 20), criteria, that as Brasell notes, is inherently problematic (2011, 294). While certain southern filmmakers may indeed aspire to provide realistic southern voices (Ross McElwee and Victor Nunez are two examples), there are filmmakers who acknowledge that their films freely utilize southern regional stereotypes. Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan (2006) has been described by Brewer himself as a mixture of “southern mythology and exploitation” (in Brasell 2011, 295), while Phil Morrison claims his film Junebug (2005) depicts characters primarily in the form of southern caricatures (in Brasell 2011, 295). Further complicating matters around authenticity in relation to southern film is the fact that many iconic southern films have been made by nonsouthern filmmakers. Deliverance, for example, is a film whose evocation of the South is so enduring and widespread that even those who have never seen it know that the phrase “squeal like a pig” is a reference to the American South and its coarse stereotypes (Leiter 2011, 1). Yet for all its iconic status as a f ilm that resonates with a very particular type of southern imagery, John Boorman, the film’s director and producer, is, in fact, British. Like Boorman, many other non-southern filmmakers have made films that seem to personify the South, its characters, and its culture. The Night of the Hunter, Angel Heart, The Skeleton Key, and Cape Fear (1962) are all films that can be understood as distinctly southern in terms of their subject matter, their imagery, and their characters, yet they are directed by British filmmakers (Charles Laughton, Alan Parker, Iain Softley, and J. Lee Thompson respectively). A film set in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans, (2009) was directed by German filmmaker Werner Herzog, while Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci set his Southern Gothic horror film The Beyond (1981) in Louisiana with most of the action taking place in a New Orleans hotel. Moreover, it has not been an uncommon feature of film adaptations of southern literary works that their directors and/or producers are from outside the South (Barker and McKee 2011, 12). New Yorker Elia Kazan, for example, directed and co-produced Tennessee Williams’ Baby Doll (1956) and directed the f ilm adaptation of Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. A mainstay of southern civil rights discourse in cinematic form, To Kill a Mockingbird, was directed by another New Yorker Robert Mulligan, while New Yorker Martin

Locating the Gothic South

129

Ritt directed The Sound and the Fury (1959), and The Long, Hot Summer (1958), both adaptations of William Faulkner novels. Notions of southern authenticity then, in terms of eligibility to create a product that can be deemed “properly” southern, are largely inconsequential in considerations of the Southern Gothic on screen. To understand a film or television series as “southern” is to understand it as a relationship between geography and mediated cinematic space conceptualized to incorporate a range of voices and images that contribute to the overall notion of “southern” as it exists in a metaphorical sense.

Momentary Darkening or, the Bink: Classifying the Southern Gothic While the South on screen may be conveniently understood as an expanded or borderless configuration of region, the borderless model of genre proposed in this book as a way of classifying specif ic Southern Gothic screen texts is perhaps less convenient due to the tension inherent in the need to identify a collection of screen texts based on generic eligibility, while upholding a desire to avoid taxonomically based conclusions. Admission to, or refusal of a given candidate’s allocation to the Southern Gothic corpus suggests a type of membership or belonging, which, as has been shown in previous chapters, Derrida’s model of genre disallows. This tension may be alleviated somewhat by considering the classif icatory process itself. As Derrida says, if one is “bent on classifying,” there should be an identif iable or codif iable trait to consult to determine whether something belongs to this or that class (1980, 64). Yet, this seems impossible because while “there is always a genre and genres” there is no such thing as belonging to genre since what marks something as genre is not itself part of the genre, rather the mark of genre resides at the edges in order to demarcate. However, this mark is not purely extraneous to a given corpus (Derrida, 1980, 65). Rather, it creates a gathering, but in doing so it simultaneously interrupts the gathering by drawing attention to its position as a foreign body that designates and classifies. Thus, the mark of genre, the very thing that makes the gathering possible, is neither part of the genre nor entirely extraneous to it. Yet without this mark, no genre would be discernible as a genre. This can be likened to the blink of an eye. “The eyelid closes, but barely, an instant among instants, and what it closes is verily the eye, the view, the light of day. But without such respite, nothing would come to light” (Derrida 1980, 65). The blink of the eye places

130 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

along the boundary the mark that designates, and in doing so closes itself off from inclusion. As Hill points out, vision is only conceivable if there is also darkness since “pure light, like pure darkness, disables and makes vision impossible” (2007, 71). The blink shuts out the light just long enough for differentiation to be possible. What is key, however, is that the blink must be understood as neither light nor dark itself, and neither purely illuminating nor purely obscuring, but rather, the flickering movement of difference and deferral that is nether inside nor outside of that which it categorizes (Hill, 2007, 71). Classifying the Southern Gothic genre, therefore, may be understood as the blink that momentarily closes over a gathering. Within a shifting repertoire of changing signs and motifs, the momentary respite offered by the marking out of the Southern Gothic serves to emphasize the necessity of delineation, while also acknowledging the non-closure of delineative measures. In order that Southern Gothic screen texts may be spoken about as genre, they must be placed within a taxonomic framework for the purposes of classification. The framework itself, however, is foreign since it functions as a disruptive force that creates a gap between itself and the class of things it describes by interrupting the gathering to announce its classificatory role. But it is in this interruption that genre attribution occurs. Genre must be re-markable – able to be spoken about – so that it is recognisable when spoken about in language (Crimmins 2009, 51). Therefore, in order that Southern Gothic film and television may be spoken about as texts that participate in genre, they must be conceptualized as a gathering that in the fleeting instant of the blink, they come to light through the momentary darkening of re-markable generic designation. In the enfolded space of genre, where the Southern Gothic screen text is enfolded within all other genres, all other forms of the Southern Gothic (for example literature, podcasts, games, comics etc.), and all other manifestations of the Gothic, genre differentiation can be imagined as a gathering, but one that does not necessarily conform to pre-determined or predictable patterns. As John Frow says, no text’s path is mapped out in advance by genre. Texts are themselves “uses of genre, performances of, or allusions to the norms and conventions which form them and which they may, in turn, transform” (2006, 48). The Southern Gothic genre neither ends nor begins with any particular text or group of texts, but rather, is structured in such a way that each instance of the Southern Gothic on screen is an already stated re-marking of Southern Gothic genericity. This genericity, moreover, is tainted, not only through alteration, but also in its interaction with other genres and is therefore a constant reminder that rigorous categorization is

Locating the Gothic South

131

impossible. Yet in the blink, in the transitory darkening that allows vision to occur, there is acknowledgement of a gathering, an indication of a general form of which each individual instance of the Southern Gothic is an impure instance. In the blink that puts to death the light, there is the instantaneous reinstatement of light and therefore, in the spirit of this ephemerality, the Southern Gothic on screen can be understood as always expiring, yet always renewing, with generic borders that defy stability and are therefore obliged to continuously reform.

Works Cited Barker, Deborah E. and Kathryn McKee. American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011. Brasell, Bruce. “Humid Time: Independent Film, Gay Sexualities, and Southernscapes.” In American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Edited by Deborah Barker and Kathryn McKee. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011. Crimmins, Jonathan. “Gender, Genre, and the Near Future in Derrida’s ‘The Law of Genre’.” Diacritics. 39 (1): 45‒60, 2009. Derrida, Jacques. The Law of Genre. Trans. Avital Ronell. Critical Inquiry. 7 (1): 55–81, 1980. Frow, John. Genre. London Routledge, 2006. Greven, David. “The Southern Gothic Film: An Overview.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Edited by Susan Castillo Street and Charles Crow. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Harper, Graeme, and Rayner, Jonathan. Cinema and Landscape. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2010. Harris, Scott Jordan. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” In World Film Locations New Orleans. Edited by Scott Jordan Harris. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2012. Hill, Leslie, The Cambridge Introduction to Derrida. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Jacobson, Brooke. “Regional Film: A Strategic Discourse in the Global Marketplace.” Journal of Film and Video 43 (4): 18–32, 1991. Koeppel, Barbara. “Cancer Alley, Louisiana.” The Nation, 8 November. 16–24, 1999. Lefebvre, Martin. Landscape and Film. Edited by Martin Lefebvre. New York: Routledge, 2006. Leiter, Andrew. Southerners on Film. Edited by Andrew B. Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Misrach, Richard and Orff, Kate. Petrochemical America. New York: Aperture, 2014.

132 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Nelson, Richard. “Film production.” In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Zanes, Warren. “Primitive Myths: Photography and the American South.” Afterimage 25 (4): 10, 1998.

Filmography Angel Heart. Alan Parker. 1987. United States: Tri-Star Pictures. The Apostle. Robert Duvall. United States: October Films, 1997. Baby Doll. Elia Kazan. United States: Warner Bros, 1956. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans. Werner Herzog. United States: First Look Studios, 2009. The Beyond. Lucio Fulci. Italy. Medusa Distribuzione, 1981. Black Snake Moan. Craig Brewer. United States: Paramount Vantage, 2006. Cape Fear. J. Lee Thompson. United States: Universal Pictures, 1962. Dark Waters. Andre De Toth. United States: United Artists, 1944. The Defiant Ones. Stanley Kramer. United States: United Artists, 1958. Deliverance. John Boorman. United States: Warner Bros., 1972. The Devil all the Time. Antonio Campos. United States: Netflix, 2020. Eve’s Bayou. Kasi Lemmons. United States: Trimark Pictures, 1997. Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Robert Aldrich. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1964. Junebug. Phil Morrison. United States: Sony Pictures Classics. 2005. Little Chenier. Bethany Ashton. United States: Radio London Films, 2006. The Long, Hot Summer. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1958. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Clint Eastwood. United States: Warner Bros., 1997. Mud. Jeff Nichols. United States: Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions, 2012. The Night of the Hunter. Charles Laughton. United States: United Artists, 1955. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Andrew Douglas. United States/United Kingdom. BBC, 2003. The Skeleton Key. Iain Softley. United States: Universal Pictures, 2005. Sling Blade. Billy Bob Thornton. United States: Miramax Films, 1996. The Sound and the Fury. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1959. Southern Comfort. Walter Hill. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1981. A Streetcar Named Desire. Elia Kazan. United States: Warner Bros., 1951. This Property is Condemned. Sydney Pollack. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1966. To Kill a Mockingbird. Robert Mulligan. United States: Universal Pictures, 1962.

Locating the Gothic South

133

Television Series Rectify. Ray McKinnon. United States: Sundance TV, 2013–2016. Swamp People. United States: History Channel, 2010–Present. True Blood. Alan Ball. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 2008–2014. True Detective. Nic Pizzolatto. United States: Warner Bros. Television Distribution, 2014–2019.

7.

Slavery, Degeneracy, Myth, and Historical Resonances: A Survey of Southern Gothic Screen Texts. Abstract This chapter establishes “Southern Gothic” as an umbrella term for films and television series that conform to certain tendencies in narrative, thematic, aesthetic, and formal realms. It undertakes a survey of Southern Gothic screen texts that occupy an organized if tumultuous generic space, which, for the purposes of thoroughness and clarity, will be examined in a way that emphasizes certain clusters or affiliations. These clusters or affiliations are in no way intended to be understood as definitive or particularly stable, but rather, they help to navigate a network of titles that participate, to varying degrees, in the Southern Gothic genre. To this end, texts are organized into four categories: “adapting the literary Southern Gothic” “the degenerate South,” “resonances of slavery and civil war,” and “the mythic South.” Keywords: Southern Grotesque, Southern Fiction, Swamps, Bayous, Hillbillies, Voodoo

The 2005 film, The Skeleton Key is a film that employs substantial Southern Gothic visual and narrative tropes: the supernatural, images of swamps and plantations, references to Voodoo, and an ever-present sense of menace all contribute to the film’s construction of the South as a Gothic space of otherness. By way of contrast, the documentary film Deepsouth highlights the plight of HIV sufferers in the South and seems not to participate in the Southern Gothic at all, yet a sequence in a dilapidated church suggests an awareness of Southern Gothic conventions informs the scene to some extent. Therefore, with such a diversity of examples making up the Southern Gothic as a screen genre, this survey of screen texts emphasizes certain trends that can be understood as paradigmatic only in the sense that they

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch07

136 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

display connections or resemblances that allow the trends in the first place. To this end, this survey begins with what has had the greatest impact on Southern Gothic screen representation: adaptations of Southern Gothic fiction. It then looks to films and television series that position the South within the framework of the benighted South to depict the region as a space of backwardness or degeneracy. These texts are those that employ such tropes and character types as the redneck or the hillbilly, moral and social decay, menacing natural environments, or the various manifestations of southern religiosity. Southern Gothic screen texts with narratives and/or themes that resonate with the vestiges of slavery and Civil War will also be examined. And finally, film and television series informed by the construct of the mythic South will be considered to show how narratives of Gothicity can intersect with the ideas outlined previously around the notion of the romanticized or ‘sunny’ South. There is considerable crossover in these four categories. For instance, the category “adapting the literary Southern Gothic” does not include all screen texts based on literary sources. Rather, certain films and television programs that have literary sources (for example, Hillbilly Elegy, The Gingerbread Man, or The Green Mile) have been included in one of the other three categories for the sole reason that the authors of such literary texts are not necessarily recognized as those who work, in a dedicated way, in the Southern Gothic literary tradition. Most crucially, regardless of the category in which any given Southern Gothic screen text is placed, this exercise in categorization focuses primarily on the way in which the Southern Gothic “Others” the South. A film such as John Ford’s Tobacco Road (1941), while certainly involved in a generic exchange with the Erskine Caldwell novel from which it is adapted, eschews all notions of otherness in relation to the South. Moreover, the Gothic nature of Caldwell’s novel – described by Stanley Trachtenberg as sadistic and exaggerated (1989, 876), has in no way assured the preservation of Gothicity in the translation from novel to film. Similarly, The Reivers (Mark Rydell, 1969), a film adapted from a William Faulkner novel, avoids all allusions to the othered South of the source material, depicting instead the excesses and degradations of an underworld prostitution and gambling ring as farcical and comedic. Although farcical or comedic qualities do not automatically rule out coexisting Gothicity or otherness (see Wise Blood, True Blood, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Big Fish for example), the nature of Southern Gothic participation is that otherness may be understood as the delineative marker that attributes Gothicity to the South. Therefore, in the absence of any qualities of otherness or Gothicity, a screen text may only engage at the very outward edges of the Southern Gothic genre.

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

137

The 1976 film The Town that Dreaded Sundown (Charles B. Pierce) is a good example of a southern film that seems to embrace a certain trash aesthetic without necessarily grounding that aesthetic within the thematic or iconographic conventions of the Southern Gothic. Set and filmed in Texarkana, the film is an American International Pictures production based on the “moonlight murders” which was an actual series of attacks that took place between February and May in 1946. While the film has a slight southern flavour because events unfold in the South, the South is not really positioned as a site of otherness. Additionally, there are no specific Gothic themes or aesthetics around the serial killer plot, rather, the film is more stylistically consistent with the AIP formula of teenagers, sex, and fast cars. Similarly, The Big Easy (Jim McBride 1987); Treme (2010–2013); The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968); The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971), (Penelope Spheeris 1993); The Dukes of Hazzard (1979–1985), (Jay Chandrasekhar 2003); Raintree County (Edward Dmytryk 1957), Sweet Home Alabama (Andy Tennant 2002), Roots (1977) and NCIS: New Orleans (2014–present) are screen texts which may have undertones of southern otherness but are largely divested of Gothic connotations. Having said that, however, the film and television titles that comprise the following categories are not intended as an exhaustive list of eligible texts, and do not constitute an objective analysis. Rather, they function, first and foremost, as examples of how we can gather together the Southern Gothic on screen, offering nothing more than a starting point which can be added to, subtracted from, or completely disregarded in favour of an entirely different matrix. Further, this analysis does not engage in discussions of quality, discernment, or judgment in the manner of the evaluative processes most often associated with film criticism. Rather, it aims to treat all texts equally. The only claim this analysis makes is that there should be a generic distinctiveness to the Southern Gothic that sufficiently engages with southern otherness.

Adapting the Literary Southern Gothic Cinema did not invent the Southern Gothic. Like all genres, the Southern Gothic emerged already enfolded within other texts, other genres, and other forms of expression. Authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Clay Lewis, Charles Brockden Brown, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and George Washington Cable, produced literature that engaged with either the Gothic or the southern, and sometimes both, in varying degrees. Their

138 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

fiction can be therefore understood as anticipating the fiction of Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, Davis Grubb, Charlaine Harris, Harry Crews, Anne Rice, Erskine Caldwell, Barry Hannah, Cormac McCarthy, and any number of writers who similarly inhabit this diverse textual space. Within this space, literature, cinema, and television overlap and intersect ensuring the Southern Gothic’s endless adaptability as a discursive form. As Larry Langman and David Ebner point out, the early twentieth-century proliferation of Southern Gothic fiction inspired Hollywood to capitalize on the style. This led to the development of film scripts based on the work of authors who offered critical dissections of southern characters and environments and engaged with the notion of “southern otherness” in terms of dysfunction, distortion, or decay (2001, 109). Arguably, some of the most familiar screen renderings of this engagement with dysfunction or distortion come via Tennessee Williams whose plays were adapted into a number of Southern Gothic films including A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks 1968), Sweet Bird of Youth (Richard Brooks 1962), This Property is Condemned (1966), The Glass Menagerie (Irving Rapper 1950), The Last of the Mobile Hotshots (Sidney Lumet, 1970), and the made-for-television film Orpheus Descending. As Jere Real has observed, these films displayed impending madness, ominous violence, and both sexual repression and sexual obsession as particularly southern preoccupations – themes more explicitly developed in the films Baby Doll (Elia Kazan 1956), and Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph Mankiewicz 1959) (Real 1989, 917). In Baby Doll, sex (mostly its conspicuous absence) consumes the inhabitants of a decrepit antebellum mansion, with the spaces of the South Gothically encoded as a matrix of decay, violence, and degeneracy. In Suddenly, Last Summer, an Oedipal relationship between a wealthy southern matron and her LGBTQ son ends with the son being devoured by street urchins as retaliation for his predatory behaviour. Several of William Faulkner’s works adapted for the screen can be similarly seen to embody this otherness in Gothicized imagery of the macabre with an emphasis on madness, decay, and the loss of social status. Examples include Intruder in the Dust (Clarence Brown 1949), The Long, Hot Summer (Martin Ritt 1958), Tomorrow1 (Joseph Anthony 1972), The Sound and the Fury (Martin Ritt 1959; James Franco 2014), Sanctuary (Tony Richardson 1961),

1 Tomorrow was adapted from a play by Horton Foote who based the play on a story by William Faulkner.

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

139

and The Story of Temple Drake2 (Stephen Roberts 1933). In film adaptations of the works of Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, and Truman Capote the Other takes the form of the grotesque in characters who are physically or mentally abnormal. As Sarah Gleeson White has observed, the grotesque imbues the Southern Gothic with images of excess: forbidding landscapes, freakish outsiders, and bloody violence all thematically tied to claustrophobic spaces, sexual deviance, and religious fundamentalism (2001, 108). In Wise Blood (John Huston 1979), adapted from O’Connor’s novel, the South is a place of Gothic excesses, where religious fundamentalism and the intersections between science and God, truth and fraudulence are played out through the story of an atheist preacher and his disciple – a simpleminded teenager obsessed with dressing as an ape. In film adaptations of McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Robert Ellis Miller 1968), The Member of the Wedding (Fred Zinnemann 1952), The Ballad of the Sad Café (Simon Callow 1991), along with the adaptation of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, southern spaces are characteristically alienating and inhabited by outcasts. This is also the case in To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted from the novel by Harper Lee, in which Boo Radley is a lonely figure who hovers hauntingly over the lives of the children, and the adaptation of Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms (David Rocksavage, 1997) in which a thirteen-year-old boy visiting his quadriplegic father sees a solitary woman in a Mardi Gras costume watching him from the window of an isolated, decaying plantation house. In The Night of the Hunter, based on the Davis Grubb novel, Preacher Harry Powell is a Gothic monster attributed with tyrannical qualities that border on the satanic. As David Punter and Glennis Byron have written, the Gothic monster, whether in appearance or behaviour, functions to define and construct the politics of the “normal.” Located at the margins of culture, they police the boundaries and point to those lines that must not be crossed (2004, 263). Harry Powell breaches the lines between the normal and the Other by unsettling binary notions of love and hate, or good and evil, revealing them to be easily transgressed, while in Cape Fear (originally made in 1962 and remade in 1991), adapted from the novel The Executioners (1957) by John D. MacDonald, Georgia lawyer Sam Bowden is stalked by Max Cady who is disturbed and violent in a way that places particular emphasis on the anxieties around the construction of power and the ease with which power can be disrupted.

2 The Story of Temple Drake is a pre-code Hollywood film adapted from the William Faulkner novel Sanctuary. It was re-made in 1961 with the original title.

140 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

While the early to mid-twentieth-century Southern Gothic authors employed grotesque imagery and tropes of decay and ruin as techniques to portray the South as a distorted and Gothic space, later writers have used the device of the supernatural in their narratives to articulate the notion of the South as a mysterious and othered environment. True Blood and Interview with the Vampire position southern otherness in terms of the monstrous and the otherworldly. True Blood, reflects, as Brigid Cherry argues, the socio-political mores of the South – particularly those around various types of discrimination – through encoding the “coming out” of the vampires as politically inscribed (2012, 40). As Cherry points out, the setting of the Deep South is paramount since its use of certain environmental markers, such as overgrown vegetation and lush woodlands, essentially function as the dungeons and secret chambers of the traditional Gothic reiterated in terms of claustrophobia and oppression (2012, 41). James Lee Burke has operated in the specific literary tradition of crime fiction, yet his novels show a strong engagement with the Deep South as a space of haunting, loss, and ruin. This is particularly evident in Burke’s “Dave Robicheaux” series, in which the spaces of Louisiana’s New Iberia Parish are evoked in the form of recurring Gothic motifs and tropes connected to the forbidding natural environments of the swamps and bayous characteristic of the area. In the Electric Mist (Bernard Tavernier 2009) adapted from Burke’s In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (1991), the South is an othered space of spectral visions from the Civil War where the ghosts of Confederate soldiers in the midst of battle appear in the swamps in modern day Louisiana. Thus, the landscapes of New Iberia become sites of haunting where “two realities superimpose in time and space” (Turner 2015, 53), and where past and present, living and dead are defined by an unavoidable relationship with southern history.

The Degenerate South While the literary South has afforded southern Gothic film a wealth of sources for adaptation, certain films such as Deliverance3 have eclipsed their literary origins due to the lasting impression they have left on the popular imagination. According to Andrew Leiter, while Boorman’s Deliverance is unlikely to be understood as a realistic representation of southern life, the association of the South with sensationalized violence and grotesque 3

Deliverance by James Dickey was published in 1970.

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

141

Deliverance. Year: 1972. Stars: Herbert Coward, Bill Mckinney. © Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

stereotypes lingers as a common cultural touchstone for the region, particularly in relation to the idea of southern backwardness (2011, 1). As Leiter says, in the popular imagination, primitive, poor, and ignorant hillbilly stereotypes have become standard aspects of the broader southern image (2011, 3). While these aspects have their roots in Southern Gothic literature, more than any other medium, film has shaped popular perceptions of the redneck South (Leiter 2011, 2). Violence, incest, sadism, and degeneracy – things in no way exclusive to the Southern Gothic on screen – have become associated, in a southern context, with an otherness that is bestowed upon particular characters or behaviours to imply that these characters and behaviours are typically southern but not typically American. The representation of the southern Other is evident in a variety of Southern Gothic characters and environments that position debauchery, distortion, violence, or menace as synonymous with southern-ness, which in turn, sees southern-ness operating as shorthand for transgression and breached boundaries. In Deliverance, a guitar-playing city dweller confronts his Other in the figure of an inbred boy – the embodiment of breached boundaries – playing a banjo. This is indicative of the way in which the Other of the Southern Gothic can be explicitly embodied in white trash

142 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

such as the inbred hillbilly, the sadistic redneck, the sexual deviant, the psychotic simpleton, or the uneducated racist, as the source of darkness that lies at the heart of southern culture. Cool Hand Luke (Stuart Rosenberg 1967), In Cold Blood (Richard Brooks 1967), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper 1974), Pretty Baby (Louis Malle 1978), The Paperboy (Lee Daniels 2012), Hounddog (Deborah Kampmeier 2007), The Gingerbread Man (Robert Altman 1998), Hush (Jonathan Darby 1998), Black Snake Moan, Chrystal (Ray McKinnon 2004), Things That Hang from Trees (Ido Mizrahy, 2006), Heavens Fall (Terry Green 2006), Killer Joe, (William Friedkin 2011), The Killer Inside Me (Michael Winterbottom 2010), Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik 2010), Baby Blues (Amar Kaleka and Lars Jacobson 2008), The Fool Killer, Sling Blade, Monster’s Ball, Junebug, Red Dirt (Tag Purvis 2000), Undertow (David Gordon Green 2004), My Louisiana Sky, Into the Abyss, Dead Man Walking (Tim Robins 1995), Rectify, Tiger King, Texas Killing Fields (Ami Canaan Mann 2011), Hillbilly Elegy, Stillwater (Adrian Kays 2005), and The Devil all the Time all provide evidence of the various ways in which the South is rendered Other through depictions of bigotry, backwardness, perversion, and violence. While in many films and television series the entire South is positioned as the locale for debauched behaviours, in others there is a certain geographical specificity with regards to particular natural landscapes. This is evident, for example, in Southern Gothic screen texts that utilize swamps and bayous as settings or partial settings for explorations of southern degeneracy. In Shadow and Shelter Anthony Wilson argues that one of the features of the southern swamp is that it has become host to the notion that it represents the “South’s lurid underbelly” (2006, 4). This is partly because there is an elusiveness of meaning that exists around the term “swamp,” which can be attested to by the vagueness and ephemerality of the numerous attempts to define it. While one definition may posit “swamp” as a tract of moist soil, another understands it as a wooded waterway (Wilson, 2006: xiii). As a space of in-betweenness, the southern swamp has thus been imagined in decidedly negative terms in broader national discourses. As Wilson says, the swamp represents a threat to mainstream social order, a condition that has emanated from multiple historical factors: it has been an obstacle to agriculture, a shelter for the dispossessed (in the past providing a haven for escaped slaves), the home to indigenous communities, and a site specifically connected to Cajun culture (2006: xv). Neither land nor water, the swamp is, paradoxically, both. To encounter the swamp is to encounter an environment that is haunted by an inability to be categorized in term of either/or.

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

143

CAPTION: The Gift. Director: Sam Raimi. Year: 2000. Stars: Cate Blanchett. © Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

In several Southern Gothic screen texts this ambiguity manifests to position the swamp as indelibly linked to haunting, menace, or taboo behaviour. In Jean Renoir’s Swamp Water (1941) the film establishes the swamp’s otherness from the outset via the image of a human skull on a wooden cross protruding from the water. In an intersection of Christian symbolism and black magic ritual, this image indicates the boundaries one must cross when one enters the swamp. In The Gift, the film’s opening credit sequence is filmed in a swamp which is clue to a plot that anchors violence, incest, and the supernatural to this specific milieu. Similarly, in Swamp Thing (Wes Craven 1982), The Reaping, Eve’s Bayou, Little Chenier: A Cajun Story, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Disney’s animated f ilm The Princess and the Frog (John Musker and Ron Clements 2009), Mud, No Mercy (Richard Pearce 1986), Dark Waters, Murder in the Bayou, and Swamp People, the swamps and bayous become performative spaces in which otherness and/ or haunting are enmeshed with the swamp’s menacing image. This is taken to extremes in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, a film in which a Louisiana hotel built on a swamp is not only a place of danger and mystery but also a portal that leads directly to Hell. As Wilson has noted, when a film or television show turns to the swamp, it does so to capitalize on the swamp’s decaying and grotesque qualities which function emblematically to suggest these qualities are characteristic of South as a whole (2006, 22). In The Skeleton Key (2005), for example, the

144 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

bayous of Louisiana are the setting for a plot that draws on the notion of the South as a cursed location mired deep in the traditions of Voodoo. In imagery of decomposing and entangled vegetation, pendulous Spanish moss, and murky water, the swamp acts as a symbol of the hidden and the macabre where the Voodoo practices of long dead house servants take place undisturbed. In Southern Comfort, a patrol of National Guardsmen is sent to the Louisiana swamps for a military training exercise. Pitted not only against one another but also against a group of Cajun trappers, the men become increasingly disoriented and demented as they transgress boundaries that in their normal lives would remain uncrossed. This suggests, as Herbert-Leiter points out, that the hazards of the swamp derive from its alleged strangeness, its “moss draped depths” posing a serious threat to mainstream America (2011, 195). Evidence for this lies in the film’s plot which depicts the men falling victim to the local Cajuns who manage to slaughter all but two of the guardsmen. When a rescue truck finally reaches the surviving guardsmen, the camera lingers on the truck’s insignia which reads, in no uncertain terms, “USA” suggesting that the film is underpinned by a nationalistic agenda that distinguishes between the Cajun Other and the “real” Americans. In True Detective, Louisiana’s swamplands are the site of ritualistic murders that reaffirm the swamp’s status as a space of horror. Drawing together the threads that link region and otherness, True Detective demonstrates a Southern Gothic tendency to foreground the irrational and the distorted as if they seep from the southern soil. An almost unwatchable video of a crime committed against a young girl, an incestuous relationship between a killer and his slow-witted sister, a maze of tunnels filled with vaguely occult symbols, children kept as sex slaves in a shipping container – these narrative elements in True Detective all centre around the construct of the South as a place whose hidden geographies are rendered unique through their inhabitant’s commitment to debauchery and uncivilized behaviours. While the swamps and bayous of the Southern Gothic function symbolically to emphasize the otherness of the South, this is also conveyed through the South’s positioning as a space of distorted religiosity inextricably tied up with ideas around southern backwardness. In Angel Baby a mute woman is attributed with healing powers conferred by someone in an alcoholic haze. Like The Night of the Hunter and The Devil all the Time the film presents a grotesque image of fundamentalist Christianity specific to the poorer classes of the rural South. Similarly, in The Apostle, The Last Exorcism, The Neon Bible (Terence Davies 1995), Southern Gothic (Mark Young 2007), Frailty and the television series Rectify, religion is rendered a site of contradictory behaviours and beliefs where God, violence, piety, and debauchery occupy the same

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

145

thematic space. The religious practices associated with southern Voodoo also inform the construct of the Gothic South through the representation of African spiritualism as something that offers a kind of non-rational and transgressive counter-narrative to white Eurocentric understandings of “normal’ religious practice. In Angel Heart, The Skeleton Key, The Princess and the Frog, Eve’s Bayou, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, True Detective, To Sleep with Anger (Charles Burnett 1990), Crossroads, and American Horror Story: Coven, Voodoo in various forms becomes a source of terror with a special relationship to the Deep South where its designation as a diabolical and malevolent practice first emerged. As Leslie Fiedler once noted, the entire southern landscape is a “chaotic and lost world” (1970, 435) where disease, death, defeat, mutilation, idiocy, and lust evoke shudders “once compelled only by the supernatural” (1970, 440). The films and television shows that situate the South as an “American outland,” populated by crude stereotypes who are given authentication and validation through the unspeaking voice of place, may seem, as James Crank has argued, wholly cartoonish since they eliminate or overturn realism and allow the makers of Southern Gothic screen texts to perpetuate exploitative themes and imagery (2011, 212–2014). Yet this is inconsistent with the Gothic more generally. As Punter and Byron note, from its earliest articulation, the Gothic has been structured by excess and exaggeration since it is the product of the wild and the uncivilized and depicts worlds that constantly overflow boundaries (2004, 7). It is therefore fitting that the various tropes and characters of the Southern Gothic on screen – the rednecks, the sexual deviants, the bible thumping psychopaths, the Voodoo practitioners, the southern white trash – revel in the excesses and extremes of southern degeneracy and distortion in the dynamic and overflowing spaces of Southern Gothic genericity.

Resonances of Slavery and Civil War In the film, In the Electric Mist, Detective Dave Robicheaux is plagued by guilt over a race crime he witnessed as a young man in which a black convict was beaten by white men and left to die in the swamp. In the film, this guilt comes to haunt Robicheaux along with ghostly visions of the Civil War until the two become entwined aspects of a murder investigation. The way in which the film positions race and the Civil War as having a haunting effect on Robicheaux specifically, and the South more generally, is registered in terms of the Gothic principle of “the past in the present.” This struggle is

146 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

evident in many Southern Gothic screen texts in which the past becomes a conflict of conscience linked to the South’s association with slavery. While In the Electric Mist does not directly address slavery, slavery nevertheless asserts its presence via Robicheaux’s ghostly visions of bedraggled Confederate soldiers, a memory that the South cannot obliterate. In FX’s American Horror Story: Coven Delphine La Laurie, a nineteenth-century slave killer, is resurrected in the twenty first century to suffer at the hands of her historical contemporary New Orleans Voodoo queen Marie Laveau. The present therefore functions to address the sins of the past, ultimately leading to a type of recompense as Laveau becomes La Laurie’s eternal torturer in Hell. In Beautiful Creatures, the teenaged Lena’s maturity as a “caster” hinges on her need to address an ancestral curse originating from the Civil War, which has resulted in her inability to escape the “dark” aspect of her supernatural powers. In the film To Sleep with Anger the past maintains an influence over the present via a connection to slavery and African spiritualism, which is presented as a conflict between religion and the traditional African healing practice known as “conjure.” Set in contemporary Los Angeles, the film depicts the influence of the southern past in terms of the loss of a totemic charm designed to ward off evil. While slavery is an afterthought in the film, there is an acknowledgement that slavery is the vessel that introduced conjure to the South (Cunningham 2011, 124). Thus, a continued adherence to conjure places the past in the present through the implications inherent in the tension between black-centred traditions and white-centred modernity. The film, In the Heat of the Night is similarly lacking in overt references to slavery, yet its resonances are there nonetheless in the depiction of the relationship between a white racist police chief and an African American homicide detective in small-town Mississippi. The police chief and the homicide detective are constructs of the racial power relations that have preceded them, and they therefore embody the qualities of a haunted past that continues to inform the present. In Two Thousand Maniacs! (Herschell Gordon Lewis 1964), the Civil War has never ended for the inhabitants of a rural community of vengeful spirits who exact retribution every hundred years by torturing and killing Yankees in a town that only exists as an apparition. The ephemeral town, appearing on the centenary of a Civil War battle, sees the same battle played out over and over, reinvigorating itself with each new set of victims. In The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1971),4 North South aggression is projected through the relationship between the inhabitants of a girl’s 4

The film was remade in 2017 with Sofia Coppola as director.

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

147

boarding school in Louisiana and a wounded Yankee soldier who happens upon the school at the end of the Civil War. With the tensions between the North and South recast in terms of sexual tension between the women and the soldier, this tension is additionally played out via the enslavement of the soldier when his leg is unnecessarily amputated. In trapping the soldier and forcing him into subservience, The Beguiled constructs a discourse around slavery in which the soldier is punished, (partly for his Union alliance and partly as revenge for unrequited attraction), becoming the victim of an apparently irresistible urge for brutal and depraved southerners to enslave anyone who comes into their purview. In Fried Green Tomatoes (John Avnet 1991) a café in Depression era Alabama is a space in which the vestiges of slavery are summoned via the depiction of the flouting of rules relating to the status of African Americans. In the café, difference collapses as the boundaries between racial propriety become exposed and crossed in grotesque ways. In Mississippi Burning (Alan Parker 1988), Ghosts of Mississippi (Rob Reiner 1996), Black Like Me (Carl Lerner 1964), Beloved (Jonathan Demme, 1998), Toys in the Attic, The Young One (Luis Bunuel 1960), and The Defiant Ones, the spectres of slavery and race are narratively embedded, due in large part, to the inexorable march of civil rights discourse merging with the spaces of the southern film, while in Django Unchained, the southern slave saga is reinvented as a revisionist narrative that unearths the spectre of slavery, a ghost, that as Phillip Brophy has observed, has lain festering in the American Gothic for decades ( 2013, 20).

The Mythic South In chapter 1, the construct of the South as a space rendered mythic through the discursive framework of the sunny South was examined using Barthes’ ideas about myth to argue that the “sunny South” construct distorts history and empties it of reality since its status rests on a connection to the exalted Old South. It suggested that through constructing the South as “sunny,” or in other words, as a nostalgic space of “authentic” values and traditions, the sunny South, at least in screen contexts, has seen the South not only mythically encoded but also encoded as Other. It argued that this otherness is a result of a process that positions the South as simultaneously innocent (because it has been emptied of history) and abnormal (because it is constructed as operating outside of the national discourse through setting itself apart and promoting the various ways in which it its “difference” manifests culturally and historically). Andrew Douglas’s documentary film

148 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus does just this in its negotiation of the South as a mythically encoded space, imbued with romanticism, loss, and decay. In accessing southern storytelling and storytellers to underpin its narrative, the film frames the South in mythic terms by drawing on notions of the authenticity of southern traditions and values. Yet it simultaneously encodes the South as Gothic by presenting these traditions and values as structured by ruin and loss (a closer analysis of the film is undertaken in the next section). In Big Fish (Tim Burton 2003), a dying southern patriarch recounts the stories of his youth. While the film positions the South as a site of family values, tradition, history, and folklore in which southern stories are rendered in terms of the fantastic, it simultaneously presents these stories as structured by Gothic tropes of excess, exaggeration, the secretive, and the hidden. The mythic qualities attributed to the South in the film (sunny, authentic, redemptive) function simultaneously as grotesque renderings of these qualities through the fantasy figures encountered in the town, appropriately named “Spectre,” thus encoding the film in Gothic terms. Terry Gilliam’s Tideland (2006), un-fixes distinctions between the sunny South and benighted South in a plot revolving around a child neglected by her heroin addicted father and left to create a fantasy life in a dilapidated Texas farmhouse. The girl’s “reality” is her fantasy world, which renders them two sides of the same coin. In O Brother, Where Art Thou? the melding of mythology with southern traditions of music, religion, orality, and literature, inscribes the film with a Gothicity that also imagines the South in terms of exaggeration, violence, and racism. The representation of the South in the films Big Fish, Tideland, and O Bother, Where Art Thou? can be understood as performances of the southern Gothic that interpret the South within the realms of the mythic, underpinned by Gothic tropes and signifiers that articulate thematic concerns associated with the construct of the benighted South. In the documentaries Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse (Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass 2016), Deepsouth, My Louisiana Love (Sharon Linezo Hong 2012), and Tobacco Money Feeds my Family (Cynthia Hill 2003), the South is constructed as a space mythically encoded through connections to place. This relationship with place, however, is rendered simultaneously tainted through various social and political problems – HIV (Deepsouth), mental illness (The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse), discrimination and environmental issues (My Louisiana Love), or poverty and destitution (Tobacco Money Feeds my Family, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus) – that have impacted the South in ways that have led to its image as a Gothic space of ruin and melancholy.

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

149

This is similarly the case in Two Moon Junction (Zalman King 1988), where the South is coded as authentic via a plot in which a modern-day southern belle, home from college and back in the family plantation house, comes to know her “real” self. As Palmer says, notions of “southern tradition” and “southern heritage” are often positioned in contemporary cultural or media contexts as synonymous with, and/or engendering “southern authenticity” (2011, 92). In the misty atmospheres and shimmering heat of Alabama in Two Moon Junction, the troubled southern past is displaced for a broad set of tenets that gives ideological weight to the primacy of southern values. The “mythic South” in the film is thus informed by the construct of the sunny South since it positions the South as a site of romance, community, and family values. Yet at the same time, the southern belle’s “authentic” nature is expressed exclusively through her lurid affair with a “white trash” carnival worker who embodies the violence and backwardness of the benighted South. The romance and tradition of the South are thereby reorganized into Gothicized imagery that speaks of the darkness inherent within the “sunny South” construct. In many other screen texts, the South is similarly rendered as a mythic and/or redemptive space where narratives play out within exalted or sublime southern landscapes overwritten by such things as transgression and addiction (A Love Song for Bobby Long [Shainee Gabel, 2004], Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans), violence (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), mental illness (Crimes of the Heart [Bruce Beresford, 1986]), and the supernatural (The Green Mile).

Conclusion The films and television series included in Section Three are not intended as definitive or incontestable examples of the Southern Gothic on screen since the nature of generic attribution highlights the inconvenient obliqueness of the path to delineation. For most of the texts discussed here as Southern Gothic, there are alternative readings undoubtedly just as valid. Yet in conceptualizing these examples of the Southern Gothic on screen within a framework that alludes to the Derridean notion of the blink, the Southern Gothic genre comes to light in such a way that some clarity and definition may appear, thus displacing any undue cloudiness that might otherwise hang over the genre. That the blink is momentary and almost invisible necessarily dictates that any screen text’s designation as “Southern Gothic” may only exist at the edges of generic participation, or the point at which the fragments and echoes of the Southern and the Gothic are enfolded

150 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

within other genres, other texts, and other narrative traditions. Thus, in the spaces of a corpus whose contaminated borders reflect and are reflected in the spectral traces of the Other, the Derridean notion of genre ensures that individual screen texts can be examined for the ways in which they reorder, reconstitute, and perform against the generic arrangements to which they are bound. As assemblages of the already said, Southern Gothic screen texts are thus gathered together just long enough to avoid obliteration, and this, in the abstract philosophical realms of genre theory, hopefully constitutes a reasonably practical framework for the study of the southern Gothic genre and the film and television texts that perform under its banner. Included under this conceptual umbrella are screen texts that, on the surface, may appear to be dissimilar to the point of occupying little common ground apart perhaps from the circumstance of their southern settings. Yet, throughout this book, genre is framed according to notions of enfoldment, division, non-closure, and renewability. Therefore, Southern Gothic screen texts can be understood as coming into being with their borders already functioning as sites of invention and reinvention, where overflow and cross contamination are part of the endless play of classificatory undoing. Analogous with Paul O’Flinn’s assertion that there is no Frankenstein only Frankensteins due to the ceaseless rewriting and redesigning of the Frankenstein image (1983, 194), there is similarly no South, only Souths. Where a film or television series can be understood as participating in the Southern Gothic, it can be said to be operating at the edges of, and in the invaginated and turbulent space of an always divided and reinvented Southern Gothic genericity. While “southern” in the context of the mediated South, can make few claims to authenticity in terms of shooting locations or the cultural origins of filmmakers who create a Southern Gothic product, “southern” nevertheless can be seen as an engagement with the narrative space of the South, which is a construct of representation and imagination more than it is an indicator of actual geographical terrain. As Barker and McKee have noted, the screened South is not a concept easily contained by the boundaries of geography or genre (2011, 2), rather, it is an endlessly remade screen space. As a result, there is no singular notion of the South, but only multiple Souths that take part in the process of sameness and difference that structures all generic concepts. In terms of the Gothic, its manifestation is enabled by a conception of the Other that renders it always already multiple, confirming therefore, that there is no Gothic only Gothics. Thus, the Southern Gothic, with no particular profile in the sense of having taxonomically determined genre codes, enacts genericity in a way that defies certainty, yet ultimately, where genres and narratives, Gothics and Souths

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

151

intersect, a momentary gathering occurs allowing the Southern Gothic to come into view to announce that there can be no Southern Gothic, but only ever Southern Gothics.

Works Cited Barker, Debra E. and McKee, Kathryn. American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Edited by Debra E. Barker and Kathryn McKee. Athens: University Press of Georgia, 2011. Brophy, Phillip. “Between Electric Italy and Black America.” Real Time 114: (20), 2013. Burke, James Lee. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. Harper Collins, 1994. Cherry, Brigid. True Blood: Investigating Vampires and Southern Gothic. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Crank, James. “An Aesthetic of Play: A Contemporary Cinema of South-Sploitation.” In Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. Edited by Andrew B Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Cunningham, Phillip Lamarr. “The Haunting of a Black Southern Past: Considering Conjure in To Sleep with Anger.” In Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. Edited by Andrew Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Fiedler, Leslie. Love and Death in the American Novel. London: Paladin, 1970. Gleeson-White, Sarah. “Revisiting the Southern Grotesque: Mikhail Bakhtin and the Case of Carson McCullers,” The Southern Literary Journal 33 (2): 108–123, 2001. Herbert-Leiter, Maria. “Reel Horror: Louisiana’s Vanishing Wetlands and the Threat of Hollywood.” In Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. Edited by Andrew Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Langman, Larry and Ebner, David. Hollywood’s Image of the South: A Century of Southern Films. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001. Leiter, Andrew. Southerners on Film. Edited by Andrew B. Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. O’Flinn, Paul. “Production and Reproduction: The Case of Frankenstein.” In Horror, The Film Reader. Edited by Mark Jancovich. London: Routledge, 2002. Palmer, Landon. “Gender, Regional Identity, and the Civil War: Politics of the North and South in Sweet Home Alabama and June Bug.” In Southerners on Film. Edited by Andrew B. Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Punter, David and Byron, Glennis. The Gothic. Maldon: Blackwell, 2004. Real, Jere. In Encyclopedia of Southern culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

152 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Trachtenberg, Stanley. In Encyclopedia of Southern culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Turner, Daniel. “Gray Ghosts: Remediating the Confederate Undead.” In, Undead Souths. Edited by Eric Gary Anderson, Taylor Hagood, and Daniel Cross Turner. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015. Wilson, Anthony. Shadows and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture. Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 2006.

Filmography A Love Song for Bobby Long. Shainee Gabel. United States: Lionsgate Destination Films, 2004. Angel Baby. Paul Wendkos. United States: Allied Artists Pictures Corporation, 1961. Angel Heart. Alan Parker. United States: Tri-Star Pictures, 1987. The Apostle. Robert Duvall. United States: October Films, 1997. Baby Blues. Amar Kaleka and Lars Jacobson. United States: Sweat Shop Films, 2008. Baby Doll. Elia Kazan. United States: Warner Bros, 1956. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans. Werner Herzog. United States: First Look Studios, 2009. The Ballad of the Sad Café. Simon Callow. United States; Canada; United Kingdom, 1991. Beautiful Creatures. Richard La Gravenese. 2013. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures. The Beguiled. Don Siegel. United States: Universal Pictures, 1971. The Beguiled. Sofia Coppola. United States: Focus Features, 2017. Beloved. Jonathan Demme. United States: Buena Vista Pictures, 1998. The Beverly Hillbillies. Penelope Spheeris. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1993. The Beyond. Lucio Fulci. Italy. Medusa Distribuzione, 1981. The Big Easy. Jim McBride. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1986. Big Fish. Tim Burton. United States: Sony Pictures, 2003. Black Like Me. Carl Lerner. United States: Continental Distributing, 1964. Black Snake Moan. Craig Brewer. United States: Paramount Vantage, 2007. Cape Fear. J. Lee Thompson. United States: Universal Pictures, 1962. Cape Fear. Martin Scorsese. United States: Universal Pictures, 1991. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Richard Brooks. United States: MGM, 1958. Chrystal. Ray McKinnon. United States: First Look Studios, 2004. Cool Hand Luke. Stuart Rosenberg. United States: Warner Bros., 1967.

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

153

Crimes of the Heart. Bruce Beresford. United States: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group,1986. Crossroads. Walter Hill. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1986. Dark Waters. Andre De Toth. United States: United Artists, 1944. Dead Man Walking. Tim Robbins. United States: Gramercy Pictures, 1995. Deepsouth. Lisa Biagiotti. United States, 2014. The Defiant Ones. Stanley Kramer. United States: United Artists, 1958. Deliverance. John Boorman. United States: Warner Bros., 1972. The Devil all the Time. Antonio Campos. United States: Netflix, 2020. Django Unchained. Quentin Tarantino. United States: Columbia Pictures, 2012. The Dukes of Hazzard. Jay Chandrasekhar. United States: Warner Bros., 2005. Eve’s Bayou. Kasi Lemmons. United States: Trimark Pictures, 1997. The Fool Killer. Servando González. United States: American International Pictures, 1965. Frailty. Bill Paxton. United States: Lions Gate Films, 2001. Fried Green Tomatoes. John Avnet. United States: Universal Pictures, 1991. Ghosts of Mississippi. Rob Reiner. United States. Sony Pictures Releasing, 1996. The Gift. Sam Raimi. United States: Paramount Classics, 2000. The Gingerbread Man. Robert Altman. United States: PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, 1998. The Glass Menagerie. Irving Rapper. United States: Warner Bros., 1950. The Green Mile. Frank Darabont. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Robert Ellis Miller. United States: Warner Bros., 1968. Heavens Fall. Terry Green. United States, 2006. Hillbilly Elegy. Ron Howard. United States: Netflix, 2020. Hounddog. Deborah Kampmeier. United States: Empire Film Group, 2007. Hush. Jonathan Darby. United States: Sony Pictures, 1998. Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Robert Aldrich. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1964. In Cold Blood. Richard Brooks. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1967. Interview with the Vampire. Neil Jordan. United States: Warner Bros, 1994. In the Electric Mist. Bertrand Tavernier. France; United States: TFM Distribution, 2009. In the Heat of the Night. Norman Jewison. United States: United Artists, 1967. Into the Abyss. Werner Herzog. United States, United Kingdom, Germany. IFC Films/Sundance Selects, 2011. Intruder in the Dust. Clarence Brown. United States: MGM, 1949. Junebug. Phil Morrison. United States: Sony Pictures Classics. 2005. The Killer Inside Me. Michael Winterbottom. United States: IFC Films, 2010. Killer Joe. William Friedkin. United States: LD Entertainment, 2011. The Last Exorcism. Daniel Stamm. United States: Lionsgate, 2010.

154 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Last of the Mobile Hotshots. Sidney Lumet. United States: Warner Bros.,1970. Little Chenier. Bethany Ashton. United States: Radio London Films, 2006. The Long, Hot Summer. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1958. The Member of the Wedding. Fred Zinnemann. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1952. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Clint Eastwood. United States: Warner Bros., 1997. Monster’s Ball. Marc Forster. United States: Lionsgate Films, 2001. Mud. Jeff Nichols. United States: Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions, 2012. My Louisiana Love. Sharon Linezo Hong. United States, 2012. My Louisiana Sky. Adam Arkin. United States, 2001. Mississippi Burning. Alan Parker. Orion Pictures, 1988. The Night of the Hunter. Charles Laughton. United States: United Artists, 1955. The Neon Bible. Terence Davies. United Kingdom: Strand Releasing, 1995. No Mercy. Richard Pearce. United States: TriStar Pictures, 1986. O Brother, Where Art Thou? Joel Coen. United States; United Kingdom; France, 2000. Orpheus Descending. Peter Hall. United States: TNT, 1990. Other Voices, Other Rooms. David Rocksavage. United States; United Kingdom: Artistic License Films, 1995. The Paperboy. Lee Daniels. United States: Millennium Films, 2012. Pretty Baby. Louis Malle. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1978. The Princess and the Frog. John Musker and Ron Clements. United States: Disney Studios, 2009. Raintree County. Edward Dmytryk. United States: MGM, 1957. The Reaping. Stephen Hopkins. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007 Red Dirt. Tag Purvis. United States: 2000. The Reivers. Mark Rydell. United States: National General Pictures, 1969. The Sad and the Beautiful World of Sparklehorse. Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass. United Kingdom, 2016. Sanctuary. Tony Richardson. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1961. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Andrew Douglas. United States/United Kingdom. BBC, 2003. The Skeleton Key. Iain Softley. United States: Universal Pictures, 2005. Sling Blade. Billy Bob Thornton. United States: Miramax Films, 1996. The Sound and the Fury. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1959. The Sound and the Fury. James Franco. United States: New Films International, 2014. Southern Comfort. Walter Hill. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1981. Southern Gothic. Mark Young. United States: IFC Films, 2007. Stillwater. Adrian Kays. United States: 2005. The Story of Temple Drake. Stephen Roberts. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1933.

SL AVERY, DEGENER AC Y, MY TH, AND HISTORICAL RESONANCES

155

A Streetcar Named Desire. Elia Kazan. United States: Warner Bros., 1951. Suddenly, Last Summer. Joseph L. Mankiewicz. United Kingdom; United States: Columbia Pictures, 1959. Swamp Thing. Wes Craven. United States: Embassy Pictures, 1982. Swamp Water. Jean Renoir. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1941. Sweet Bird of Youth. Richard Brooks. United States: MGM, 1962. Sweet Home Alabama. Andy Tennant. United States: Buena Vista Pictures, 2002. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Tobe Hooper. United States: Bryanston Distributing Company, 1974. Texas Killing Fields. Ami Canaan Mann. United States: Anchor Bay Films, 2011. Things That Hang from Trees. Ido Mizrahy. United States: Radio London Films, 2006. This Property is Condemned. Sydney Pollack. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1966. Tideland. Terry Gilliam. United Kingdom; Canada: Revolver Entertainment, 2005. Tobacco Money Feeds my Family. Cynthia Hill. United States. 2003. Tobacco Road. John Ford. United States: 20th Century Fox. 1941. To Kill a Mockingbird. Robert Mulligan. United States: Universal Pictures, 1962. Tomorrow. Joseph Anthony. United States: Filmgroup Productions, 1972. To Sleep with Anger. Charles Burnett. United States: The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1990. The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Charles B. Pierce. United States: American International Pictures, 1976. Toys in the Attic. George Roy Hill. United States: United Artists, 1963. Two Moon Junction. Zalman King. United States. The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1988. Two Thousand Maniacs! Herschell Gordon Lewis. United States: Box Office Spectaculars, 1964. Undertow. David Gordon Green. United States: MGM Distribution, 2004. Winter’s Bone. Debra Granik. United States: Roadside Attractions, 2010. Wise Blood. John Huston. United States; West Germany: New Line Cinema, 1979. The Young One. Luis Buñuel. Mexico; United States, 1960.

Television Series American Horror Story: Coven. Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. United States: FX, 2013–2014. The Andy Griffith Show. Sheldon Leonard. United States: CBS Television Distribution, 1960–1968.

156 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

The Beverly Hillbillies. Paul Henning. United States: CBS Television Distribution, 1962–1971. The Dukes of Hazzard. Gy Waldron and Jerry Rushing. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 1979–1985. Murder in the Bayou. Matthew Galkin. United States: Showtime, 2019. NCIS: New Orleans. Gary Glasberg. United States: CBS Media Ventures; Paramount Home Entertainment, 2014–2021. Rectify. Ray McKinnon. United States: Sundance TV, 2013–2016. Roots. Alex Hayley. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 1977. Swamp People. United States: History Channel, 2010‒Present. Tiger King. Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin. United States: Netflix, 2020. Treme. David Symon and Eric Overmyer. United States: Warner Bros. Television; HBO Enterprises, 2010–2013. True Blood. Alan Ball. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 2008–2014. True Detective. Nic Pizzolatto. United States: Warner Bros. Television Distribution, 2014–2019.

Section Four Case Studies: Toys in the Attic and Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

8. Reinterpreting Gothic Secrecy: Toys in the Attic Abstract With the aim of establishing a general class of screen texts that can be gathered under the category of “Southern Gothic” (the limitations inherent in singling out particular texts from the corpus to exemplify the corpus notwithstanding) this chapter undertakes a case study of the 1963 film Toys in the Attic (George Roy Hill). The film is discussed within the context of a movement in mid-twentieth-century cinema identified in 1966 by Stephen Farber as “New American Gothic,” and includes an analysis of the grotesque as an aspect of Gothic representation that creates distortion by juxtaposing the everyday with the bizarre. The chapter also examines the way in which the film expresses tensions around southern elitism by positioning those tensions in terms of suppressed sexual impulses and secret ancestry. Keywords: New American Gothic, Hayes Code, The Grotesque, Passing, Transgression, The Gothic House

In George Roy Hill’s Toys in the Attic, a shiftless small businessman (Dean Martin) returning to New Orleans with his young bride (Yvette Mimieux), becomes involved in a real estate swindle that results in the exposure of hidden racial ancestry and secret incestuous desires. The film positions the South as a distorted site where southern whiteness has become Gothicized by the intrusion of insanity, incest, and irrationality into the family dynamics of the old southern elite. Invoking an image of a mythic Old South, the film simultaneously summons an image of the South as a site of degradation, which manifests in tropes and motifs that engage with the Southern Gothic through the lens of racism, the grotesque, and the resonances of slavery and Civil War. As Langman and Ebner have written, Toys in the Attic contains many Southern Gothic elements such as “incest, infidelity and lust’” which,

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch08

160 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

like A Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly, Last Summer, and Baby Doll, unfold within a world of “decadence and dark shadows” (2001, 121). Screenwriter James Poe, who adapted Lillian Hellman’s play for the screen after having successfully adapted other southern plays and novels including Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, included an optimistic ending and tropes such as rumpled sheets, a cheap hotel, clinging slips, and sleeveless undershirts, to ensure the film conformed to a “sweltering and sexy” view of the South that was popular in cinema at the time (Dick 1982, 122).1 As Campbell points out, the popularity of Southern Gothic films in this period was that more often than not, they tended to focus quite specifically on the sensational elements of the original texts to depict southerners as destitute and depraved, with action revolving around sex and violence (1981, 159). While the sex and violence in Toys in the Attic is implied rather than explicit, the film nevertheless positions the old southern home as a diseased space where outdated fictions associated with the aristocratic slaveholding class are Gothically reinterpreted as depraved and perverted. Underpinning the narrative is an almost imperceptible set of boundaries that function to keep alive certain myths about the South or certain behaviours under wraps until the film reveals these to be precarious, thus demonstrating the extent to which these boundaries are unable to be read as anything other than sites of transgression. Toys in the Attic is, in many ways, a film shaped by some key developments that took place in the film industry in the mid-twentieth century due to its emergence in an era which saw Hollywood on the cusp of its demise as a paradigm of classical filmmaking. In the late 1940s audiences were turning away from the cinema due to the lure of television, while in 1948 the U.S. supreme court ordered the “Big Five” companies (20th Century Fox, RKO, Paramount, Warner Bros. and MGM) to divest themselves of their theatre chains, consequently altering the structure of the Hollywood film industry which up until the 1948 decree had seen major film studios functioning essentially as oligopolies (Neale 2012, 321). This led to the weakening of the Production Code (Hays Code) as the number of independent and art-house cinemas screening foreign films – which tended to fall outside of the Code’s jurisdiction – attracted a new type of audience interested in international 1 Hollywood saw it as good business to adapt the stories and plays of certain southern writers, and as a result, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sanctuary, A Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly Last Summer, Sweet Bird of Youth, Desire in the Dust (1960 William F. Claxton), Summer and Smoke (Peter Glenville 1961), The Sound and the Fury, The Long, Hot Summer and Toys in the Attic came to typify southern screen representation in the mid-twentieth century.

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

161

and “adult” content (Neale 2012, 403). As Neale points out, film production in the post war era up until the abolishment of the Hays Code in 1968 responded to such developments in a number of ways, one of which was that producers sought to enhance the appeal of certain films by, [T]ackling controversial themes, adapting controversial novels and plays, complicating the motives of characters, depicting violence and pain in more vivid ways, dressing actors in more revealing costumes, and evoking a wider range of sexually, socially and psychologically driven forms of behaviour. (2012, 322)

Toys in the Attic can thus be understood as a film enmeshed in, and informed, to a large extent, by these historical conditions. Additionally, as Barker and McKee note, this “gritty” approach to the representation of the South, positioned the South as a site of sin and corruption linked to the downfall of the white elite – an outcome considered tragic, yet just, due to the segregationist rhetoric that the elite had historically supported (2011, 9). These factors emerge in Toys in the Attic in the frictions and hostilities associated primarily with secrets from the past, which are inextricably linked to racially driven narrative events inspired undoubtedly by the context of the Civil Rights era in which Toys in the Attic was produced.

New American Gothic and its Distortions According to Stephen Farber, particular American films in the late 1950s and 1960s had begun to display an exaggerated manner and a type of stylistic expression that allowed them to be labelled “Gothic” (1966, 23). Partly as a response to the changes wrought in the American film industry in the mid-twentieth century, this Gothic style demonstrated an engagement with the horrific, either directly or indirectly, to render certain films in terms of the bizarre and the nightmarish (Farber 1966, 23). As Farber says, this imagery cut beneath the surface of realistic representation to explore extremes of feeling via an elaborate expressionism. For example, films such as Hush…hush Sweet Charlotte (1964), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968), and Toys in the Attic in most respects fit into traditional generic moulds in terms of their overall narrative patterns and utilization of popular stars. Yet they tend to display a more general “insidious quality” which can be detected in an exaggeration of shadows, the construction of everyday objects as menacing, or the manipulation of

162 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

costumes and settings to reinforce a trace of the grotesque (Farber 1966, 23). These complicated worlds of the New American Gothic are worlds of “ruined beauty” with unsettling hints of evil imagined in terms of alienation and disconnection (Farber 1966, 24). A synopsis of the plot of Toys in the Attic suggests a conventional narrative complicated by overtones of the bizarre: a newly married man, Julian, with a history of extravagant spending and questionable business dealings returns to the family home where his sisters Carrie and Anna await his return and prepare for his reinstatement as head of the family. Julian, however, seems not to have completely abandoned his suspect ways, promptly producing an assortment of expensive gifts while his sisters and neglected young wife, Lily, compete for his attention. Lily, whose mother Albertine is a wealthy New Orleans matriarch in an intimate relationship with her black chauffer, is treated with suspicion by Carrie who is jealous not only of Lily’s elite upbringing, but also of Lily’s relationship with Julian to whom Carrie is sexually attracted. The pressures and jealousies amongst the women escalate, reaching a climax when Carrie tricks Lily into betraying Julian. This ultimately uncovers Julian’s covert plan to help his ex-lover Charlotte escape her abusive husband, as well as revealing Charlotte’s African American ancestry. Along with the popular and commercial cachet afforded the film through the casting of Dean Martin and Gene Tierney, Toys in the Attic adheres in many ways to Hollywood’s greater enterprise as creator of commercially viable films. For instance, Julian’s seemingly deceitful behaviour is revealed to have altruistic overtones, the endeavours of the conniving Carrie remain unrewarded while her underhanded ways are exposed and condemned, the sanctity of marriage is reinforced through Lily and Julian’s reconciliation, and an abusive husband is effectively punished. According to David Bordwell, for social and economic reasons Hollywood films have historically adhered to the classical model of filmmaking due to the fact that the Hollywood film as an ideological product and representational commodity operates through principles that reinforce certain norms in formal and narrative realms (2005, 84). “Classical,” for Bordwell, indicates a paradigm within which Hollywood films function as a coherent system. Characteristic of this paradigm are such elements as the striving for the concealment of artifice, the privileging of storytelling as a formal technique, and the aim for comprehensible and unambiguous meaning. These things represent a distinct approach to film form that can justly be labelled “classical” (Bordwell 2005, 2). As Farber states, up to the late 1950s and into the 1960s American films were often constrained by such pressures to conform to this paradigm

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

163

for purely commercial reasons, yet the New American Gothic managed to assimilate the contortions, blemishes, and exaggerations of the experiences it explored into a commercial context (1966, 23). In the case of Toys in the Attic, while the film obeys the premises of the classical paradigm in the sense that it reinforces dominant ideological principles through a happy ending and various narrative resolutions, like many Hollywood films operating within the constraints of a commercially viable form it displays “deviant” qualities and “subversive moments” (Bordwell 2005, 84). More specifically, these deviant and subversive qualities can be understood as manifesting in an ominous Gothic sensibility that renders Toys in the Attic a film distorted in both mood and cinematic technique (Farber 1966, 23). These distortions are evident from the outset in Toys in the Attic when, as the opening credits roll, Lily wanders the darkened streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter in search of Julian. These opening shots are dominated by exotic architecture, positioning Lily in an incongruous relationship with the Gothic iron fences and imposing buildings that cast bizarre shadows in the streets and alleyways. Wherever she walks her shadow precedes her as a warped and over-sized facsimile that is more overseer than accidental consequence of the play of light. She is threatened, out of her depth, a shrunken figure in an intimidating space. As she passes a water fountain in a park, the amplification of the fountain in the foreground, along with other structures in the park such as gigantic trees, accentuates Lily’s smallness and vulnerability in a space constructed to highlight the disproportionate relations between things. As a car fender looms at a skewed and unnatural angle, Lily is further cast in an awkward relationship with her surroundings to overstate a mismatch between Lily and the bizarrely rendered spaces of the city. These scenes not only render the spaces bizarre they also hint at the Gothic trope of alienation that is a persistent theme throughout the film. All characters are in some way alienated, yet alienation is perhaps most pertinent to Lily since she is estranged from her mother, isolated in her marriage, and ostracized by Carrie and Anna. For Lily, the horror of her alienation is, on the one hand, writ large insofar as she is positioned in the opening scenes in ways that suggest she is at odds with the grotesque and shadowy New Orleans environment. Yet on the other hand, more oblique, horrific evocations exist just beneath the surface since, alone in the streets and out of place in the jazz clubs, the juke joints, and dark alleys of the French Quarter, Lily seems in danger of being devoured by the city’s monstrous exoticism. As Botting has noted, in the broad realm of Gothic representation, internalized alienation is often cast in more distinct Gothic shades than

164 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

those that suggest externalized persecution (2005, 63). While the external horrors of classical Gothic tropes such as imprisonment or entrapment need little Gothic colouring, the turmoil induced by alienation may appear in more menacing hues (Botting 2005, 63). This is due to the fact that alienation leaves the values of humanity, justice, and identity in a state of torturous doubt (Botting 2005, 63). Lily’s alienation is rendered not only in terms of the way in which the physical space itself disallows Lily’s assimilation, but also in terms of the threat that lurks as an ambient quality – neither direct nor explicit, but formidable in its positioning of Lily as an outsider. Like Lily, Julian is similarly alienated and disconnected, but for Julian these things manifest specifically in his relationship with his sisters and the deteriorating New Orleans house in which they reside. The visual patterning of Julian’s return to the home hints at the existence of a certain menace. This menace lingers in the house infecting the action in such a way that frenzied interactions are presented from angles that emphasize distance rather than attachment between the siblings. As Julian arrives at the house he is framed through a small round window. This shot is constructed from Carrie’s point of view as she looks down at Julian from the attic where she and Anna are recalling events from the past. The window and height of the Attic separate Julian physically and psychologically from Carrie and Anna to position him as remote – an outsider separate from the sisters to whom the euphemism for insanity “toys in the attic” applies. Carrie’s frantic reactions to Julian’s return to the family home, along with Julian’s responses to these reactions, are played out through scenes construed to emphasize the uneasy nature of the relationship. As Julian opens oversized boxes containing gifts for his sisters: opera capes, fur coats, extravagant decorative hats, and most peculiarly, erotic nightwear, the exaggeration in each characters’ behaviour is indicative of something elusive that asserts itself through the distortions. While a surface congeniality exists, suspicion and mistrust colour the interactions, and when later in the film Carrie is forced to confront her sexual desire for her brother, these earlier visual and thematic distortions can be understood as symptomatic of this hidden incestuous impulse. Within the setting of the old New Orleans home, the film constructs the spaces as peculiar, at once quaintly old-fashioned and sinister, with noir-like irregular shadows that play in and around the jagged angles and antiquated fixtures. Within this space, Julian’s conciliatory gestures become increasingly bizarre – with a piano, a refrigerator, the mortgage to the house, and tickets to Europe presented to Carrie and Anna while the sisters’ confusion is registered in a combination of high and low angle shots that reflect the

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

165

absurdity of the ceremony. Later at a jazz club the sense of absurdity is further reinforced in the image of Anna sipping champagne wearing her gift from Julian – an oversized hat. As Farber states, while lurid representations of menace permeate much New American Gothic, in countless more implicit ways these films are also rendered Gothic through stylistic excesses and overripe visual exaggerations (1966, 23). Anna’s hat, in this context, is both excessive and exaggerated, a ludicrous adornment that is registered in terms of the grotesque. The hat is pompous and ostentatious, inappropriate for the jazz club that, as Carrie points out, is a place where they probably “don’t belong.” The hat draws attention not only to Carrie and Anna’s unsuitability as patrons of such a venue, but also to a disparity between the image Julian attempts to foster of his sisters as southern belles, and the reality of their lives: Carrie and Anna both work in low paying jobs to pay their mortgage and support their brother’s business dealings. The hat, therefore, becomes indicative of these disjunctions, and the irreconcilability that occurs as a result, can be understood in terms of the grotesque.

Structures of Estrangement: Irrationality, Contortion, and the Intrusion of the Grotesque The grotesque, as Geoffrey Harpham notes, has been historically understood as a partial liberation from standard representation. The grotesque corrupts the natural order and brings pandemonium into the everyday world through “structures of estrangement” that sees the familiar suddenly subverted or undermined by that which is unreliable as a marker of normality (Harpham 1982, 462–463). The significance of Anna’s hat, therefore, is that it functions as an indicator of the grotesque on a number of levels. Aesthetically, it is visually grotesque because it represents a garish intrusion that is juxtaposed with the “everyday” thus creating deliberately unsettling imagery. At once ridiculous in its pretence, and a poignant reminder of an elegance that has eluded both Anna and Carrie, the hat exists as a signifier of Gothic distortion – a confusing and irrational creation that foreshadows the mayhem that ensues partly because of its intrusiveness. On a thematic level, the hat is emblematic of the shattering of the reliable world, a world suddenly overturned in favour of a regression into hysteria and madness (Harpham 1982, 462). Carrie’s admonishment to Anna to “take off that hat” verges on the hysterical and is a precursor to events that lead to Carrie becoming frantic after Julian attempts to dance with her in the crowded club. While the tension throughout the scene escalates to the point where

166 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Carrie pushes Julian and shouts at him to let go of her, this tension is latent from the beginning. This can largely be attributed to the way in which the conspicuousness of the hat introduces pandemonium by highlighting its irrationality in a space that does not embrace it. Moreover, the grotesquely rendered hat, and its disconcerting intrusion, does not refer simply to itself and the immediate circumstances at the club. Rather, it refers equally outside itself to an underlying distortion in the family’s affairs in the form of Carrie’s incestuous desire for Julian, which causes a rupture, not because it is overtly acknowledged but because of the silence that surrounds it. As Harpham has suggested, the grotesque can be a deformity that is intellectual, physical, or moral, affecting conventions, ideas of the commonplace, and prejudices and banalities (1982, 462–463). These basic tenets underlie much analysis of the grotesque as it has emerged specifically in the context of southern representation. As Alan Spiegel has argued, the “southern grotesque” can refer to a type of character in southern narratives who is either physically or mentally deformed (1972, 427). As Spiegel says, the grotesque figure calls into question the line between the normal and the abnormal, and between sanity and insanity because it embodies alienation and suffering (1972, 427). For Melissa Free, the southern grotesque includes a wide range of imagery and vividly illustrated behaviours, many of which play against the idea that deviance is visible (2008, 429). According to Free, the contorted and painful expressions of the grotesque that mark disruption in southern narratives are often those that emanate from such things as the silence or repression borne out of hidden or unspeakable desires (2008, 426). These deformities, desires, and obsessions, contextualized within otherwise banal southern landscapes and/or family structures, result in what Harpham refers to as the kind of grotesque that emanates from that which is “latent in an idea or a situation” (1982, 462). The grotesque in this sense may manifest as the destruction of logic that ensues when latent deviances and obsessions are situated in such a way that they create friction in settings otherwise denotative of the commonplace or the everyday. Significantly, the regression into the nightmarish realms of the grotesque depends for its effectiveness on the evocation of the everyday (Harpham 1982, 462). Without the juxtaposition of the known and rational world with the strange and illogical world, the grotesque is relegated to the level of fantasy (Harpham 1982, 462). Therefore, the grotesque must begin with, or contain within it certain recognisable or familiar elements that are representative of a known reality (Harpham 1982, 462) In Toys in the Attic this known reality is present in both the traditional arrangement of the family as a social construct, and the material structure

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

167

of the family home – in this case presented as a familiar if deteriorating space. Therefore, if the family home and the relationships with which it is associated can be understood in Harpham’s terms – that is, as something that fulfils our sense of the everyday, then the distorted sexual desire that is not only bound up with, but actually emerges from those constructs, allows it to be cast in terms of the grotesque. As Spiegel says, the grotesque exists in disrupted boundaries, and it is through these disruptions that the unacknowledged comes to light (1972, 3). Thus, Carrie’s latent desire, unspoken and not seeking acknowledgment, disrupts the boundary between the normal and the abnormal, warping all interactions to render actions and behaviours in contorted terms. Toward the end of the film, when Anna finally exposes Carrie’s desire for Julian, Carrie responds by denying Anna’s right to utter those words: “you never spoke those words, tell me I never heard those words.” The unspoken thus becomes spoken, the twisted reality brought out into the open in the setting of a family home whose decorative touches are evocative of the everyday: patterned wallpaper, vases of flowers, fringed lamps, an antique sideboard. And while these things function as incongruous backdrops to the unfolding horror, their incongruity is the key to the way in which Carrie’s secret is rendered grotesque within the familiar, if slightly antiquated interior space.

Secrets and Transgressions While the stylized Gothic shadows that hover at the edges of Toys in the Attic may be understood as touches that hint at barely concealed sinister undercurrents, the film can also be seen to utilize more classical Gothic tropes. According to Botting, in the twentieth century the Gothic was everywhere and nowhere (2005, 101). If it was nowhere, it was in the mere suggestion of Gothic shadows that flickered indirectly in representations of cultural, familial, and individual fragmentation (Botting 2005, 102). Unable to be pinpointed in any precise way, these Gothic “flickerings” eschewed the overt horror of the literally monstrous, appearing instead in the “uncanny disruptions of the boundaries between inner being, social values and concrete reality” found within such emblems of normality as houses, cities, or families (Botting 2005, 102–109). Echoing Farber’s ideas in relation to the oblique nature of New American Gothic expression, as well as Harpham’s arguments about the grotesque’s reliance on the everyday, Botting sees the twentieth-century Gothic, in its more implicit incarnations, as functioning as a grotesque mirror of disturbed inner states. In Toys in

168 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

the Attic these inner states are realized in the film’s visual and narrative realms. Whether in the darkened streets of New Orleans, the downtown jazz clubs, or the old family home, the boundary between the inner world and the outer world is transgressed, the disturbed psyche itself steadily warping the very fabric of the space within which it functions. If the Gothic was everywhere, it was in the explicit manifestations of Gothic horror that appeared in everything from the endless cinematic reinterpretations of the Dracula and Frankenstein stories to the mutating terrors evoked in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video (Botting 2005, 101). Nourished in popular culture, the Gothic was re-imagined in countless contexts due to the diffusion and proliferation of genres and media that allowed the fantastic, the occult, and the horrific to thrive in all manner of representative forms (Botting 2005, 102). As Goddu notes, the twentieth-century American Gothic in particular, registered classical Gothic tropes and conventions – haunted houses, desolate ruins, hereditary curses, or family secrets – as an engagement with the violence and horrors of American history (1997, 64–65). Thus, the spectre of slavery, specifically with its legacy of grief and horror, came to underpin one of the most cherished of American domestic institutions, the family home (Goddu 1997, 63). As Williams says, the home may contain ghosts, both real and imaginary, that derive from the past passions, deeds, and crimes of the family identified with the structure (1995, 45). Indeed, as Sarah Hirsch has observed, the haunted southern building may not simply be haunted by ghosts, but may be a ghost itself (2015, 82). As a reinterpretation of the traditional Gothic castle, the Gothic house functions to evoke several powerful responses such as loneliness, claustrophobia, and a sense of antiquity. Most significantly, however, the Gothic house is a place of secrets (Williams 1995, 39). As Williams says, the house is a structure that has both a private and public aspect. While the external façade suggests external identity, the inside spaces of the house such as its attics, its basements, its hallways, and rooms suggest the secretive internal workings of its inhabitants (1995, 44). In Toys in the Attic, secrets resonate, accordingly, in the internal spaces. In the old New Orleans house Carrie and Anna reside as respectable if slightly eccentric occupants. Yet the outward aspect of the imposing and deteriorating dwelling reflects their social status: southern belles deprived of wealth and power due to the collapse of the social structures by which such concepts as “southern belle” were created and supported. Inwardly, the house is a space of troubled family relationships and taboo desires. Carrie’s sexual desire for her brother recasts the notion of the polite white southern family – in particular the southern belle – in terms of degeneracy

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

169

and forbidden lust. As Barker and McKee note, the dilapidated southern mansion, frequently represented as a space in which the utter degradation of the southern belle is embodied in acts of revenge or dark secrets, is a cinematic trope that emerged as a response to the forces of change in both racial relations and the economic position of the former southern elite (2011, 7–8). Ornate or grand houses, that were products of, or had associations with black enslavement thus became symbolic of the immorality of the white southerner (Barker and McKee 2011, 7). Informed by tensions around the oppressive and violent conditions of slavery in the pre-Civil War era, Toys in the Attic registers the resonances of such inequalities as the ideological projection of sins onto a house contaminated by its association with the wrongs of slavery. Moreover, the enclosed and private inner realms of the house are depicted as sites of jealousy and corruption motivated by dark and forbidden yearnings. A scene early in the film demonstrates this point. Carrie and Anna are in the attic preparing for the arrival of Julian. Surrounded by artefacts from their childhood: a rocking horse, a doll’s house, an old trophy, the film positions Carrie’s enthusiasm about Julian’s imminent arrival in seeming contrast with the atmosphere of the attic. The attic is a space heavy with the past, filled with portentous shadows, and encoded as claustrophobic through the film’s rendering of the spatial dimensions of the attic in terms of oppression and closeness. On the one hand, there is a juxtaposition of concepts in the sense that childhood artefacts are set against the contorted angles and overwhelming gloom of the attic. On the other hand, a parallel is drawn between Carrie’s distorted desires – desires that perhaps originated in childhood – and the dark distortions of the attic space. As Carrie and Anna ascend the stairs to the attic, a confusion of objects and shapes creates an uneasy visual tableau: picture frames hang at unnatural angles, the headless human form of a dressmaker’s dummy lurks in the shadows, and a grotesquely oversized dollhouse dominates the frame. In the confines of the attic Carrie’s overwrought cheerfulness about Julian’s imminent arrival becomes a sign, therefore, of something sinister and irrational that casts a pall over the proceedings. And it is not only Carrie’s repressed sexual attraction to Julian that is reflected in the attic’s visual configurations. Anna’s knowledge of Carrie’s incestuous desire is a secret she has hidden for many years, and unable to speak her thoughts aloud, she has instead become burdened by the knowledge. In the attic, the secrets the sisters both harbour are therefore embodied in the physical space, a space whose primary function is that of a repository for the family’s memories and secrets.

170 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

As Williams notes, both the psychic and the physical spaces of the Gothic house bear the mark of family history (1995, 45). “Toys in the attic,” a phrase connoting insanity, is thus figurative and literal, a reference to both the psychic and physical states that are inextricably entwined in the structuring of the house as a troubled space. A house makes secrets, Williams says, in merely being itself, and the larger, older, or more complex the structure, the more likely it is to have secrets (1995, 44). Carrie and Anna’s respective secrets in this context can be thus understood to emanate from, and simultaneously to permeate the structural components of the building itself. Upon Julian’s arrival, Carrie watches from the Attic window as Julian crosses the threshold into the home. Moving from the exterior of the house to the interior, Julian becomes immediately, if unwittingly entrenched in the discourse of concealment: “Is that my Carrie hiding in the Attic?” he calls out, invoking the secretive and the hidden realms that constitute the family and the relationships that shape it. Once across the threshold Julian becomes ensconced in the atmosphere of secrecy. Evasive when confronted about his sudden newfound wealth, Julian’s foisting of an assortment of unwanted gifts upon his sisters generates suspicion and speculation about the source of the money. Neither confirming nor denying the legality of its acquisition, Julian’s evasiveness suggests an impulse towards transgression that must necessarily remain hidden. When it is eventually revealed that Julian has been involved in a property swindle with a wealthy New Orleans businessman, the information itself is not stated overtly but rather, is arrived at through circuitous routes also characterized by concealment. Overheard conversations, clandestine late-night meetings, and misinterpreted phone calls, all seep into view through means other than those normally associated with overt exchanges of information. Rousing suspicion in the minds of his sisters and his wife, especially in light of secret rendezvous he has been conducting with his ex-girlfriend Charlotte, Julian’s unexplained behaviour leads Lily to employ covert methods to gain information, while Carrie sneaks around the house attempting to eavesdrop on any conversation that she thinks will help to throw light on Julian’s secret. When Carrie attempts to use her overheard knowledge to trick Lily into thwarting Julian’s plans, the result is a violent confrontation that places both Julian’s and Charlotte’s lives in danger, and highlights the extent to which secrets, and their unveiling, structure the film’s narrative and themes. As Justin Edwards notes, Gothic texts are adept at calling our attention to the secretive: subterranean passages, hidden inhibitions, secret identities, and rightful familial heirs are often central to the development of the Gothic narrative (2003, 66). In the absence of such tropes associated with

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

171

more classical manifestations of Gothic secrecy, Toys in the Attic embeds secrets inside the family house and draws parallels between the enclosed internal spaces of the house and the interior lives of its inhabitants. The film reinterprets the Gothic castle in the context of the family home, rendering the home a space warped by the unspoken, the unacknowledged, and the unknown. As Christine Berthin states, the dungeons and hidden rooms of the classical Gothic text held traces of unspoken pasts and transgenerational secrets. They were places where the guilt and shame of history became ghostly inheritances that haunted successive generations and distorted and disrupted their existence (2010, 4–5). Toys in the Attic sees secrets similarly operating as traces of shame or guilt associated with the unspoken past. The secrets held by Carrie, Anna, and Julian respectively, afflict the family house in terms of contortions that twist and render the spaces unsettling. According to Williams, while the family house encompasses the notion of both a building and the family history contained within it, “house” has another meaning relevant to the Gothic narrative – it relates to the notion of the family line (1995, 45). The conclusion of The castle of Otranto, for instance, in which Manfred is usurped as rightful heir to the castle, exemplifies the degree to which bloodlines can be haunted by history as equally as the physical structures of the Gothic house (1995, 45). Unable to rule the castle due to a curse that disallows tainted bloodlines from attaining lordship over the estate, Manfred is forced out and the castle falls into decay. Poe makes a similar connection between buildings and bloodlines in The Fall of the House of Usher when the house of Usher itself, with no family line to continue the name, sinks into a lake (Williams 1995, 45). The notion of the house in the Gothic narrative can thus be understood in terms of its connection to the principles of lineage. In the context of the Southern Gothic, as Charles Crow has claimed, the notion of tainted lineage is often depicted in terms of a family curse with origins deeply rooted in the brutal events of southern slavery (2009, 88). Slavery, as Crow says, is America’s curse, and the consequences of this curse have affected both white and African American families through successive generations due to the way in which families were often interwoven and interbred – a fact universally understood, but seldom acknowledged (2009, 88). According to Crow, to tell the story of race in the South is to reveal the secret of houses since the house, understood in the two senses of the family and the home, suggests the notion of kinship, and when kinship involves suppressed genealogy, the house can be said to be cursed by the past (2009, 88). In this context, Charlotte’s hidden African American ancestry can be understood as emanating from not one house but many houses, interwoven through the complex history of southern

172 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

racial relations. A common thread in many works of American Gothic is the depiction of the “mixed race” character attempting to come to terms with the structures of identity that position them according to the binary discourse of black and white (Crow 2009, 86). While Toys in the Attic does not function as an overt critique of racial inequality, it can nevertheless be read as a statement about the way in which mixed-race identity in the early to mid-twentieth century was perceived as a shameful secret. As the secrets that underpin the relationships between characters are brought out into the open, the structures of those relationships begin to crumble in a manner analogous with the architectural collapse of the classical Gothic structure. The film’s narrative works towards exposing layers of secrets that can be traced directly back to Charlotte and her familial connection to Albertine’s black chauffer Henry, and by implication, to the trans-generational mixed-race heritage of the antebellum South. When Henry reveals Charlotte’s African American ancestry on the porch outside Julian’s house, Carrie eavesdrops from inside the house intending to use the information to expose Charlotte’s identity and destroy Charlotte’s marriage. As a result, her own secret about her sexual attraction to Julian is exposed. Secrets thus haunt Toys in the Attic in such a way that they organize the actions and relationships in the film, and in the exposing of those secrets, southern families are torn apart just as they are in the classic Gothic houses of Otranto and Usher. In a South haunted by its history, Charlotte’s African American ancestry allows Toys in the Attic to be understood as a film that constructs the Gothic secret in terms of suppressed events related to slavery and its aftermath. Moreover, the relationship between races is rendered not in terms of division, but in terms of spectral shadowing. This shadowing haunts outwardly designated notions of “colour” through the positioning of race as an already crossed boundary with a long history. Since the Gothic house is also haunted by history, then Toys in the Attic positions this haunting as wholly attributable to the way in which the past exists as an ever-present spectre. While in one sense the southern mansion is cast as a site of nostalgia and old southern values, in another sense it functions as a site contaminated by the tainted history upon which its foundations are built. Exchanges between Carrie and Anna about the happiness of the “old days,” or the desperation around the upholding of the old structures of racial segregation, suggest a nostalgic value system related to the myth of the Old South. Infiltrated by this history, the South is thus positioned as “sunny” through the invoking of an alleged idyllic past. But this idea is immediately rendered “Other” through the evocation of a nightmarish present in which the South is a Gothic site of violence and horror.

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

173

Internal Divisions: Race, Otherness, and Undecidability As Crow notes, the dialogue around African slavery and its legacy is one of the distinguishing features of the American cultural narrative. And it is through the Gothic that this narrative has frequently found expression, particularly in the concept of “race mixing” (2009, 85). As Kenan Malik has argued, in popular language “race” is usually synonymous with “colour,” the physical characteristics of racial groups giving credence to the idea that “race” signifies an objective reality (1996, 2). Yet, as Malik points out, the idea that all human beings can be categorized by race has no objective basis (1996, 3). Rather, race is a social and historical construct defined through statistical correlation rather than objective fact and is a construct that changes according to the particular needs and power relations of a given society at given times in history (1996, 5). In Western society, difference codified as “racial” rationalizes social divisions that present themselves as “natural,” supporting the underlying belief that humanity is divided into discrete groups, each defined by immutable and ahistorical characteristics (1996, 7). Regardless, however, of the extent to which it is socially constructed, race, as Ian Lopez points out, is a dominant feature of contemporary social geography that invigorates racial distinction with the appearance of reality (2006, 92). In America, for example, where segregationist rhetoric has slipped from American legal vocabulary, race nevertheless remains a persistent social reality (Lopez 2006, 93). This reality seduces us with pernicious messages that contrast ghettos and suburbs, littered streets and manicured lawns, corner liquor stores and sprawling malls, welfare recipients and white-collar professionals, school violence and college graduates, and on and on. These contrasting realities follow neighbourhood lines – in fact, racial boundaries – and thus testify to the ultimate difference race makes. (Lopez 2006, 93) Even though it may not possess an objective reality, racial difference seems real and self-evident in this context due to the fact that it presents itself in the form of exclusion and inequitable economic and social effects (Lopez 2006, 93). As a social construct that perpetuates social division, race in American society has informed the national discourse in such a way that it has manifested (and continues to manifest) in racial oppression and segregation. Particularly in the South, the “stronghold” of white supremacist ideology up to the Civil Rights movement in the mid twentieth century (Bloom 1987, 18), African Americans have negotiated a society that has problematically rendered them, as Maisha Wester notes, “nonnormative” or Other (2012, 27). For Wester, this otherness has been registered in various

174 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

mediated contexts but, most significantly, it has emerged through the themes and narratives of Gothic representation. In nineteenth-century American Gothic fiction, narratives around race and otherness arose contemporaneously with the concerns and debates over slavery (Wester 2012, 18). While many Americans agreed that slavery should be abolished, few agreed about what to do with the freed slaves. Questions arose, therefore, over whether slaves could join “civilized” society or whether the “mingling” of races would lead to the degradation and eventual destruction of white society (Wester 2012, 19). Thus, a great deal of the racial concern came from paranoia over the effects of the breakdown of racial boundaries (Wester 2012, 19). The notion of racial transgression was consequently embodied in fears around the “mixed-race” figure. This trope engaged with pre-existing discourses of miscegenation in Gothic representation such as the vampire, a figure that proved particularly threatening and frightening (Wester 2012, 19). The “black Other” Wester argues, represented a fear of contamination and became emblematic of various anxieties around the concept of an unstable “colour line” (2012, 20). Chapter 5 examined the idea of otherness in relation to the figure of the vampire. It argued that rather than invoking an otherness that emanates from a binary construct, the otherness of the vampire resides in its evocation of internally crossed lines. It suggested that as a figure of simultaneous life and death, the vampire embodies the internal division of a Derridean understanding of otherness insofar as it calls forth concepts that are always mutually contaminated by the trace of the Other. This otherness was discussed as structured by undecidability, or the notion that the absent presence of the Other always implies a phantom alternative as a result of an implied obligation to decide between concepts as one thing or another. To extrapolate these ideas to Toys in the Attic, otherness and undecidability usefully explain the way race operates in the film. While Toys in the Attic emerged from an era in which the Civil Rights movement led to the implementing of significant changes in American race relations, the film is informed by a “slavery rhetoric” in the sense that the narrative is structured around the notion of “passing.” “Passing” or “passing as white” refers to a theme in American national discourse that relates to the issue of suppressed genealogy. The theme of “passing” has structured many American narratives and texts, both southern and northern in origin. William Faulkner’s novel Light in August, and the 1934 and 1959 films Imitation of Life directed by John Stahl and Douglas Sirk respectively, are examples of texts informed by narratives of “passing” (Crow 2009, 94). In the Gothic’s typical discourses of impurity and contamination, boundaries between things are often a

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

175

source of anxiety, notes Wester, (2012, 20) and this anxiety is registered in Toys in the Attic in the fears around mixed genealogy that are embodied in the figure of Charlotte, a character with African American ancestry attempting to “pass” as white.

Spectres of Slavery: Crossing the Colour Line Charlotte’s racial status disallows any sense of an inviolable either/or. Charlotte, in most ways a minor character in the film, is nevertheless the axis around which most of the events unfold. She has contributed to Julian’s real estate deal through her insider knowledge of her husband’s business, and she is at the root of a plot devised by Carrie to manipulate Lily into betraying Julian. She is responsible for Julian’s return to New Orleans – he is driven by a need to help Charlotte escape her abusive husband – and is a source of jealousy for Carrie. She is also cousin to Albertine’s black chauffer Henry, a secret which, when unveiled, leads to the unravelling of all other secrets. Primarily, however, the character of Charlotte is structured by her mixed-race heritage, and it is this mixed-race heritage that contributes to the positioning of race, as depicted in the film, in terms of undecidability. “Passing as white,” Charlotte is eternally haunted by the spectre of “blackness” that is present as the trace of her African ancestry, and this spectre can be seen to manifest in several ways. In one of the few scenes constructed directly around Charlotte – a scene in which she is bullied and chastised by her husband Cyrus – the interaction between Charlotte and Cyrus is reminiscent of racial subordination. Charlotte is introduced into the scene via her reflection in a mirror, a visual technique which complicates her introduction by suggesting that there is a multifaceted dimension to Charlotte: the image or façade, on the one hand, and the unseen referent or reality on the other. Underwriting this imagery is a comment from Cyrus that Charlotte is “a sorry imitation of a wife,” a comment that sees her structured in terms of Other, with a “normal” version of “wifeliness” hovering somewhere over proceedings as a ghostly alternative. As Cyrus gives instructions to Charlotte about an impending dinner party, instructions that include escorting clients’ wives to the powder room and smiling at the guests, Charlotte punctuates Cyrus’s orders with the refrain “Yes Cyrus.” Cyrus is shot in a low angle close-up as he administers orders to Charlotte to emphasize his dominance over her, and in turn, Charlotte is shot in a high angle mid-shot to suggest her acquiescence. Cyrus, in fact, does not communicate with Charlotte in a manner consistent with communication in a marital relationship. Rather, he employs a discourse

176 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

reminiscent of patterns of command and instruction directed at the slaves in the Old South. Moreover, Charlotte’s escape from her husband conforms, on some levels, to what Crow has identified as the “escaped slave narrative,” a staple of American Gothic since before the Civil War (2009, 86). As Henry tells Albertine on the porch outside Julian’s house, Charlotte hates Cyrus and has been “wanting to leave him for years.” The depiction of Charlotte as a captive wishing to escape, therefore, emanates from a discourse of entrapment characteristic of the patterns and conventions of the slave narrative. When Charlotte’s attempt to escape her husband is thwarted by the intervention of Cyrus’s thugs at the end of the film, her “capture and return” seems imminent. However, in light of the truth about Charlotte’s “passing” Cyrus is forced to “free” Charlotte, an action that reverberates with the historical freeing of slaves after the Civil War. Underlying the narrative of Toys in the Attic is a construction of race that manifests as the undecidability of competing or oppositional concepts. As Leslie Hill says, all laws of division reveal the fragility of those laws since the Other is always there to remind us that the law cannot prevent the invocation of phantom alternatives (2007, 62). To invoke divisions between races, therefore, is to confront the logic of borderless enfoldment. With no proper beginning or ending, and no clear boundaries, the notion of race as it is embodied in the character of Charlotte defeats any sense that there is a linear path of racial identification that has definitive origins. Charlotte’s racial identity, in other words, has a nominal opening edge that begins in the middle, the whole story of which is an overlapping, edgeless, and evolving narrative that displaces race as it simultaneously establishes its relevance as a site of transgression and subversiveness. Preconditioned by an internal division, Charlotte’s racial status exists as an othered concept, both black and white, she challenges binary representation by operating as a threshold force that asks us not to forget the injustices of the past. This otherness is not only embodied in the representation of Charlotte as a mixed-race character, however, but also informs the depiction of Albertine’s chauffer Henry. Although clearly African American, Henry’s relationship with Albertine, and by extension, with the society within which he operates, is marked by boundaries that are always being transgressed. When Lily visits her mother Albertine, she finds Albertine and Henry sharing cocktails and a joke in a back courtyard. The interaction between Albertine and Henry is neither characterized by subservience on the part of Henry, nor dominance on the part of Albertine, but rather, suggests a familiarity bordering on the intimate. A small outdoor table is set with places for two people further indicating that Henry is not Albertine’s hired help, but her

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

177

Toys in the Attic. Director: George Roy Hill. Year: 1963. Stars: Gene Tierney. © United Artists / Album. Album / Alamy Stock Photo

lover. Henry’s placement in the courtyard sees his positioning as marked by the perpetual struggle between the oppositions of inside and outside. Not properly inside, Henry nevertheless participates in the dinner with Albertine as her equal and confidant, which renders him simultaneously not properly outside. The courtyard, therefore, can be understood as divided by the paradoxical relationship between inside and outside that makes it impossible to see indications of place as anything other than sites of

178 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

eternal transition (Hill 2007, 68). Henry transgresses boundaries while never falling properly on either side of those boundaries, but instead, he remains on the very threshold of the transgression. This transgression is further established when Albertine and Henry visit Julian’s home. Rather than waiting by the car outside the property, Henry follows Albertine to the front porch of the house where he engages in conversation with Julian and behaves, and expects to be treated, as Julian’s equal. Julian responds in kind by conversing with Henry about fishing, inviting Henry to a house he intends to purchase on the bayou. Neither Henry nor Albertine, however, are invited inside the house. Illustrative of the changes to the status of African Americans in the emerging Civil Rights environment, Henry’s placement on the porch positions him between two worlds: the Old South’s subordination of African Americans and the New South’s anti-segregationist attitudes. While Anna seems initially uncomfortable with Henry’s breaching of the conventions of segregation, she is largely accepting of his position as a participant in the social interactions on the porch. Carrie, however, makes her disapproval known when she refers to Albertine as an insane rich woman “who has the gall to bring her Negro chauffer in here.” The porch, therefore, is contested territory. According to Carrie the porch is classified as “in here,” a space normally off limits to a “Negro chauffer,” yet at the same time, Henry remains “out there” on the porch prohibited from the indoor spaces of the house. The ghosts of slavery and segregation haunt Henry’s positioning in on the porch since he remains perched on the threshold of the home. Disinclined to enter the house like a dutiful slave from the antebellum era, he outwardly upholds segregationist principles, yet at the same time a transgression of these principles takes place through the confidence with which Henry occupies the porch, and in the suggestion of his intimate relationship with Albertine. The porch, like the courtyard, is thus a site of struggle, a boundary structured by a division that, as a signifier, is internally split between transgression and conformity. Charlotte and Henry are central to the film’s positioning as a text structured by undecidability. In their embodiment of collapsed boundaries, they not only represent the fears and anxieties associated with transgressed limits, but they also personify an internally divided otherness that is deployed around narratives of race and racial purity. As Crow notes, in relation to the racial labels of the slaveholding South the identity of the mixed-race person was always entirely arbitrary – a light skinned person might be assigned a label of either white or black since he or she was unable to fit into one racial category nor another (2009, 84). In the post-slavery South, Charlotte’s racial identity cannot function in any way that is not othered by the trace of what it

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

179

is and simultaneously what it is not. In “passing” as white, Charlotte’s marital relations recall the social structures of slavery in which powerful white men crossed sexual boundaries with enslaved women. Charlotte represents a whiteness that is moulded by history in a way that disallows the forgetting of the crossed boundaries of the slave era. In the case of Henry, the way in which he crosses racially constructed lines unfixes the delineations that form the foundation of these divisions by calling forth the boundaries and exposing those boundaries as unsustainable. In the disruption created by Henry’s positioning between the old ways and the new ways, or the past and the present, Henry encompasses both axes simultaneously. In a symbolic sense, Toys in the Attic can be read as a film informed by the vestiges of southern slavery and Civil War via the segregationist rhetoric which structures the f ilm, at the same time as it disrupts segregationist discourse. Race def ines the parameters of the action insofar as it is configured in terms of the phantom alternatives that blur the divisions between blackness and whiteness. That these phantoms emerge through the distortions of the New American Gothic allows the film to be contextualized within the iterable space of Gothic representation that summons Gothic codes and conventions as it collapses and renews them in ever-altered generic formations. The Gothic trope of secrecy connects secrets with the Gothic dwelling, and the echoes of these secrets are felt through the foundations and neglected rooms of the old New Orleans house where Carrie and Anna reside as co-conspirators in the concealment of unspoken incestuous desires. These secrets warp the spaces, casting the inhabitants in unsettling spatial relationships with the structural components of the home. The house thus functions to Gothicize the everyday through a juxtaposition of the family home with the distorted desires that are metaphorically embedded within its walls. Moreover, the concept “house” functions as a link to the past via notions of lineage or “blood lines” that are bound up with a history that refuses to be ignored. In reconfigured post-slavery relations, the past seeps through in the form of secret property deals, clandestine escape plans, the act of “passing,” and interracial relations, which are all revealed, paradoxically, through the transgressing of borders designed to segregate and demarcate.

Works Cited Barker, Debra E. and McKee, Kathryn. American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Edited by Debra E. Barker and Kathryn McKee. Athens: University Press of Georgia, 2011.

180 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Berthin, Christine. Gothic Hauntings: Melancholy Crypts and Textual Ghosts. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Bloom, Jack, M. Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Bordwell, David; Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristin. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. London: Routledge, 2005. Botting, Fred. Gothic. London: Routledge, 2005. Campbell, Edward, Jr. The Celluloid South: Hollywood and the Southern Myth. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1981. Crow, Charles L. History of the Gothic: American Gothic. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009. Dick, Bernard. Hellman in Hollywood. London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982. Edwards, Justin. Gothic Passages: Racial Ambiguity and the American Gothic. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003. Farber, Stephen. “New American Gothic.” Film Quarterly 20 (1): 22–27, 1966. Faulkner, William. Light in August. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Faulkner, William. Sanctuary. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Free, Melissa. Relegation and Rebellion: The Queer, the Grotesque, and the Silent in the Fiction of Carson McCullers.” Studies in the Novel 40 (4): 426–446, 2008. Goddu, Theresa. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Harpham, Geoffrey. “The Grotesque: First Principles.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 34: 461–468, 1982. Hill, Leslie. The Cambridge Introduction to Derrida. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Hirsch, Sarah. “Topographical Ghosts: The Archival Architecture of Old New Orleans.” In Undead Souths. Edited by Eric Gary Anderson, Taylor Hagood, and Daniel Cross Turner. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015. Langman, Larry and Ebner, David. Hollywood’s Image of the South: A Century of Southern Films. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001. Lopez, Ian Haney. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Malik, Kenan. The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Neale, Steve. “Postwar Hollywood and the End of the Studio System 1946–66.” In The Classical Hollywood Reader. Edited by Steve Neale. New York: Routledge, 2012. Poe, Edgar Allan. Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Poems, Tales, Criticism. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

REINTERPRE TING GOTHIC SECREC Y: TOYS IN THE AT TIC

181

Spiegel, Alan. “A Theory of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction.” Georgia Review. 426–437, 1972. Walpole, Horace. “The Castle of Otranto” Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg. org/files/696/696-h/696-h.htm, 2014. Accessed June 2, 2021. Wester, Maisha. African American Gothic. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Williams, Anne. Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Filmography A Streetcar Named Desire. Elia Kazan. United States: Warner Bros., 1951 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Richard Brooks. United States: MGM, 1958. Desire in the Dust. William F. Claxton. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1960. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Robert Ellis Miller. United States: Warner Bros., 1968. Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Robert Aldrich. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1964. Imitation of Life. John Stahl. United States: Universal Pictures, 1934. Imitation of Life. Douglas Sirk. United States: Universal Pictures, 1959. The Long, Hot Summer. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1958. Sanctuary. Tony Richardson. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1961. The Sound and the Fury. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1959. Suddenly, Last Summer. Joseph L. Mankiewicz. United Kingdom; United States: Columbia Pictures, 1959. Summer and Smoke. Peter Glenville. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1961. Sweet Bird of Youth. Richard Brooks. United States: MGM, 1962. Toys in the Attic. George Roy Hill. United States: United Artists, 1963.

9. Finding the South in the Ethereal: Atmosphere and the Spectral in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus Abstract This chapter discusses the 2003 Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus to demonstrate the way in which the film positions the South within the broader discourses of southern difference and southern otherness. It undertakes an analysis of the film’s visual and thematic iconography – specifically ruin and loss – while demonstrating the way in which the South is cast in spectral tones due to a connection that is established between the South’s alleged distinctiveness and the absent presence of “atmosphere.” The film has been chosen for its dissimilarity to Toys in the Attic, not to represent a rupture in the generic fabric, but rather, to emphasize the two films’ cohesiveness even though, on the surface, they may seem to occupy different generic territory. Keywords: Atmosphere, Documentary Voice, Undecidability, Ruin, Loss, Absent Presence

Like all texts, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus is enfolded within multiple generic forms and tendencies. The musical, the road movie, and the ethnographic film all play a part in the way the film functions as a form of representation, but the documentary genre is the one within which it predominantly participates as a screen product. Yet the extent to which the film has been received as a documentary depends on who is doing the analysis. In Joshua Land’s 2005 review of the film in The Village Voice, he remarks that the film operates as a road movie but casts aside “road movie linearity” for a type of “surrealism” that is cobbled together from such abstracted images as an old bus abandoned in the woods, a house floating on a lake, or the disembodied arms of a Pentecostal worshipper (2005, 50).

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_ch09

184 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

In Southerners on Film, Andrew Leiter problematizes the eclecticism of southern cinema, and asks rhetorically, how can one categorize a film such as Andrew Douglas’s “surreal” Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus? (2001, 8). In Slant magazine, reviewer Nick Schager calls the film an “impressionistic pseudo-documentary” consisting of confessional interviews and staged scenes wrapped up in a surreal mixture of “religiosity and criminality” (2005). While in The Journal of Southern Religion Charles Reagan Wilson suggests that the film has “severe limitations as a documentary” since it compromises its credibility by not offering balanced or diverse representation (2006). In these brief samples from a small selection of literature, allusions to genre float to the surface: the Gothic is summoned implicitly in Land’s references to the abandoned bus, religious fervour, or the unfixed house, while surrealist cinema, the road movie, impressionism, and the documentary film are also mentioned in more explicit terms. Leiter and Schager both note the film’s surreal qualities while both Leiter and Wilson question the classificatory process itself, evidenced in their references to categorization and generic credibility respectively. Wilson notes that while the film “styles itself” as a documentary it reverts to convenient stereotypes of “gap-toothed” southerners, and in doing so renders its claim to documentary status problematic (2006). Of course, like all genres, the classificatory strictures of the documentary are easily dislodged. As Bill Nichols points out, the documentary film has no fixed inventory of techniques, addresses no one set of issues, and displays no single style. Rather, the documentary genre is one in which things constantly change, where the boundaries are constantly being redefined and where limits are frequently pushed into new arrangements (2001, 121). And it is within this framework that Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus operates as “documentary.” While there may be no definitive marks capable of distinguishing where the documentary tendencies in the film begin or end, where conventions are conformed to or rejected, or where the boundaries exist or once existed, the film nevertheless bears the mark of the documentary genre since, as both Wilson’s and Schager’s critiques make clear, the fact that the label “documentary” is invoked at all is evidence of the demarcating capacity of genre to order even the most unfavourable assessments of generic fidelity.

Documenting the South Embodying not only the trait of the documentary genre, but genre in a multiple sense, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus operates as a site of generic

FINDING THE SOUTH IN THE E THEREAL

185

collision where, through the channels of documentary filmmaking the Southern Gothic uncoils itself from the enfolded topology of genre to Other the South as a space of strangeness and mystery. And it is within this space that director Andrew Douglas weaves his film around returned southerner Jim White’s navigation of the region he grew up in, focusing on White’s knowledge of the South as he understands it from his own observation and experience. As the film opens, the milieu from which the stories and characters emanate is established immediately. In these opening scenes, a series of images introduces the South as a hidden and exotic world far removed from the large cities or tree-lined suburban streets that are perhaps more familiar American iconographic markers of place: sunlight flickers eerily through the silhouetted trees in a swamp, a house comes into view with a porch that juts precariously out into a bayou, a skiff glides silently toward the camera – its captain unmoved by the attention, a battered 1970 Chevy is purchased for the purposes of a road trip. In these introductory scenes, aptly accompanied by the eerie twang of White’s guitar, the film begins an exploration of the South which is driven by an impulse to understand the South’s cultural and regional specificity. Negotiating the region in the Chevy with White at the helm, the film pauses at various locations in order to contemplate the southern experience as it is lived by those to whom the South is neither a matter of ethnography nor a topic for analysis, but rather, the place that by sheer providence is where they were born and raised. Shots inside the Chevy linger on the steering wheel, the dashboard, and on White as he recounts stories from his youth while landscapes rush past in a formless and colourless blur. At a wrecking yard White buys a statue of a bleeding-heart Jesus which he places, half protruding, in the trunk of the Chevy. The filmmakers then follow White as he makes his way across the southern landscapes to the diners, prisons, juke joints, truck stops, motel rooms, and religious congregations that all function in the film as emblematic of the South’s distinctiveness. At a prison, convicts with the word “inmate” emblazoned across their t-shirts relate stories about how they came to be incarcerated. In a straightto-camera interview, one prisoner cites the boredom of small-town life as the factor that propelled him into a life of crime, while another scene frames a card game in which inmates talk about regret and religious redemption. On a lonely back road, a biker shoots bullets into a stop sign while deliberating on the contradictions inherent in southern Christianity. A Pentecostal preacher seated on a pew in an empty church tells of his conversion from drug addict to self-confessed religious fanatic. At a trailer park a woman talks of her former gang affiliation while revealing the meanings behind

186 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

her tattoos. As the camera zooms in to pick up the details of the tattoos, the woman’s decay-black teeth come sharply into focus as she explains that one tattoo in particular – a pair of angel wings – is a representation of her dead son. Standing at the entrance to coal mine, a miner claims, in a matter-of-fact way, that coal was created by God to give people a means by which to make a living. Interspersed with these episodes are a number of musical performances from southern musicians, and snippets of stories from various characters including southern author Harry Crews. At the conclusion of the film, White unloads the statue of the bleeding-heart Jesus and leaves it on the side of the road while explaining to the off-screen filmmakers that attempting to seek a “central truth” about the South is a futile exercise for the non-southerner. The secrets of the South are “in the blood,” he claims, before U-turning the Chevy onto the interstate and out of frame. The camera lingers on the face of Jesus before it slowly zooms in, and in this final shot, there is a sense that the South’s reluctance to reveal its secrets is an inclination with which the statue, in its stony silence, seems to concur. While any “central truth” about the South may remain ultimately elusive, there are nevertheless contributions throughout the film from a variety of voices that offer an array of perspectives based on individual experience and opinion. White, for example, provides commentary about his own ambivalence toward the South – about how he was desperate to leave from the age of thirteen, yet it was only after finally leaving that he came to understand its value. Author Harry Crews emphasizes the South’s brutality. In recounting incidents from his own childhood, Crews paints the region as a place where family allegiance, poverty, and violence are inextricably tied to southern story-telling traditions that help southerners understand themselves and their place in the world. In an unadorned mountain cabin, musician Lee Sexton provides a brief history of banjo playing in his family, and muses on the way the sadness of the hills resonates in and is simultaneously alleviated by the banjo’s melancholy sound. While at a roadside diner that offers fried catfish, fireworks, and religious salvation, customers and staff propound the benefits of being “born again.” According to Bill Nichols, all documentary films have a “voice.” This “voice” operates as an informing logic that oversees the organization of the documented material. In the absence of “plot” or “story” as we might understand these things in the context of fictional or narrative film, the documentary “voice” derives from the director’s attempt to translate a perspective on the world in both visual and non-visual terms (2001, 44). The documentary “voice,” however, can be multi-faceted in the sense that

FINDING THE SOUTH IN THE E THEREAL

187

it can encompass multiple “voices” each offering a unique perspective since voices are not necessarily restricted to what is verbally expressed by the social actors who appear on screen to speak their points of view. Rather, the notion of “voice” emanates from several sources including those that are heard on screen, those that are heard off screen, and those that are not heard but speak, nevertheless, through such things as the technical and stylistic choices made by the director to represent a subject in a particular way. As Nichols explains, a documentary film is not “a reproduction of reality” but rather, a “representation of the world” and this representation stands for the particular point of view that is conveyed, in any number of ways, by the filmmaker (2001, 43). “Voice,” therefore, in the context of the documentary film, is neither a singular nor necessarily cohesive concept, but rather, is made up of a combination of viewpoints. One dimension of voice that is most often tied to the perspective of the director is the “voice of God” or “voice of authority” style of commentary whereby the audience is addressed directly by a narrator in order that information and ideas can be explicitly stated (Nichols 2001, 48). However, a documentary film may eschew voice-over commentary in favour of an approach that conveys ideas by inference. This latter strategy – one that is employed in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, implies, as Nichols has stated, that the filmmaker operates from a position of impartiality. This is acknowledged in Schager’s Slant review of the film where he notes that “Douglas’s detached camera” functions as a “fascinated, bemused spectator” (2005). This strategy of self-effacement, however, complicates the notion of impartiality since an impartial stance suggests accuracy and objectivity, and even in the absence of a “voice of God” commentary a filmmaker’s voice may be fully in attendance. As Nichols states, the style of the documentary, which incorporates such technical considerations as editing, framing, shot composition, lighting, and sound can also be understood as presenting a perspective on a topic since style is itself a form of persuasion (2001, 46). Questions of “voice” in the documentary film, therefore, are not meant entirely literally because the documentary voice may be present as the spoken word from a variety of on-screen voices, it may be implicitly present via stylistic techniques, it may speak through its seemingly detached absence (2001, 42) or it may, as in the case of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, take all of these forms. Documentary filmmakers, Nichols notes, are active fabricators of meaning. They produce a cinematic discourse that is the result of a unique interaction between observation and artifice (1983, 18). This meeting of observation and artifice can complicate the “voice” of a documentary film because it

188 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

presents a potential conflict when there is a gap between the perspective of the interviewees and the perspective of the film as a whole. According to Nichols, documentary film ascribes interviewees a certain sense of veracity since they represent the idea that things are as they say they are. In effect, the documentary film says, “interviewees never lie” (1983, 24). When a documentary eschews an assertive “voice of God” commentary, the words of the interviewees carry extra weight since they confirm the power of personal testimony (Nichols 1983, 22). Yet when a documentary’s style asserts a voice in contrast to the voices it observes or recruits, a hierarchy is established in which the meaning constructed by the filmmaker overshadows witness testimony (Nichols 1983, 27). In Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus the stylistic approach the film takes suggests that there is a perceivable distance between Jim White’s perspective and the perspective of the film overall, and this is conveyed primarily through the way in which a number of these stylistic elements function as “voice.” From the first frames of film, a title card explains that the film’s intention is to look for the place of “strangeness” alluded to in the music of White. At the end of the film, however, this task remains seemingly unfulfilled, with White having the final word regarding the film’s inability to access a “central truth” about the South. “I hope you find what you’re looking for” he tells the off-screen filmmakers, barely concealing his scepticism, before driving off in the Chevy. A lingering feeling, encapsulated in White’s words, of the futility of the search continues to resonate long after the Chevy has disappeared. Yet another voice – the voice of the film – says something different. This voice confirms that the place of “strangeness” has been found and that there is, indeed, a South whose “central truth” is readily accessible. It is a voice that speaks of the loneliness, the alienation, the distortion, and the otherness that permeate the South and its landscapes. It speaks of an impulse toward romanticism and decay, excess and loss, and it claims that the “central truth” about the South is that it is inherently Gothic, and while ostensibly silent, this voice nevertheless asserts itself loud and clear.

Gothicizing Southern Modernity: Ruin, Loss, and Generic Renewal The voice that deems the South a space of Gothicty in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus does so in the realms of stylistic and thematic expression, where the Gothic is conveyed via formal elements to construct the South as a derelict or ruined place afflicted by a prevailing sense of loss. These notions

FINDING THE SOUTH IN THE E THEREAL

189

of ruin and loss organize the film in accordance with Gothic visual and narrative tendencies, which function on multiple levels to convey a sense, not only of the South as a space distinct from the wider United States, but also as a space in which this distinctiveness is coded in terms of desolation and deterioration. While the film contains few reliable markers of Southern Gothic genericity such as crumbling plantation houses, demented southern belles, or psychotic hillbillies, it nevertheless draws on a set of shifting codes and referents around decay and dilapidation that are at once performances of traditional Gothic imagery, and a re-writing of the Gothic in the spaces of this particular version of the South. The purchase of the Chevy establishes from the outset the extent to which ruin figures as a primary aesthetic and thematic concern in the film. As White says, to “infiltrate the South” you need the right car. To show up in “some Land Rover or some Lexus,” and expect “poor folks” to talk to you about what’s in their hearts would be, White claims, misguided. Thus, the old Chevy is deemed to be the “right” car, its battered body patched with primer paint a testament to the appropriateness of disrepair as a motif relevant to the greater southern milieu. From the vantage point of the moving car, other images of ruin subsequently come into view as if on some empathic or collaborative level the landscape itself aims to substantiate White’s claim. On a road where household junk is strewn on front lawns, where flare stacks from an oil refinery spit fire into the atmosphere, where abandoned school buses lie in various states of decay, where dead swamp trees are cast in twilight tones, and where a houseboat carrying two musicians seems to have a tentative relationship with buoyancy, the notion of ruin is summoned forth. As Alexandra Warwick has noted, imagery around ruin, complete or partial, has been a characteristic Gothic device from the time of Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1999, 79). Inspired by images of ruin that commonly occurred in eighteenth-century works of art,1 such depictions had a profound impact on Gothic fiction due to their power to evoke notions of loss through the way in which they acted as musings on fallen empires (Warwick 1999, 77). Arguably, this imagery has had a lasting effect on Gothic representation, since across a multitude of texts, and in various permutations, ruin is a recurring Gothic motif. This may be due in part to the ability of ruin to simultaneously evoke seemingly competing 1 The large-scale excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the eighteenth century led to significant changes in how human beings understood their relationship with the world and human history. This was reflected in a boom in paintings of ruined structures in which artists mused upon time, memory, and the destruction of the world in which they lived (Whittell, 2016).

190 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

notions of loss and perseverance. The abandoned or the derelict in any form is significant because it suggests that ruin has an existence of its own, an organic life that resists annihilation (Warwick 1999, 78). Ruin can be understood as a construct ripe with possibility since its appearance as an iterable mark in one genre (such as painting), and its subsequent transference to a multitude of others (the novel, the film, the documentary, the television series) not only emphasizes its generic repeatability, but also, the inherent regenerating capabilities that are evoked through its endless reimagining. In the landscapes, structures, and narratives of the South as represented in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, ruin, remade in the generic realms of the documentary film, is afforded a constancy that conveys the South’s resistance to total destruction since ruin equally embodies the possibility of endurance. In choosing the battered Chevy to facilitate the process of accessing the South, the Chevy functions as an internally divided signifier, encompassing both collapse and reinvention. White’s assertion that a newer car would act as a hindrance to the project attests to the importance of dilapidation as the aesthetic most appropriate for progress. Similarly, in the transformation of the old houseboat into an impromptu stage for a musical performance, or in the restoration of the discarded statue of Jesus to a site of prominence, the relationship between ruin and renewal is enacted actually and emblematically to suggest that ruin itself is never a cessation, only a means by which the ruined, discarded, or damaged object can be reinstated as a symbol of reinvention. As Karen Dale and Gibson Burrell argue, the significance of the ruin as an evocative motif may be in its encapsulation of the human condition as something that is, by nature, transitory (2011,111). Ruin, they suggest, embodies the discomforting reminder that the universe moves inexorably towards cold entropy (2011, 114). Yet, ruined objects or structures can be transformed through their construction in narratives and histories that render them as sites of replenished meaning. Consequently, ruin can be understood not as an end point or termination of things or events, but rather, as a rebirth that encompasses the notion of a “melancholic lack” or absence of what might have been, and simultaneously, a presence of what is and what might come (Dale and Burrell 2011, 120). As Gilda Williams says, ruin has been the leitmotif of the Gothic narrative, appearing in texts as stylistically diverse as Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and Albert and David Maysles’s Grey Gardens (1975), due, in part, to the fact there is beauty in the idea of ruin particularly when ruin evokes reclamation (Williams 2010, 4). For example, the collapse of the Twin Towers in 2001, Williams argues, saw the contemporary era begin with a powerful image of ruin, yet it also ushered

FINDING THE SOUTH IN THE E THEREAL

191

in a whole new, and still emerging world order (2010, 2). Similarly, the return to nature in the city of Pripyat adjacent to Chernobyl has transformed the city’s football pitch into a thriving oval-shaped forest flanked by decrepit bleachers (Williams 2010, 4). In fact, in 2019 the Ukrainian government announced that the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, abandoned and eerily frozen in time, is set to become an official tourist site which will place it on the map as a “dark tourism” destination (Mettler 2019). Such ruins, Williams suggests, imply the paradox of the ruin: that the ruin is frequently more loaded with meaning than the original intact object or structure (2010, 2). The idea of ruin thus manifests in a way that it embodies the divided nature of the Gothic mark, which guarantees destruction as much as it guarantees reinstatement. To return to Ken Gelder’s idea in relation to the image of the vampire in cinema, which states that the marked differences between Hollywood vampires are far more striking than the similarities (2001, 86), is to see the way in which this idea of similarity and difference can be understood within the framework of the Gothic ruin. Just as the differences between vampires are necessary in order that the vampire can be continually remade into something new (Gelder 2001, 86), so each new instance of ruin must engage with its predecessors while also maintaining its newness by manifesting in unfamiliar ways. Thus, oriented toward simultaneous similarity and difference, whether evident in a crumbling castle in an eighteenth-century Gothic novel, a re-forested football pitch in Pripyat, or a dilapidated Chevy reinvented as an instrument of regional authenticity, ruin suggests an endless process of death and rebirth, familiarization and defamiliarization. Fittingly, in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, the trope of Gothic ruin is reinforced in a number of ways. As well as the dilapidated Chevy or the rundown floating house, several other manifestations of ruin articulate the way the Gothic informs the film. A long-abandoned bus in the woods, for example, engulfed by the creeping tendrils of nature’s repossession suggests enfoldment, not only within the vegetation of the forest, but also, within the space of an evolving genre that recalls T. S. Eliot’s sprouting corpse in The Wasteland as much as it anticipates the hidden forest of human carcasses in HBO’s True Detective. Via this graveyard imagery, the bus is a corpse that in its final resting place has become inseparable from its environment, generically sequenced by past instances of Gothicity with instructions to be passed on to successive instances of Gothic ruin. Similarly, in a point of view shot where the camera pans across dumped and burned-out cars and derelict houses, the poverty and privations of southern life in a small mountain community are accentuated. Yet the dilapidated dwellings and

192 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

surroundings simultaneously function as sites of religious awe for a group of Pentecostal worshippers who thrash and writhe in religious ecstasy in the living room of one of the houses. In the broader framework of generic renewal, this Gothic resequencing manifests as spiritual possession that reinvents Goya’s lunatics, or the supernatural possession in Stoker’s Dracula. On a thematic level, the small mountain community resists ruin as a final condition since ruin exists side by side with reinvention and redemption. As Warwick says, ruin acts as a reminder of what has been lost to history (1999, 77). This association of loss with ruin is particularly relevant to the Southern Gothic. The sense of loss evoked in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus conforms to what Botting has referred to as a tendency in Gothic texts to depict loss as an effect of the precipitation of modernity and its increasingly dehumanizing environments (2005, 102). As Botting argues, in classical Gothic contexts such as the Victorian Gothic, loss was articulated in terms of attitudes towards science and its role in social and spiritual alienation and degeneration (2005, 87). By the mid to late twentieth century loss was more often expressed in anxieties related to the “postmodern condition” which resulted in alienation of both the self and the social bearings by which a sense of reality was secured (Botting 2005, 102). This condition, Botting argues, disclosed the “horror” that order and unity were lost, replaced instead by the dispersal and multiplication of meanings, narratives, realities, and identities (2005, 102). Such manifestations of loss, which emerged in response to respective technological and cultural changes, were understood in Gothic terms of pessimism towards, and disaffection with the present (Botting 2005, 83). In the context of the American South, this sense of loss (as discussed in previous chapters) is one associated with the vanished magnificence of the southern past. As Cobb says, from the time of Reconstruction white southerners celebrated a greatly embellished image of a lost South in which the romance of the past was used to underwrite the materialism of the present (2007, 81). This commonly perpetuated image of the Old South promoted an ideologically driven nostalgia that has subsequently emerged through popular culture to secure regional myths associated with the South’s supposed antithetical relationship to industrialization and modernity (Cox 2011, 2). Due to the persistence of such discourses, the South is often represented as a space permeated by a sustained melancholic longing for a past that never existed. This sentiment, for example, underpins Anna and Carrie’s longing in Toys in the Attic for a more simple or innocent time untroubled by the “complications” of modernity (racial equality, industrial expansion, and the undoing of the privileges of the southern elite). Thus, when the South

FINDING THE SOUTH IN THE E THEREAL

193

is rendered in terms of loss, this loss is frequently Gothicized via processes that see loss as symptomatic of disillusionment with the present. It is possible, then, to see Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus in this context. As the film opens, a series of shots of a swamp are accompanied by a voice to which no particular speaker is assigned. The voice asks, “Do you know what you’re looking for? Do you think this place is on the map? Does it have roads you can walk down?” While the questions may be understood as an address to the filmmakers, there is equally a sense in which they are general provocations alluding to a proclivity towards maintaining the area as a space essentially “off the map.” In the implied geographical indeterminacy around “place,” posed within the rhetorical question, “Do you think this place is on the map?” there is the suggestion that if “this place’s” location is indeed a matter of ambiguity then this ensures its immunity to the conditions of the modern world. Put another way, it allows the South to be understood as lost in the sense of being unspoilt by modernity. As Botting has noted, one of the generic tendencies of the Southern Gothic is to focus on the disintegration of the familiar, and to imagine this disintegration in terms of the decay of family or culture (2005, 104). This is evident in the Gothic writings of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Eudora Welty whose works often present narratives of the South centred around decaying family structures in absurd and decomposing worlds (Botting 2005, 104–105). Extending Botting’s idea to include not only the disintegration of family and culture, but also, the disintegration of place, allows the idea of loss in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus to be understood as an allusion to the destruction of place that accompanies historical change and the inevitable march of modernity. A link to the southern past is thus reinforced through imagery and dialogue that represents the swamplands as lost and unmapped and therefore, by implication, unspoilt. Loss, or the threat of loss in this context is informed, to some extent, by assumptions about the effect of industrialization, which, via a number of other images in the film is shown to exist as a bleak reality. The image, for example, of an oil refinery emitting waste into the atmosphere implies a less than idyllic present. Against the skyline, the oil refinery is an image of a corrupted landscape that has yielded to corporate interests. In a partial inversion of the principles of compositional film space whereby a moving item draws attention more quickly than a static item, the static flare stack with its dancing orange flame takes precedence in the shot while the moving landscape blurs into insignificance. Within the overall space of the shot, the positioning of the refinery as dominant, implies the relationship between place and industry is one characterized by the defilement of the

194 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

landscape by corporate investment. On the soundtrack, alternative country band The Handsome Family sing a song about death, snake bites, tangled limbs, the ghost of a dead child, and alcoholism to punctuate the visualized action with the despondency of loss and tragedy via audio cues.2 As White travels the South from the swamps of Louisiana to the mountains of West Virginia, the film further emphasizes loss and devastation through imagery and narratives that highlight the tragic, the flawed, or the decaying elements of southern society and culture. At the junkyard where White purchases the statue of the bleeding-heart Jesus, a close up shot of the trunk of a wrecked car in the midst of being hoisted onto a truck functions to suggest that not only this car, but also the hundreds of others just like it in the vast junkyard, are emblematic of the deterioration of the South. If, as Goddu has argued, the Gothic South has been positioned as a space whose excesses are indicative of the South’s othered status (1997, 76), then the abandoned vehicles, while far from being a problem peculiar to the South, nevertheless function to represent the South as a kind of wasteland. This is in direct contrast to America’s self-mythologizing tendency to imagine itself in terms of hope and harmony (Goddu 1997, 4). In other scenes, the camera lingers on ravaged shop facades or rows of mobile homes arranged into makeshift suburbs to cast the South in terms of bleakness and destitution while on-screen contributors recount stories of loss and tragedy to give weight to the South’s hopelessness. A grieving mother, for instance, discusses her conversion to Christianity as a way of coming to terms with the death of her son, who was heading “down the wrong path.” Banjo player Lee Sexton laments the loss of his son, a “fine banjo player” whose death signals the end of a musical lineage going back generations, while a member of the Pentecostal church explains how the old ways of worship have been corrupted by the evils of the flesh, “Why did there have to be a new way?” he asks before issuing advice about how to keep the devil at bay. The notion of a hidden, “off the map” South alluded to in the opening scenes of the film is thus marked by an inherent contradiction. On the one hand, the notion of a secret or mysterious South immune to the corruption of the modern world characterizes the film’s tenor from the outset. On the other hand, the notion of a spoilt South underpins much of the visual and narrative elements and thereby acts as a major factor in the film’s representation of the South as a Gothic space ravaged by the conditions of modernity. The threat of loss and the fact that loss has already occurred imbues the South, as it is represented in the film, with an otherness that 2

The song “My Sister’s Tiny Hands” is from the band’s 1998 album Through the Trees.

FINDING THE SOUTH IN THE E THEREAL

195

cannot be reconciled in terms that see it as either ruined or not ruined, lost or not lost but rather, inhabiting the intermediary spaces of the undecidable.

Haunted Atmospheres and Disembodied Voices This quality of undecidability is particularly relevant to the concept of atmosphere in the film. Near the beginning of the film, White claims that while most people believe that the South is a state of mind, it is more accurately “an atmosphere.” Invoked as a mark of differentiation, “atmosphere” becomes, in the film, evidence of the South’s distinctiveness – an indicator of uniqueness that separates the South from the North. This notion of a specific southern atmosphere is inextricably linked to the construct of the mythic South and has been historically disseminated through romanticizing discourse that stress the South’s “quaint,” “balmy,” “old fashioned,” or “leisurely” qualities (McIntyre 2011, 145). As Charles Crow has insisted, while the South now resembles the rest of America in most ways, southern-ness can still be accessed in the Gothic atmospheres of its old cities such as Savannah and New Orleans (2009, 158). For Crow, Savannah, in particular, has an atmosphere that exists as a result of its old houses “built around a series of stately shadowed squares” that in John Berendt’s novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil render the city a character in its own right (2009, 159). Yet, whether or not Savannah has a distinctive atmosphere is difficult to determine in any objective sense since it is preceded by its reputation as a space inherently atmospheric. According to Gernot Böhme, atmosphere indicates something that is indeterminate as regards its ontological status (1993, 114). While we have a rich vocabulary with which to describe atmosphere: serene, uplifting, melancholic, oppressive, commanding, inviting, we are never sure whether we should attribute atmosphere to the objects and environments from which it proceeds or to the subjects who experience it (Böhme 1993, 114). We don’t know, in other words, where atmosphere actually is since it seems to inhabit a “peculiar intermediary space” between absence and presence, subject and object (Böhme 1993, 114). Atmosphere is therefore both there and not there, a performance of tone, mood and feeling, filtered via subjective interpretation. It transmits nothing and recounts nothing, yet is perceived, nevertheless, as something. Structured by indeterminacy, the South, in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, is thus rendered a space of absent presences. If, as Böhme says, atmospheres cannot be defined independently from the persons who detect them, then any appeal

196 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

to atmosphere as a marker of a given location’s distinctiveness secures its spectrality since atmosphere is not only structured by the co-presence of subject and object, but equally, by co-absence (2014, 43–45). Atmosphere thus embodies the undecidable, and as an indicator of place – or more specifically, as an indicator of the uniqueness of place – the South in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus is configured through the haunting traces of the simultaneously there and not there. Evidence for this can be found in the very f irst scenes of the f ilm in which, as outlined above, a number of questions are addressed to an unidentified recipient. While the questions are undeniably asked by the same off-screen voice, one question is set apart from the others. As images of a swamp and its surrounds are cast in an eerie light, the normal visual cues that provide information about night and day, or dark and light are subverted in favour of a temporal tone that suggests the swamp environment is perpetually both. And in this context the disembodied voice asks, “Will you know it when you see it?” The “it” in question is neither elaborated upon nor clarified. Instead, it is made additionally nebulous by the accompanying non-diegetic words of White’s song on the musical track, which tells a story about the ghost of a woman who appears over the bed of a sleeping couple, Well, I was shacked up down in Mobile with a girl from New York City/ she woke me up one night to tell me that we weren’t alone/she said she saw the ghost of a woman staring at me/I told her not to worry, but in the morning when I woke up, she was gone (White 1997).

As Benjamin Nagari states, the use of music in film can dictate mood with a power stronger than the narrative itself because it adds meaning and emotional input that the visual path cannot provide on its own. A song that is part of a film’s soundtrack, in other words, marks it as an “interpreter” or “illustrator of events (2015, 42). The “it” in the question, “will you know it when you see it?” is thus cast, through the added meaning provided by the song, in spectral tones. Lacking specificity and tangibility, “it” is as insubstantial and unquantifiable as the disappearing ghost in the song. In the context in which the question is posed, “it” implies something detectable and simultaneously undetectable, something knowable and unknowable, something real and something characterized by ethereality. That the “it” remains unspecified underpins the spectrality of the space since in the absence of a known or identified speaker, the question hangs in the air in an otherworldly fashion, neither anticipating an answer nor offering

FINDING THE SOUTH IN THE E THEREAL

197

clarification, but only inferring that there is an “it” to be seen that may, in fact, be essentially unseeable. As the opening progresses, this entire sequence introduces imagery that sustains a sense of the film’s overall ethereality. A dog runs through the undergrowth in alternating flashes of shadow and light, which gives the impression of a ghost appearing in faltering glimpses. While mostly visible, at times the dog seems to blend with the surrounding forest so that, silently and phantom-like, it glides through the vegetation to become nothing more than a blur of black and white. The figure of a boy appears, partially obscured in a thicket of trees. He moves slowly through the forest as he stares in the direction of the camera. Is he the speaker? Are the questions his questions? Apparition-like, he disappears and reappears as he makes his way through the wooded terrain offering nothing in the way of confirmation or denial that might help to determine his relationship, if one even exists, to the voice-over narrator. Instead, he stares at the camera and continues on his way. Interwoven with these events is imagery that works to reinforce the mysteries of the landscape: mirrored images of swamp trees appear on the surface of the still water, tiny fish flicker and weave their translucent bodies in a murky pond, rays of sunlight struggle to penetrate the darkness of the forest. Of all the images, sounds, and voices in these opening scenes, few are as spectrally encoded, however, as the disembodied voice. As Edgar Allen Poe’s Dreamland explains, the southern swamp is an “unholy” place of dismal tarns and pools “where dwell the Ghouls” (2003). That the voice seems to emanate from this “unholy” place where it exists as a ghostly guide offering proprietorial forewarning, emphasizes a certain menace associated with the swamp’s ambient undercurrents. As Rodney Giblett says, this is consistent with historical swamp representation more generally. Both Dante and Milton linked swamps to the underworld – “Dante by figuring one circle of hell as a slimy Stygian marsh,” and Milton by depicting Satan as a monstrous swamp serpent generated out of the slime of hell (Giblett 1996, 5). The connection of the swamp, therefore, with the disembodied voice in Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, is an expression of an entrenched pattern of representation that has attributed the swamp with diabolical qualities. The unspecifiable “it” that refers to something both there and not there, something visible yet unseeable, alludes to a phantom-like absent presence that at once haunts, and is haunted by the environment in which it is invoked. The imagery in these opening scenes thus situates the South as an othered space. Encapsulated in such things as the unsettling environment of the swamp, apparitional imagery, voices of indeterminate nature, and allusions

198 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

to ghosts, the South’s otherness is linked to a characteristic absent presence that is as undecidable as it is constitutive of the region as a mediated screen space. In this space, which constructs the South as both lost or “off the map,” and simultaneously not lost due to the ruinous consequences of modernity, there is an “it” that is both something and nothing, both seen and unseen, which is an organizing motif that reflects White’s appeal to atmosphere. Explaining the process by which he became aware of this atmosphere, White tells a story of his time living in New York when, having to ride his bike every day across the Brooklyn Bridge, he tried unsuccessfully to ride along the white line on the road. He came to realize, he says, that if he concentrated on the white line, he was unable to see it properly. However, once he stopped looking at it and allowed it to blur into incomprehension, he was able to detect the line more clearly. In relation to the South, White concludes that analogous with his inability to see the white line on the Brooklyn Bridge, the South cannot be accessed through direct looking. “You’ve got to look away” he says, and in this summary, there is the suggestion that the film’s attempt to “look” for the South is a futile pursuit since only through incomprehension, or through the subjective nature of atmosphere is it in any way visible. In White’s final address to the filmmakers, an address in which he bids them “so long” and tells them that he hopes that they find what they’re looking for, the dubiousness with which he assesses their ability to do so is clear. The point of White’s Brooklyn Bridge story is to convey the idea that the harder one tries to find the South, the less likely it is to come into view. This idea shapes the narrative of the film for its duration. It is conveyed in the rhetorical questions, “Do you know what you’re looking for?” and “Will you know it when you see it?” uttered by the disembodied voice in the film’s opening; it is implied in the appeal to southern-ness via the ethereal, absent presence of atmosphere; and it is present in White’s scepticism at the end of the film in relation to the filmmakers’ ability to find what they’re looking for. But what seems like a final analysis, the last word of witness testimony from one whose “voice” should carry extra weight, is a position that is itself haunted by phantom traces. While White insists that the South and its secrets are unknowable to the non-southerner, at the same time, the filmmakers seem to have the South and its secrets firmly within their grasp. In this mediated South, presented according to the stylistic and narrative “voice” of the filmmakers, there is a sense in which, before the first frames of film were ever shot, before the interviewees were ever selected, it was already determined that the South was indeed discoverable through the pre-existing othering framework of the Southern Gothic.

FINDING THE SOUTH IN THE E THEREAL

199

Works Cited Böhme, Gernot. “Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics.” Thesis Eleven 36 (1): 113–126, 1993 Borch, Christian; Böhme, Gernot; Eliasson, Olafur; Pallasmaa, Juhani. Architectural Atmospheres: On the Experience and Politics of Architecture. Basel/Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2014. Botting, Fred. Gothic. London: Routledge, 2005. Cobb, James C. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Cox, Karen. Dreaming of Dixie: How the South was Created in Popular Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Crow, Charles L. History of the Gothic: American Gothic. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009. Dale, Karen and Burrell, Gibson. “Disturbing Structure: Reading the Ruins.” Culture and Organization 17 (2): 107–121, 2011. Eliot, T.S. The Wasteland and Other Poems. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2011. Gelder, Ken. Reading the Vampire. New York: Routledge, 2001. Giblett, Rodney. Postmodern Wetlands: Culture, History, Ecology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996. Goddu, Theresa. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Land, Joshua. “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.” The Village Voice 50 (28): 50, 2005. Leiter, Andrew. Southerners on Film. Edited by Andrew B. Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Mettler, Katie. “Ukraine wants Chernobyl to be a tourist trap. But scientists warn: Don’t kick up dust.” The Washington Post. July 13, 2019. McIntyre, Rebecca. Souvenirs of the Old South: Northern Tourism and Southern Mythology. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011. Nagari, Benjamin. Music as Image: Analytical Psychology and Music in Film. London: Routledge, 2015. Nichols, Bill. “The Voice of Documentary.” Film Quarterly 36 (3): 17–30, 1983. Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Poe, Edgar Allan. “Dreamland” in The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Project Gutenberg, 2003. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10031/10031-h/10031-h. htm#section3g. Accessed May 5, 2021. Schager, Nick. “Review: Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.” Slant. July 1, 2005. https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/searching-for-the-wrong-eyed-jesus/.

200 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Penguin, 2003. Accessed May 6, 2021. Warwick, Alexandra. “Lost Cities: London’s Apocalypse.” In Spectral Readings: Towards a Gothic Geography. Edited by Glennis Byron and David Punter. London: Macmillan Press, 1999. Williams, Gilda. “It Was What It Was: Modern Ruins.” Art Monthly 336: 1–4, 2010. Wilson, Charles Reagan. “Sacred Landscapes Barren of Redemption: A Review of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.” The Journal of Southern Religion 9, 2006.

Filmography Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Andrew Douglas. United States, United Kingdom: BBC, 2003. Toys in the Attic. George Roy Hill. United States: United Artists, 1963.

Television Series True Detective. Nic Pizzolatto. United States: Warner Bros. Television Distribution, 2014–2019.

Songs The Handsome Family. “My Sister’s Tiny Hands.” Through the Trees (album). Carrot Top Records, 1998 White, Jim. “Still Waters.” The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted “Wrong-Eyed Jesus” (album). WEA, 1997.



Conclusion – Fading, But Never Faded Abstract The conclusion reaff irms the book’s key premise that the crumbling mansions, decaying vegetation, doom-laden atmospheres, and ruined landscapes of the Southern Gothic speak to its positioning on screen as an othered space. It reflects upon the way in which screen depictions of the contemporary South, refracted through the historical and cultural discourses of a grander more glorious South, have emerged in screen texts to demonstrate an undeniable consistency, identif iable despite the unstable model of categorization in and around which those texts function as genre. Keywords: Mason-Dixon Line, North, South, Genre, Classification

In Episode One, Season One of HBO’s True Detective, under a southern sky thick with gathering storm clouds, detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart exit a coroner’s office on the outskirts of Erath, Louisiana. Situated in a strip mall in an area edged by swamps and oil refineries, the coroner’s office seems the only functioning business in the deserted mall where shuttered storefronts and a near deserted car park evoke the ruin and desolation of a permanently forsaken South. Structured by a Gothicity that imagines Erath as a counterpart to Ambrose Bierce’s fictional Carcosa with its “hint of evil,” and “dismal landscape” over which “lead-coloured clouds” hang like a “visible curse” (Bierce 2003), the strip mall is heavy with a sense of doom that is never alleviated by any peripheral signs of life. “This place is like somebody’s memory of a town, and the memory’s fading,” Rust observes. And in Rust’s evocation of a fading South, the Southern Gothic is perhaps most perfectly elucidated. This book set out to explore the Southern Gothic on screen. Through an emphasis on genre, or rather, through an attempt to interrogate the Southern Gothic as a screen genre, this book has focused on the cohesiveness of a certain group of film and television texts in which Gothicity is the dominant

Horsley, K., The American Southern Gothic on Screen. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022 doi 10.5117/ 9789463729444_concl

202 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

mechanism through which the South is rendered Other. The othering of the South is a phenomenon that traverses historical, cultural, political, and representational terrain. Importantly, the construct of the othered South cannot be understood simply as a one-way assignation that positions the South in opposition to the North due to the South’s perceived backwardness and inferiority in the broader national context. Rather, otherness operates as an aspect of southern-ness that has been co-opted by the South itself, functioning in several implicit and explicit ways to serve certain southern interests concerned with the maintenance of a distinctive and unique southern identity. Southern otherness can therefore be understood as an attribution that has allowed the South to continue to position itself as a space separate from the North with its own specific culture, customs, and traditions. In the context of popular culture, this has supported an idea of “southern” that reinforces a mythology which equates the South and southern-ness with exoticism and authenticity on the one hand, and on the other, a strangeness that embraces a wide spectrum of meanings from benign peculiarity through to profound distortion and depravity. In American identity politics – including the discursive practices that have structured both the North’s and the South’s understanding of southernness – the othered South thus remains a powerful cultural construct that has functioned historically, and continues to function, to differentiate the South from what is deemed “normal America.” The othered South is therefore a multi-faceted phenomenon, which informs screen representation in such a way that the South is configured as an oddity in comparison to the more “typical” images of America that have been normalized in film and television over the last century.

Deep Souths on Screen The two films offered as case studies, Toys in the Attic and Searching for the Wrong-eyed Jesus, act as representatives for the Southern Gothic on screen only insofar as they show how an engagement with the Southern Gothic genre can occur through disparate avenues of expression and interpretation. Not intended to definitively encapsulate Southern Gothicity on screen, nor to stand as exemplars of the matrix within which they operate as generic artefacts, these films simply demonstrate how a given screen text can be read through the prism of the Southern Gothic with the understanding that, as a space in which genres and histories converge, this prism distorts as much as it clarifies any sense of generic consistency. Toys in the Attic’s adherence

Conclusion – Fading, But Never Faded

203

to certain codes and conventions is a consequence of the film’s emergence in the mid-twentieth century which sees it shaped by socio-industrial and socio-historical exigencies in complex ways. Registering the tropes of transgression, secrecy, and the grotesque through the stylistic and thematic lens of the Gothic, the film questions and subtly condemns racial division, while constructing oppositions such as black and white, past and present, sunny and benighted as unstable and internally othered. In Gothicizing the southern elite through a narrative that interprets privileged white southerner-ness as bizarre, perverted, distorted, and savage, Toys in the Attic’s gloomy southern mansions, references to hidden ancestry, and secret incestuous desires reverberate with Gothic excesses and exaggerations that find a fitting home in the decaying and corrupted world of the Deep South. In Andrew Douglas’s feature documentary Searching for the wrong-eyed Jesus, the mutability of genre facilitates a new interpretation of Gothicity in which the American South is fashioned in terms of spectrality and strangeness. Since the eighteenth century the Gothic has imagined worlds where ruin, decay, melancholy, loss, and haunting have cast the known or normal world into states of indeterminacy and incomprehension. In Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus such a world is constructed. It is one that sees these eighteenth-century Gothic tropes transposed onto the spaces of the South to render it ghostly and imperceptible. And it is in these spaces, where a tattoo of angel wings can speak of a mother’s grief, where the sound of a banjo can alleviate the sadness and loneliness of a remote mountain existence, and where the spectral can be invoked in a casual observation about the nature of the southern atmosphere, that the blurred boundaries between lost and found, seen and unseen, knowable and unknowable, bring the Gothic South fully into view.

Crossing Borders: North and South, Genre and Mode The problem of boundaries encountered in this book is a problem internal to the categories themselves. To speak of the American South as a specific region understood in terms of its separateness from the North is to draw upon the notion of geographical demarcation implied, on a purely denotative level, by the referent “South.” This invokes the historical division separating the slave holding states from the non-slave holding states that led to the desire for secession which ultimately set America on the path to Civil War. As specific as this division might seem, it is largely ineffective as a marker of southern-ness. For instance, two slave holding states, Missouri, and

204 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Kentucky, never joined the Confederacy. Nevertheless, as mediated spaces they are considered, culturally and idiomatically, to embrace qualities that position them as characteristically southern. For instance, in the 2018 HBO miniseries Sharp Objects, protagonist Camille returns to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri where her subsequent unravelling reveals distortions and secrets that Gothicize the ruling southern elite. In the reality television series Call of the Wildman, filming takes place primarily in and around Ernie “the Turtleman” Brown’s hometown of Lebanon, Kentucky where the markers of southern difference are writ large in the depiction of Ernie’s hillbilly existence. The imprecision of the North-South division is compounded, no doubt, by the endorsement of demarcation represented by the Mason-Dixon line, which establishes a boundary of differentiation that, historically speaking, has positioned the South as separate from the broader political and geographical body of the American Union. Yet this line of demarcation is problematic for those to whom the identifier “southern” refers to the formation of the Confederate States of America on February 8, 1861, which is not necessarily compatible with the states deemed “southern” according to the Mason-Dixon Line. Additionally, within the South there exist various cultural divides related to race and ethnicity, environmental divides associated with climate and landscape, and political and ideological divides resulting from migration patterns that have reconfigured geographical divisions in a number of other intricate ways. Given the complexities around such concepts as “southern” and “northern,” along with the political, historical, and cultural factors contributing to the North-South divide, the extent to which “southern” as a geographical descriptor can effectively delineate a screen text’s place of origin is thus open to debate. This is especially complicated by the fact that many southern films and television series are not actually made in the South. This brings to light the inconsistencies inherent in the fact that where the South is physically located and what determines a southern screen text as southern are not necessarily congruent. This inconsistency can be resolved to a large extent, by understanding “southern” as a construct informed, in part, by a visual legacy. This visual legacy is one that positions the South in a relationship with various tropes that may or may not represent the South faithfully, but are nevertheless grounded in, or centre around a conspicuously “southern” perception of place. While this notion of “southern” conceptualizes the South as a largely thematic and metaphorical construct, at the same time, it avoids positioning the mediated South as entirely disconnected from the South as a real-world referent. Instead, it conceives of “southern” as something that encompasses both the South as a representational space and the South as

Conclusion – Fading, But Never Faded

205

a physical site with flexible conceptual and geographical boundaries that sustain the notion of “southern” as an enduring and specific cinematic and televisual milieu. If the boundaries of the mediated South can be considered more metaphorical and idiomatic than historical and geographical, then the boundaries that constitute genre can be similarly unburdened from classif icatory semantics by understanding genres as affiliations of texts within which enfoldment, reversal, and renewal are guiding principles. Although complex rules governing genre exist to align a given text with a class of similar texts according to a set of traits or characteristics, to understand Southern Gothic screen texts according to such principles of genre designation would require the establishment of strict boundaries in one form or another. This would allow meaning to occur according to textual, thematic, and formal codes and conventions determining any given text’s suitability for membership in the genre. This is an approach to genre designation that is consistent with a number of scholarly approaches that, while incorporating the idea that classificatory frameworks are ultimately complex and not always logically organized, nevertheless emphasize the importance of schemas within which texts can be contained as exemplars of certain genres.1 However, as the arguments in this book around classification have demonstrated, most classificatory systems are themselves subject to laws that unfix them as reliable sties of meaning. Put another way, if the Southern Gothic can be understood as a genre, it becomes a classificatory system governed by the law of genre which leaves it open to the difficulties associated with rigorous differentiation. Where, for example, is the line between one genre and the next? (Hill 2007, 58). What designates one screen text Southern Gothic and another one not Southern Gothic? If a line exists, it only exists as a foreign body stationed on the threshold between genres to simultaneously demarcate and interrupt that demarcation due to the way it declares itself as the demarcating code unrelated to the genre it claims to demarcate (Hill 2007, 66). Yet in the field of genre studies, distinctions are key, and this is obvious in scholarly approaches to categorization that distinguish between the generic and modal dimensions of texts. This distinction is organized around the separation of certain textual characteristics that may fall into either one or other of the respective dimensions. In Gothic studies specifically, the genre/ mode debate has proven particularly lively with much Gothic scholarship positioned on the side of either genre or mode. While the specific differences 1

See, for example, Sinding, 2002; Neale, 1999; Fowler, 1982.

206 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

between these approaches were analysed in chapter 4, here they can be summarized broadly as: those perspectives that understand the Gothic as a modality in order to emphasize the importance of overcoming genre’s limiting delineative tendencies (see, for example, Williams 1995; Spooner and McEvoy 2007; Haslam 2007; Botting 2005 ; Davison 2009), and those perspectives that emphasize the importance of genre’s delineative measures as a method for understanding the way in which the Gothic functions as a meaningful construct (see for example, Varma 1987; Crow 2009).

Otherness, Inside and Out More than anything, what this distinction demonstrates is the extent to which given methods of classification may be structured by discourses designed to reinforce the separation of one method from another in a binary relationship. In a poststructuralist framework, however, the concept of classification organized around unfixed lines of demarcation understands that boundaries are integral to classificatory systems, yet at the same time, unreliable as taxonomic indicators due to their inherent instability. This is a framework that can be extended to configurations of North and South, Gothic and not Gothic, Other and not Other in such a way that shows instability similarly affecting the boundaries determining these configurations. For example, to understand “the Other” as one axis of a binary that privileges the supposedly non-Other over that which is deemed abnormal or unnatural, is to rely on an assumption of the purity of each respective axis. Yet such hierarchical constructions of otherness disallow an understanding of the way in which oppositional concepts transgress boundaries in the invocation of any division. In calling upon a distinction between the Other and non-Other, a boundary is summoned, yet this boundary begins to erode as soon as the separation is invoked as a result of an internal contamination that repositions otherness in such a way that it cannot be definitively reconciled in terms of either/or. The principle of undecidability is an extension of this idea since it conceptualizes the positioning of oppositional concepts in terms of haunting whereby contaminated boundaries of demarcation unfix, but don’t entirely erase distinctions between one thing and another, they instead evoke the traces of a spectral Other that is simultaneously absent and present. Drawing on Derrida’s analysis of the necessary contamination of classificatory systems, this book has examined the limitations of the notion that boundaries around, or between categories is possible, arguing that genre categorization is always already preconditioned by contamination

Conclusion – Fading, But Never Faded

207

and collapse. As John Frow has noted, however, to resist subsuming the members of a class of texts into a closed totality is to fail to understand the work genre does to stabilize generic expression and expectation in the context of screen production and consumption (2015, 30). Yet, in this book, the idea of a closed Southern Gothic genre has been strongly resisted – a resistance that might risk rendering genre a hollow construct. The framework may in fact be too broad, too edgeless, and not specific enough to constitute anything resembling an identifiable or functioning corpus. In anticipation of this, Derrida’s concept of invagination was invoked to provide an alternative model of categorization organized around edgelessness. In this largely formless topological space, the briefest moments of participation see Southern Gothic texts and genres existing in relational networks of meaning with no real identifiable beginning, no stable boundaries, and no particular guidelines as to their codes and conventions. Rather, the Southern Gothic engages in an ongoing dialogue with countless other texts and genres that pre-date the Gothic fiction of Walpole and Radcliffe (whose works themselves rearticulated and rewrote existing narratives), to become a performance of genre that processes the Gothic through the existing avenues of southern history and culture.

The Fading South As the widespread success of the first season of True Detective attests, the cultural significance of the Southern Gothic on screen in the twenty first century lies in its capacity to stir something in the popular imagination, which understands that while the Gothic may evoke worlds of ugliness and brutality, the sublime and the mysterious are still equally possible. In the ever-changing space of genre, the fractured souls of the Gothic South congregate with the multitudes of centuries-old, fractured Gothic souls who came before them. And it is in this space, where environment and place are afflicted with a persistent curse, that “fading” imbues the mediated South with the regenerative means by which it remains vital as a site of Gothic representation. Coming into being already in the process of fading, the Southern Gothic’s status as a dynamic and evolving screen genre is reaffirmed through the implicit suggestion that the Gothic South is never final, never closed off, never entirely faded. In its crumbling mansions and dismal landscapes, its demented hillbillies and wretched southern belles, the Southern Gothic refracts the South’s history through the fading memories of a grander, more glorious South, which, tainted in its downfall, emerges as

208 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

a reinvigorated screen space with ruined boundaries that are nothing less than an assurance of the Southern Gothic’s continued generic existence.

Works Cited Bierce, Ambrose. “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” Project Gutenberg, 2003. https://www. gutenberg.org/files/4366/4366-h/4366-h.htm. Accessed May 19, 2021. Botting, Fred. Gothic. London: Routledge, 2005. Crow, Charles L. History of the Gothic: American Gothic. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009. Davison, Carol Margaret. History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1764 – 1824. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009. Frow, John. Genre. London Routledge, 2006. Haslam, Richard. “Irish Gothic.” In The Routledge Companion to Gothic. Edited by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy. Hoboken: Routledge, 2007. Hill, Leslie. The Cambridge Introduction to Derrida. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Spooner, Catherine. “Gothic in the Twentieth Century.” In The Routledge Companion to Gothic. Edited by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy. Hoboken: Routledge, 2007. Varma, Devendra. The Gothic Flame: Being a History of the Gothic Novel in England: its Efflorescence, Disintegration, and Residuary Influences. New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1987. Williams, Anne. Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Filmography Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Andrew Douglas. United States, United Kingdom: BBC, 2003. Toys in the Attic. George Roy Hill. United States: United Artists, 1963.

Television Series Call of the Wildman. United States: Animal Planet, 2011–2014. Sharp Objects. Jean-Marc Vallée. Warner Bros. Televsion, 2018. True Detective. Nic Pizzolatto. United States: Warner Bros. Television Distribution, 2014–2019.

Bibliography Aguirre, Manuel. “Thick Description and the Poetics of the Liminal in Gothic Tales.” Orbis Litterarium. 72 (4): 294–317, 2017. Althans, Katrin. Darkness Subverted: Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film. Germany: Bonn University Press, 2010. Aristotle. Poetics. London: Penguin, 1996. Austen, Jane. Emma. Auckland: The Floating Press, 2009. Balanzategui, Jessica. “The Skeleton Key, the Southern Gothic and the Uncanny Decay of Teleological History.” In Elder Horror: Essays on Film’s Frightening Images of Aging. Edited by Cynthia J. Miller & A. Bowdoin Van. McFarland, 2019. Bargainnier, Earl F. “Moonlight and Magnolias Myth.” Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Barker, Debra E. and McKee, Kathryn. American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Edited by Debra E. Barker and Kathryn McKee. Athens: University Press of Georgia, 2011. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Random House, 1972. Berthin, Christine. Gothic Hauntings: Melancholy Crypts and Textual Ghosts. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Bierce, Ambrose. “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” Project Gutenberg, 2003. https://www. gutenberg.org/files/4366/4366-h/4366-h.htm. Accessed June 26, 2021. Bloom, Jack, M. Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Böhme, Gernot. “Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics.” Thesis Eleven 36 (1): 113–126, 1993 Borch, Christian; Böhme, Gernot; Eliasson, Olafur; Pallasmaa, Juhani. Architectural Atmospheres: On the Experience and Politics of Architecture. Basel/Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2014. Bordwell, David; Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristin. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. London: Routledge, 2005. Botting, Fred. Gothic. London: Routledge, 2005. Brasell, Bruce. “Humid Time: Independent Film, Gay Sexualities, and Southernscapes.” In American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary. Edited by Deborah Barker and Kathryn McKee. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011. Brockell. Gillian. “Re-watching ‘The Civil War’ during the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd protests.” The Washington Post. September 26, 2020. https://www. washingtonpost.com/history/2020/09/26/ken-burns-civil-war-breonna-taylorgeorge-floyd-shelby-foote/. Accessed June 26, 2021.

210 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Auckland: The Floating Press, 2008. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Camberwell: Penguin Australia, 2009. Brophy, Phillip. “Between Electric Italy and Black America.” Real Time 114: (20), 2013. Burke, James Lee. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. Harper Collins, 1994. Campbell, Edward, Jr. The Celluloid South: Hollywood and the Southern Myth. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1981. Capote, Truman. Other Voices, Other Rooms. Penguin Modern Classics, 2004. Carter, Bill. “Civil War sets an audience record for PBS.” The New York Times. September 25, 1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/25/movies/civil-warsets-an-audience-record-for-pbs.html. Accessed June 26, 2021. Cash, W. J. The Mind of the South. Canada: Random House, 1991. Cavallaro, Dani. The Gothic Vision: Three Centuries of Horror, Terror and Fear. London: Continuum, 2002. Cherry, Brigid. True Blood: Investigating Vampires and Southern Gothic. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Chesnutt, Charles Waddell. “Hot-Foot Hannibal.” In: The Conjure Woman. Project Guttenburg. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11666/11666-h/11666-h.htm, 2004. Accessed June 26, 2021. Cobb, James C. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Conner, Staci Poston. “Horror More Horrible from Being Vague, and Terror More Terrible from Ambiguity”: Liminal Figures in Poe’s “Berenice” and Gilman’s “The Giant Wisteria.” The Edgar Allan Poe Review. 20 (1): 77–95, 2019. Cox, Karen. Dreaming of Dixie: How the South was Created in Popular Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Crank, James. “An Aesthetic of Play: A Contemporary Cinema of South-Sploitation.” In Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. Edited by Andrew B Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Crimmins, Jonathan. “Gender, Genre, and the Near Future in Derrida’s ‘The Law of Genre’.” Diacritics. 39 (1): 45–60, 2009. Crow, Charles L. History of the Gothic: American Gothic. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009. Cunningham, Phillip Lamarr. “The Haunting of a Black Southern Past: Considering Conjure in To Sleep with Anger.” In Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. Edited by Andrew Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Curtis, Barry. Dark Places: The Haunted House in Film. London: Reaktion Books, 2009. Dale, Karen and Burrell, Gibson. “Disturbing Structure: Reading the Ruins.” Culture and Organization 17 (2): 107–121, 2011.

Bibliogr aphy

211

Davison, Carol Margaret. History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1764–1824. Cardiff University Press, 2009. Derrida, Jacques. The Law of Genre. Trans. Avital Ronell. Critical Inquiry. 7 (1): 55–81, 1980. Dick, Bernard. Hellman in Hollywood. London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 2003. Dischinger, Matthew. “The Walking Dead’s Postsouthern Crypts.” In Small-Screen Souths. Edited by Lisa Hinrichsen, Gina Caison and Stephanie Rountree. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Douglas, Ellen. Truth: Four Stories I am Finally Old Enough to Tell. United States: Plume, 1999. Ebert, Roger. The Night of the Hunter. Accessed December 14, 2020. https://www. rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-night-of-the-hunter-1955, 1996. Accessed June 26, 2021. Edwards, Justin. Gothic Passages: Racial Ambiguity and the American Gothic. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003. Eliot, T.S. The Wasteland and Other Poems. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2011. Ellis, Jay. On Southern Gothic Literature. In Critical insights: Southern Gothic Literature. Edited by Jay Ellis. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2013. Farber, Stephen. “New American Gothic.” Film Quarterly 20 (1): 22–27, 1966. Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! London: Random House, 2005. Faulkner, William. Light in August. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Faulkner, William. Requiem for a Nun. New York: Random House, 1994. Faulkner, William. Sanctuary. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Fiedler, Leslie. Love and Death in the American Novel. London: Paladin, 1970. Fowler, Alistair. Kinds of Literature. London: Clarendon Press, 1982. Free, Melissa. Relegation and Rebellion: The Queer, the Grotesque, and the Silent in the Fiction of Carson McCullers.” Studies in the Novel 40 (4): 426–446, 2008. Frow, John. Genre. London Routledge, 2006. Frye, Steven. Understanding Cormac McCarthy. University of South Carolina Press, 2009. Garber, Megan. 2015. “Ashokan Farewell: The story behind the tune Ken Burns made famous.” The Atlantic. September 25, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/ entertainment/archive/2015/09/ashokan-farewell-how-a-20th-century-melodybecame-an-anthem-for-the-19th/407263/. Accessed June 26, 2021. Garofalo, Alex. “How successful was ‘True blood’ for HBO? A look back at ratings before series finale.” International Business Times. https://www.ibtimes.com/ how-successful-was-true-blood-hbo-look-back-ratings-series-finale-1663206, 2014. Accessed May 4, 2021.

212 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Gelder, Ken. “Southern Vampires: Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris and True Blood.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Edited by Susan Castillo Street & Charles L. Crow. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Gelder, Ken. Reading the Vampire. New York: Routledge, 2001. Genette, Gerard. The Architext: An Introduction. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Gerster, Patrick. “Stereotypes.” In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson & William Ferris. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Giblett, Rodney. Postmodern Wetlands: Culture, History, Ecology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996. Gleeson-White, Sarah. “Revisiting the Southern Grotesque: Mikhail Bakhtin and the Case of Carson McCullers,” The Southern Literary Journal 33 (2): 108–23, 2001. Goddu, Teresa, A. Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Good News Bible. New York: American Bible Society, 1976. Gordon, Avery. “Some Thoughts on Haunting and Futurity.” Borderlands 10 (2):1–21, 2011. Greven, David. “The Southern Gothic Film: An Overview.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Edited by Susan Castillo Street & Charles L. Crow. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Griffin, Larry. “The American South and the Self.” Southern Cultures 12 (3):6–28, 2006. Halberstam, Jack. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Harper, Graeme, and Rayner, Jonathan. Cinema and Landscape. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2010. Harpham, Geoffrey. “The Grotesque: First Principles.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 34: 461–468, 1982. Harris, Charlaine. The Southern Vampire Mysteries. Ace Books, 2001–2013. Harris, Scott Jordan. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” In World Film Locations New Orleans. Edited by Scott Jordan Harris. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2012. Haslam, Richard. “Irish Gothic.” In The Routledge Companion to Gothic. Edited by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy. Hoboken: Routledge, 2007. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Auckland: The Floating Press, 2008. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of the Seven Gables. New York: Penguin, 1986. Herbert-Leiter, Maria. “Reel Horror: Louisiana’s Vanishing Wetlands and the Threat of Hollywood.” In Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. Edited by Andrew Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Hill, Leslie, The Cambridge Introduction to Derrida. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Bibliogr aphy

213

Hirsch, Sarah. “Topographical Ghosts: The Archival Architecture of Old New Orleans.” In Undead Souths. Edited by Eric Gary Anderson, Taylor Hagood, and Daniel Cross Turner. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015. Jacobson, Brooke. “Regional Film: A Strategic Discourse in the Global Marketplace.” Journal of Film and Video 43 (4): 18–32, 1991. Jansson, David. “Internal Orientalism in America: W. J. Cash’s The Mind of the South and the Spatial Construction of American National Identity.” Political Geography 22 (3):293–316, 2003. Jansson, David. “‘A Geography of Racism’: Internal Orientalism and the Construction of American National Identity in the film Mississippi Burning.” National Identities 7 (3):265–285, 2005. Jansson, David. “The Haunting of the South: American Geopolitical Identity and the Burden of Southern History.” Geopolitics 12 (3): 400–425, 2007. Jones, Timothy. “The Canniness of the Gothic: Genre as Practice.” Gothic Studies 11 (1): 124–133, 2009. Joyce, James. The Dubliners. Penguin Classics, 2000. Kane, Bob and Bill Finger. “Batman.” National Comics Publications. United States, 1939. Khair, Tabish. The Gothic, Postcolonialism and Otherness: Ghosts from Elsewhere. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Kilgour, Maggie. The Rise of the Gothic Novel. London: Routledge, 1995. King, Edward. The Great South. Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1875. Kissell, Rick. “The Walking Dead Ratings Rise with Controversial Episode.” Variety. http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/the-walking-dead-ratings-rise-1201627223/, 2015. Accessed May 2, 2021. Kissell, Rick. “HBO’s ‘True Detective’ wraps season with its largest audience.” Variety. http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/hbos-true-detective-wraps-seasonwith-itslargest-audience-1201128626/, 2014. Accessed June 25, 2021. Koeppel, Barbara. “Cancer Alley, Louisiana.” The Nation, 8 November. 16–24, 1999. Kolchin, Peter. “The South and the World.” The Journal of Southern History 75 (3):565–580, 2009. Koontz, Dean. Frankenstein. London: Harper, 2011. Land, Joshua. “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.” The Village Voice 50 (28): 50, 2005. Langman, Larry and Ebner, David. Hollywood’s Image of the South: A Century of Southern Films. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001. Lefebvre, Martin. Landscape and Film. Edited by Martin Lefebvre. New York: Routledge, 2006. Leiter, Andrew. Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s. Edited by Andrew Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011.

214 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Lloyd, Christopher. “Southern Gothic.” In American Gothic Culture: An Edinburgh Companion. Edited by Joel Faflak & Jason Haslam. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Lopez, Ian Haney. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Lovecraft, H. P. “The Call of Cthulhu.” In The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre. New York: Ballantine, 1982. Lowry, Brian. “Hart of Dixie.” Variety. September: 8, 2011. Lucy, Niall. A Derrida Dictionary. Carlton: Blackwell, 2004. Makowski, Elizabeth. Mason-Dixon Line. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson & William Ferris, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Malik, Kenan. The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Mark, Rebecca. Ersatz America. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014. Martin-Jones, David. Global Cinema: Genres, Modes and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Martin, Adrian. “The Teen Movie: Why Bother?” Cinema Papers, 10–15, 1989. McCullers, Carson. “The Russian Realists and Southern Literature.” In The Mortgaged Heart. Edited by Margarita G. Smith. New York: Penguin, 2005. McIntyre, Rebecca. “Promoting the Gothic South.” Southern Cultures 11 (2):33–61, 2005. McIntyre, Rebecca. Souvenirs of the Old South: Northern Tourism and Southern Mythology. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011. McPherson, Tara. Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Penguin Publishing Group, 2013. Merritt, Keri Leigh. “Why we need a new Civil War documentary.” Smithsonian Magazine. April 23, 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-weneed-new-civil-war-documentary-180971996/. Accessed June 26, 2021. Mettler, Katie. “Ukraine wants Chernobyl to be a tourist trap. But scientists warn: Don’t kick up dust.” The Washington Post. July 13, 2019. Misrach, Richard and Orff, Kate. Petrochemical America. New York: Aperture, 2014. Moore, Erica. “Haunting Memories: Gothic and Memoir.” In Gothic Landscapes. Edited by Sharon Yang & Kathleen Healey. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Random House, 1987. Nagari, Benjamin. Music as Image: Analytical Psychology and Music in Film. London: Routledge, 2015. Neale, Steve. “Postwar Hollywood and the End of the Studio System 1946–66.” In The Classical Hollywood Reader. Edited by Steve Neale. New York: Routledge, 2012.

Bibliogr aphy

215

Neale, Steve. Genre and Hollywood. London: Routledge, 1999. Nelson, Richard. “Film production.” In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Nichols, Bill. “The Voice of Documentary.” Film Quarterly 36 (3): 17–30, 1983. Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. O’Connor, Flannery. Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald, Mystery and Manners. London: Faber and Faber, 1984. O’Flinn, Paul. “Production and Reproduction: The Case of Frankenstein.” In Horror, The Film Reader. Edited by Mark Jancovich. London: Routledge, 2002. Osbey, Brenda Marie. “Why We Can’t Talk to You about Voodoo.” Southern Literary Journal XLIII (2): 1–11, 2011. Palmer, Landon. “Gender, Regional Identity, and the Civil War: Politics of the North and South in Sweet Home Alabama and June Bug.” In Southerners on Film. Edited by Andrew B. Leiter. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Perry, Marc. State-to-state Migration Fows 1995–2000. https://usa.ipums.org/usa/ resources/voliii/pubdocs/2000/censr-8.pdf, 2003. Accessed June 26, 2021. Picone, Michael. “Cajun French and Louisiana Creole.” In Languages and Dialects of the U.S. Edited by. Marianna Di Paolo and Arthur K. Spears. New York: Routledge, 2014. Pinheiro, Cláudio Costa. “The BRICS Countries: Time and Space in Moral Narratives of Development.” In The Moral Mappings of South and North. Edited by Peter Wagner. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. Pinkerton, Nick. “Southern Gothic.” Sight and Sound 25 (5): 44–50, 2015. Plate, S. Brent. “Introduction: Images and Imaginings.” In Imag(in)ing Otherness: Filmic Visions of Living Together. Edited by S. Brent Plate & David Jasper. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Poe, Edgar Allan. “Dreamland” in The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Project Gutenberg, 2003. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10031/10031-h/10031-h. htm#section3g. Accessed June 25, 2021. Poe, Edgar Allan. Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Poems, Tales, Criticism. New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Powell, Anna. “Duration and the Vampire: A Deleuzian Gothic.” Gothic Studies 11(1): 86–98, 2009. Punter, David and Byron, Glennis. The Gothic. Maldon: Blackwell, 2004. Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion the “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Real, Jere. In Encyclopedia of Southern culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

216 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Reed, John Shelton. Southerners: The Social Psychology of Sectionalism. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Ringel, Faye. “New England Gothic.” In A Companion to American Gothic. Edited by Charles Crow. Oxford: John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 2014. Russell, Bertrand. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1963. Schager, Nick. “Review: Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.” Slant. July 1, 2005. https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/searching-for-the-wrong-eyed-jesus/. Accessed June 24, 2021. Schildkraut, Deborah. “National Identity in the United States.” In Handbook of Identity Theory and Research. Edited by Koen Luyckx Seth Schwartz, Vivian, L. Vignoles. New York: Springer, 2011. Schroder, Anne. “Voodoo and Conjure as Gothic Realism.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Edited by Susan Castillo Street; Charles L. Crow. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Schwartz, Seth et al. “Introduction: Toward an Integrative View of Identity.” In Handbook of Identity Theory and Research. Edited by Koen Luyckx Seth Schwartz, Vivian, L. Vignoles. New York: Springer, 2011. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Arrow Books, 1980. Sinding, Michael. “After Definitions: Genre, Categories and Cognitive Science.” Genre. 35 (2): 181–220, 2002. Spiegel, Alan. “A Theory of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction.” Georgia Review. 426–437, 1972. Spooner, Catherine. “Gothic in the Twentieth Century.” In The Routledge Companion to Gothic. Edited by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy. Hoboken: Routledge, 2007. Staszak, Jean-François. “Other/otherness.” International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2008. Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. London: Penguin, 2006. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Penguin, 2003. Strengell, Heidi. “’The Monster Never Dies”: An Analysis of the Gothic Double in Steven King’s Oeuvre.” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, 1900 to Present 2 (1): 1–11, 2003. Szczesiul, Anthony. The Southern Hospitality Myth: Ethics, Politics, Race, and American Memory. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2017. Tassi, Paul. “‘The Walking Dead’ Ratings Finally Fall Under 3 Million For The First Time.” Forbes, March 11, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/11/the-walking-dead-ratings-finally-fall-under-3-million-for-thefirst-time/?sh=172a66b55b89, 2020. Accessed June 23, 2021.

Bibliogr aphy

217

Tindall, George Brown. The Emergence of the New South 1913‒1945. Louisiana State University Press, 1967. Tindall, George. Myth, Manners, and Memory. In Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson & William Ferris. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Trachtenberg, Stanley. In Encyclopedia of Southern culture. Edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Turner, Daniel. “Gray Ghosts: Remediating the Confederate Undead.” In, Undead Souths. Edited by Eric Gary Anderson, Taylor Hagood, and Daniel Cross Turner. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015. Varma, Devendra. The Gothic Flame: Being a History of the Gothic Novel in England: its Efflorescence, Disintegration, and Residuary Influences. New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1987. Wagner, Peter. “Finding One’s Way in Global Social Space.” In The Moral Mappings of South and North. Edited by Peter Wagner. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. Walpole, Horace. “The Castle of Otranto” Project Gutenberg, 2014, http://www. gutenberg.org/files/696/696-h/696-h.htm. Accessed June 26, 2021. Warwick, Alexandra. “Lost Cities: London’s Apocalypse.” In Spectral Readings: Towards a Gothic Geography. Edited by Glennis Byron and David Punter. London: Macmillan Press, 1999. Wester, Maisha. African American Gothic. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Williams, Anne. Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Williams, Gilda. “It Was What It Was: Modern Ruins.” Art Monthly 336: 1–4, 2010. Wilson, Anthony. Shadows and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture. Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 2006. Wilson, Charles Reagan. “Sacred Landscapes Barren of Redemption: A Review of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.” The Journal of Southern Religion 9, 2006. Woodward, C. Van. The Burden of Southern History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Wortham, Simon Morgan. The Derrida Dictionary. London: Continuum, 2010. Yaeger, Patricia. “Ghosts and Shattered Bodies, or What Does it Mean to Still be Haunted by Southern Literature?” South Central Review 22 (1):87–108, 2005. Zanes, Warren. “Primitive Myths: Photography and the American South.” Afterimage 25 (4): 10, 1998.

Filmography A Christmas Memory. Glenn Jordan. United States: Hallmark, 1997. A Love Song for Bobby Long. Shainee Gabel. United States: Lionsgate Destination Films, 2004. A Streetcar Named Desire. Elia Kazan. United States: Warner Bros., 1951. A Time to Kill. Joel Schumacher. United States: Warner Bros, 1996. Angel Baby. Paul Wendkos. United States: Allied Artists Pictures Corporation, 1961. Angel Heart. Alan Parker. United States: Tri-Star Pictures, 1987. Attack of the Giant Leeches. Bernard L. Kowalski. United States: American International Pictures, 1959. The Apostle. Robert Duvall. United States: October Films, 1997. Baby Blues. Amar Kaleka and Lars Jacobson. United States: Sweat Shop Films, 2008. Baby Doll. Elia Kazan. United States: Warner Bros, 1956. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans. Werner Herzog. United States: First Look Studios, 2009. The Ballad of the Sad Café. Simon Callow. United States; Canada; United Kingdom, 1991. Beautiful Creatures. Richard La Gravenese. 2013. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures. The Beguiled. Don Siegel. United States: Universal Pictures, 1971. The Beguiled. Sofia Coppola. United States: Focus Features, 2017. The Bell Witch Haunting. Glenn Miller. United States, 2013. Beloved. Jonathan Demme. United States: Buena Vista Pictures, 1998. Bernie. Richard Linklater. United States: Millennium Entertainment, 2011. The Beverly Hillbillies. Penelope Spheeris. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1993. The Beyond. Lucio Fulci. Italy. Medusa Distribuzione, 1981. The Big Easy. Jim McBride. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1986. Big Fish. Tim Burton. United States: Sony Pictures, 2003. Black Like Me. Carl Lerner. United States: Continental Distributing, 1964. Black Snake Moan. Craig Brewer. United States: Paramount Vantage, 2007. The Blind Side. John Lee Hancock. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 2009. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Francis Ford Coppola. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1992. Cape Fear. J Lee Thompson. United States: Universal Pictures, 1962. Cape Fear. Martin Scorsese. United States: Universal Pictures, 1991. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Richard Brooks. United States: MGM, 1958. Chrystal. Ray McKinnon. United States: First Look Studios, 2004. The Client. Joel Schumacher. United States: Warner Bros, 1994. Cool Hand Luke. Stuart Rosenberg. United States: Warner Bros., 1967.

220 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

Crimes of the Heart. Bruce Beresford. United States: De Laurentis Entertainment Group, 1986. Crossroads. Walter Hill. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1986. The Crow. Alex Proyas. United States: Miramax Films, 1994. Curse of the Swamp Creature. Larry Buchanan. United States: American International Television; MGM, 1966. Dark Waters. Andre De Toth. United States: United Artists, 1944. Dead Man Walking. Tim Robbins. United States: Gramercy Pictures, 1995. Deepsouth. Lisa Biagiotti. United States, 2014. The Defiant Ones. Stanley Kramer. United States: United Artists, 1958. Deliverance. John Boorman. United States: Warner Bros, 1972. Desire in the Dust. William F. Claxton. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1960. The Devil all the Time. Antonio Campos. United States: Netflix, 2020. Django Unchained. Quentin Tarantino. United States: Columbia Pictures, 2012. Dracula. Tod Browning. United States: Universal Pictures, 1931. The Dukes of Hazzard. Jay Chandrasekhar. United States: Warner Bros., 2005. Edward Scissorhands. Tim Burton. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1990. Eve’s Bayou. Kasi Lemmons. United States: Trimark Pictures, 1997. The Fool Killer. Servando González. United States: American International Pictures, 1965. Frailty. Bill Paxton. United States: Lions Gate Films, 2001. Fried Green Tomatoes. John Avnet. United States: Universal Pictures, 1991. Ghosts of Mississippi. Rob Reiner. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1996. The Gift. Sam Raimi. United States: Paramount Classics, 2000. The Gingerbread Man. Robert Altman. United States: PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, 1998. The Glass Menagerie. Irving Rapper. United States: Warner Bros., 1950. Gone with the Wind. Victor Fleming. United States: Loew’s, 1939. The Green Mile. Frank Darabont. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Robert Ellis Miller. United States: Warner Bros., 1968. Heavens Fall. Terry Green. United States, 2006. Hillbilly Elegy. Ron Howard. United States: Netflix, 2020. Hounddog. Deborah Kampmeier. United States: Empire Film Group, 2007. The Hunger. Tony Scott. United Kingdom/United States: MGM/UA Entertainment Co., 1983. Hush. Jonathan Darby. United States: Sony Pictures, 1998. Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Robert Aldrich. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1964. I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Mervyn LeRoy. United States: Warner Bros, 1932. Imitation of Life. Douglas Sirk. United States: Universal Pictures, 1959. Imitation of Life. John Stahl. United States: Universal Pictures, 1934.

Filmogr aphy

221

In Cold Blood. Richard Brooks. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1967. The Internship. Shawn Levy. United States: 20th Century Fox, 2013. Interview with the Vampire. Neil Jordan. United States: Warner Bros, 1994. In the Electric Mist. Bertrand Tavernier. France; United States: TFM Distribution, 2009. In the Heat of the Night. Norman Jewison. United States: United Artists, 1967. Into the Abyss. Werner Herzog. United States, United Kingdom, Germany. IFC Films/Sundance Selects, 2011. Intruder in the Dust. Clarence Brown. United States: MGM, 1949. Junebug. Phil Morrison. United States: Sony Pictures Classics. 2005. The Killer Inside Me. Michael Winterbottom. United States: IFC Films, 2010. Killer Joe. William Friedkin. United States: LD Entertainment, 2011. The Last Exorcism. Daniel Stamm. United States: Lionsgate, 2010. Last of the Mobile Hotshots. Sidney Lumet. United States: Warner Bros.,1970. Little Chenier. Bethany Ashton. United States: Radio London Films, 2006. The Long, Hot Summer. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1958. The Lost Boys. Joel Schumacher. United States: Warner Bros., 1987. The Member of the Wedding. Fred Zinnemann. United States: Columbia Pictures, 1952. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Clint Eastwood. United States: Warner Bros., 1997. Mississippi Burning. Alan Parker. United States: Orion Pictures, 1998. Monster’s Ball. Marc Forster. United States: Lionsgate Films, 2001. Mud. Jeff Nichols. United States: Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions, 2012. My Louisiana Love. Sharon Linezo Hong. United States, 2012. My Louisiana Sky. Adam Arkin. United States, 2001. No Mercy. Richard Pearce. United States: TriStar Pictures, 1986. The Neon Bible. Terence Davies. United Kingdom: Strand Releasing, 1995. The Night of the Hunter. Charles Laughton. United States: United Artists, 1955. Nosferatu. F.W. Murnau. Germany. Film Arts Guild, 1922. O Brother, Where Art Thou? Joel Coen. United States, United Kingdom, France: Buena Vista Pictures; Universal Pictures, 2000. Orpheus Descending. Peter Hall. United States: TNT, 1990. Other Voices, Other Rooms. David Rocksavage. United States; United Kingdom: Artistic License Films, 1995. The Paperboy. Lee Daniels. United States: Millennium Films, 2012. Pretty Baby. Louis Malle. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1978. The Princess and the Frog. John Musker and Ron Clements. United States: Disney Studios, 2009. Raintree County. Edward Dmytryk. United States: MGM, 1957.

222 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

The Reaping. Stephen Hopkins. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007. The Reivers. Mark Rydell. United States: National General Pictures, 1969. Road Trip. Todd Phillips. United States: DreamWorks Pictures, 2000. Ruthless People. Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams Jim; David Zucker. United States: Buena Vista Distribution, 1986. The Sad and the Beautiful World of Sparklehorse. Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass. United Kingdom, 2016. Sanctuary. Tony Richardson. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1961. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Andrew Douglas. United States/United Kingdom. BBC, 2003. The Serpent and the Rainbow. Wes Craven. United States: Universal Pictures, 1998. Shrek Forever After. Mike Mitchell. United States: Paramount Pictures, 2010. The Skeleton Key. Iain Softley. 2005. United States: Universal Pictures. Sling Blade. Billy Bob Thornton. United States: Miramax Films, 1996. The Sound and the Fury. Martin Ritt. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1959. The Sound and the Fury. James Franco. United States: New Films International, 2014. Southern Comfort. Walter Hill. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1981. Southern Gothic. Mark Young. United States: IFC Films, 2007. Steel Magnolias. Herbert Ross. United States: TriStar Pictures, 1989. The Story of Temple Drake. Stephen Roberts. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1933. Suddenly, Last Summer. Joseph L. Mankiewicz. United Kingdom; United States: Columbia Pictures, 1959. Summer and Smoke. Peter Glenville. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1961. Swamp Country. Robert Patrick. United States, 1966. Swamp Fire. William Pine. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1946. Swamp Thing. Wes Craven. United States: Embassy Pictures, 1982. Swamp Water. Jean Renoir. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1941. Swamp Women. Roger Corman. United States, 1956. Sweet Bird of Youth. Richard Brooks. United States: MGM, 1962. Sweet Home Alabama. Andy Tennant. United States: Buena Vista Pictures, 2002. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Tobe Hooper. United States: Bryanston Distributing Company, 1974. Things That Hang from Trees. Ido Mizrahy. United States: Radio London Films, 2006. This Property is Condemned. Sydney Pollack. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1966. Tideland. Terry Gilliam. United Kingdom; Canada: Revolver Entertainment, 2005. Tobacco Money Feeds my Family. Cynthia Hill. United States. 2003. Tobacco Road. John Ford. United States: 20th Century Fox. 1941. To Kill a Mockingbird. Robert Mulligan. United States: Universal Pictures, 1962. Tomorrow. Joseph Anthony. United States: Filmgroup Productions, 1972.

Filmogr aphy

223

To Sleep with Anger. Charles Burnett. United States: The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1990. The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Charles B. Pierce. United States: American International Pictures, 1976. Toys in the Attic. George Roy Hill. United States: United Artists, 1963. Trouble the Water. Tia Lessin, Carl Deal. United States: Zeitgeist Films, 2008. Two Moon Junction. Zalman King. United States. The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1988. The Twilight Saga. Catherine Hardwicke; Chris Weitz; David Slade; Bill Condon. United States: Summit Entertainment, 2008–2012. Two Thousand Maniacs! Herschell Gordon Lewis. United States: Box Office Spectaculars, 1964. Undertow. David Gordon Green. United States: MGM Distribution, 2004. The Waterboy. Frank Coraci. United States: Buena Vista Pictures, 1998. Winter’s Bone. Debra Granik. United States: Roadside Attractions, 2010. Wise Blood. John Huston. United States; West Germany: New Line Cinema, 1979. The Young One. Luis Buñuel. Mexico; United States, 1960. Zombieland. Ruben Fleischer. United States: Sony Pictures Releasing, 2009.



Television Series

American Horror Story: Coven. Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. United States: FX, 2013–2014. The Andy Griffith Show. Sheldon Leonard. United States: CBS Television Distribution, 1960–1968. The Beverly Hillbillies. Paul Henning. United States: CBS Television Distribution, 1962‒1971. Call of the Wildman. United States: Animal Planet, 2011–2014. The Civil War. Ken Burns. United States: PBS, 1990. The Dukes of Hazzard. Gy Waldron and Jerry Rushing. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 1979–1985. Futurama. Matt Groening. United States: 20th Television, 1999–2013. Hart of Dixie. United States: CBS Television, Warner Bros Television, 2011–2015. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. United States: TLC, 2012–2107. Murder in the Bayou. Matthew Galkin. United States: Showtime, 2019. NCIS: New Orleans. Gary Glasberg. United States: CBS Media Ventures; Paramount Home Entertainment, 2014–2021. On Death Row. Werner Herzog. United States, United Kingdom, Austria, 2012. Rat Bastards. United States: American Chainsaws, 2012. Rectify. Ray McKinnon. United States: Sundance TV, 2013–2016. Roots. Alex Hayley. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 1977. Sharp Objects. Jean-Marc Vallée. Warner Bros. Televsion, 2018. The Simpsons. Matt Groening. United States: 20th Television, 1989–2020; Disney, 2020–present. South Park. “The China Probrem.” Trey Parker. CBS Media Ventures, 2008. Southern Gothic. Lauren J. Przybyszewski and Joanne Hock. United States: Investigation Discovery, 2020. Swamp People. United States: History Channel, 2010–Present. The X Files. “Signs and Wonders.” Kim Manners (dir). 20th Television, 2000. Tiger King. Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin. United States: Netflix, 2020. Treme. David Symon and Eric Overmyer. United States: Warner Bros. Television; HBO Enterprises, 2010–2013. True Blood. Alan Ball. United States: Warner Bros. Television, 2008–2014. True Detective. Nic Pizzolatto. United States: Warner Bros. Television Distribution, 2014–2019. The Walking Dead. Frank Darabont. United States: AMC, 2010–present.

Songs The Handsome Family. “My Sister’s Tiny Hands.” Through the Trees (album). Carrot Top Records, 1998 White, Jim. “Still Waters.” The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted “Wrong-Eyed Jesus” (album). WEA, 1997.



Video Games

Duke Nukem Forever. Bryan Ekman and George Broussard. 3D Realms. 2K Games, 2011. Redneck Rampage. Drew Markham. Xatrix Entertainment. Interplay Productions, 1997. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Wizard Video Games, 1983. The Walking Dead. Sean Vanaman, Jake Rodkin, Dennis Lenart, Eric Parsons, Nick Herman, Sean Ainsworth. Telltale Games, 2012. YouTube Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Chile: You Better Redneckognize. extratv. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=FQOvRVo4ZQE, 2012. Accessed June 20, 2021.

Websites “Abandoned Louisiana.” Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/search/ top?q=abandoned%20louisiana. Viewed January 29, 2021.

Songs The Handsome Family. “My Sister’s Tiny Hands.” Through the Trees (album). Carrot Top Records, 1998 White, Jim. “Still Waters.” The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted “Wrong-Eyed Jesus” (album). WEA, 1997.



Video Games

Duke Nukem Forever. Bryan Ekman and George Broussard. 3D Realms. 2K Games, 2011. Redneck Rampage. Drew Markham. Xatrix Entertainment. Interplay Productions, 1997. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Wizard Video Games, 1983. The Walking Dead. Sean Vanaman, Jake Rodkin, Dennis Lenart, Eric Parsons, Nick Herman, Sean Ainsworth. Telltale Games, 2012. YouTube Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Chile: You Better Redneckognize. extratv. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=FQOvRVo4ZQE, 2012. Accessed June 20, 2021.

Websites “Abandoned Louisiana.” Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/search/ top?q=abandoned%20louisiana. Viewed January 29, 2021.

Songs The Handsome Family. “My Sister’s Tiny Hands.” Through the Trees (album). Carrot Top Records, 1998 White, Jim. “Still Waters.” The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted “Wrong-Eyed Jesus” (album). WEA, 1997.



Video Games

Duke Nukem Forever. Bryan Ekman and George Broussard. 3D Realms. 2K Games, 2011. Redneck Rampage. Drew Markham. Xatrix Entertainment. Interplay Productions, 1997. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Wizard Video Games, 1983. The Walking Dead. Sean Vanaman, Jake Rodkin, Dennis Lenart, Eric Parsons, Nick Herman, Sean Ainsworth. Telltale Games, 2012. YouTube Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Chile: You Better Redneckognize. extratv. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=FQOvRVo4ZQE, 2012. Accessed June 20, 2021.

Websites “Abandoned Louisiana.” Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/search/ top?q=abandoned%20louisiana. Viewed January 29, 2021.

Index A Christmas Memory, 27. abandoned, 14, 183, 184, 189, 194. and house 74. and Louisiana, 74n. and ruin, 190–191. and Chernobyl, 191. aberrant/aberrance/aberration, 14, 39–40, 56, 59, 63, 72. abolition, 41, 45. absent presence, 116, 117, 183, 197, 198. and atmosphere, 184, 195, 198. and otherness, 174. adaptation, 14, 29, 104, 128, 129, 136, 139, 140. advertisements, 19, 70. aesthetics, 14, 16n, 17, 23, 26, 30, 71, 74, 88, 104, 116, 123, 135, 137, 189, 190. and genre, 27. and gothic, 17, 28, 57, 86, 91, 105. and grotesque, 165. and otherness, 29. African, 75, 146. and American (see also, America; American; Native American), 30, 47, 73, 74, 146, 147. 173, 176, 178. and ancestry, 162, 171–172, 175. and slavery, 69, 171–173. and spiritualism, 15n, 74n, 75, 76, 145, 146. agrarian, 39, 43, 43n, 125. A Love Song for Bobby Long, 149. America, 61, 63, 71, 72, 76, 85, 86, 101, 102, 144, 173, 195, 202, 203, 204. American (see also, New American Gothic), 29, 38, 40, 43n, 47–49, 63, 71, 76, 90, 141, 144–145, 168, 173, 174, 185, 204. and cinema, 22, 162. and cultural narrative, 72, 173. and culture, 29, 38, 41, 49, 58, 61, 63, 77. and exceptionalism, 71. and genre/mode, 94, 95, 100–101. and Gothic, 86, 86n, 87, 94, 147, 168, 172, 174–176. and history, 44, 72, 168. and identity, 46, 50, 61, 202. and ideology, 45, 49, 78, 173. and independence, 50, 71. and myth/mythology, 67, 71. and national discourse, 37, 15, 59, 61, 62, 72, 115, 142, 147, 173, 174. and revolution, 50. and rhetoric, 71. and South (see also, southern; Southern Gothic), 48, 49, 75, 86n, 117, 128, 192, 203. and un-American, 39, 40, 56, 61, 71. and values, 51, 61, 63. American Horror Story: Coven, 26, 145, 146.

American International Pictures, 137. ancestry, 159, 162, 171, 172, 175, 203. Andy Griffith Show, The, 137. Angel Baby, 17, 27, 144. Angel Heart, 22, 75–77, 128, 145. antebellum, 12, 13, 26, 42, 50, 68, 80, 138, 172, 178, 215. Apostle, The, 17, 124, 144. Appleton’s Journal, 56. Aristotle, 92, 106, 109–110, 115. Ashokan Farewell, 70, 70n. A Streetcar Named Desire, 11, 13, 14, 20, 21, 26, 124, 128, 138, 160. Attack of the Giant Leaches, 58. A Time to Kill, 16. atmosphere, 42, 86, 149, 169–170, 183, 189, 193, 195–198, 201, 203. authentic/authenticity, 40, 42, 43, 56, 60, 62, 123, 127–129, 145–150, 191, 202. axes/axis, 110–112, 179. and otherness, 110, 112, 206. Baby Blues, 142. Baby Doll, 26, 128, 138, 160. backwardness (see also, southern backwardness), 15–16, 23, 39, 48, 136, 142, 144, 149, 202. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans, 128, 149. Ballad of the Sad Café, The, 139. Barthes, Roland, 42, 43, 67, 70, 71, 147. Batman, 112–113, 117. bayou, 21, 23,124, 36, 55, 60–61, 124, 127, 140, 142, 143–145, 178, 185. Beautiful Creatures, 23, 146. Beguiled, The, 146, 147, 146n. Bell Witch Haunting, The, 15. Beloved, 47, 72, 147. benighted South, 16, 37, 41, 44, 78, 136, 148–149. Bernie, 16. Beverly Hillbillies, The, 137. Beyond, The, 27, 124, 128, 143. Bierce, Ambrose, 23, 201. Big Easy, The, 137. Big Fish, 136, 148. binarism, 50–51, 110–115. binary/binaries (see also, binarism), 109–115, 139, 172, 174, 177, 206. Black Like Me, 147. Black Snake Moan, 23, 128, 142. Blind Side, The, 15. blink, the, 123–131, 149. borderless, 98, 100n, 101, 117, 129, 176. borders, 117, 150, 179, 203. and genre, 97, 100, 103, 123, 131, 150. and North/South divide, 38.

230  and otherness, 112. boundaries, 184, 203, 205–208. and genre, 203 and race, 173–179. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 112. Burke, James Lee, 73, 140. Cajuns, 38, 58–61, 142, 144. Call of the Wildman, 55, 204. cancer alley Louisiana, 126, 126n. Cape Fear, 22, 124, 128, 139. Capote, Truman, 27, 59, 114, 138, 139. castle/s, 105–106, 111, 191. and Dracula, 105. and Gothic, 104, 168, 171. and Otranto, 104, 110, 117, 171, 189. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 152, 160, 160n. category, 87, 111, 136. and genre, 20, 95, 96–97. and Gothic, 85, 86n, 87–90. and mode, 95–97. and race, 178. and Southern Gothic, 136, 159. categorization, 25, 29, 91, 123, 136, 201. and Derrida, 20, 96–99, 99n. and genre, 88, 130, 184, 205–207. and Southern Gothic, 29. Christianity, 17, 23, 76, 144, 185, 194. Chrystal, 142. civil rights, 16, 21, 41, 128, 147, 161, 173–174, 178–180, 209. civil war, 14, 28, 38, 41, 44–45, 55, 67, 68n, 70n 73–74, 135, 136, 140, 145–146, 147, 159, 169, 176, 179, 203. and Gone with the Wind, 12. and Toys in the Attic, 169, 176, 179. Civil War, The, 69n, 69–71. classical Hollywood (see also, Hollywood), 12, 21. classify/classifying, 92, 95, 129–130. and Bertrand Russell, 100n. and Southern Gothic, 129–130. Client, The, 16. collapse, 24, 104, 106, 117, 168, 172, 190, 207. and boundaries, 147, 178. and genre, 30, 97, 101, 104–106, 179. and the Other, 115. and the South, 14, 24, 28. commercial/commercially, 68, 88, 162–163. commodified/commodification, 45, 55, 56, 88, 162. and hospitality, 68. and otherness, 60, 63. confederate, 41, 44, 69, 73, 74, 140, 146. and states, 204. conjure, 74n, 146. contaminate (see also, contaminated; contamination), 97.

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

contaminated, 97–102, 105, 111, 117, 150, 169, 172, 174, 206. contamination, 101, 174. and boundaries, 174. and genre, 96–98, 99, 101, 151, 206. and oppositions, 110. and otherness, 206. conventions (see genre) Cool Hand Luke, 142. corpus, 88, 129, 150, 159, 207. Creole, 39. Crimes of the Heart, 22, 149. Crossroads, 145. Crow, The, 112. Curse of the Swamp Creature, 58. Dark Waters, 124, 143. Dead Man Walking, 22, 142. decay, 56, 57, 136, 138, 139, 140, 186, 188, 189, 193, 201. and Gothic, 15, 79, 86, 104, 105, 106, 171, 203. and the South, 23, 24, 73, 74n, 114, 116, 144, 148, 189, 194, 203. and symbolic, 106. Declaration of Independence, 71. deep South, 140, 145, 202, 203. Deepsouth, 27, 135, 148. Defiant Ones, The, 124, 147. degeneracy/degenerate, 14, 16, 41, 56, 117, 168. and South, 51, 59, 135, 136, 138, 141, 142, 145. Deliverance, 37, 124, 128, 140, 140n, 141. demarcation, 101, 203, 204. and binaries, 110-111. and genre, 89, 98–99, 100, 102, 123, 205. and North/South, 37, 204. and otherness, 116, 206. Derrida, Jacques (see also, Derridean), 88–89, 95–103, 129, 206, 207. Derridean, 95n, 150, 174. and the blink, 149. and categories, 20. and limits, 100. designate/designation, 14, 85, 88, 94, 95, 97, 100n, 117, 129, 130, 145, 149, 172, 205. Desire in the Dust, 160n. destabilize/d, 72, 85, 87, 112. destruction, 26, 105, 126, 166, 174, 189n, 190, 191, 193. and borders, 117. and Old South, 71. deterioration/deteriorating, 24, 28, 73, 103, 164, 167, 189, 194. Devil all the Time, The, 17, 23, 27, 124, 142, 144. difference//differentiation, 61, 62–63, 99, 109, 111, 137, 191. and atmosphere, 195. and boundaries, 147. and the blink, 130.

Index

and genre, 88, 92, 97, 101–103, 105, 115, 150, 205. and Gothic, 87, 114. and North/South, 37, 38, 39, 202. and otherness, 41, 51, 57, 111, 115, 117. and race, 173. and southern, 14, 38–41, 43, 47, 49, 51, 57, 60, 62, 77, 78, 183, 204. difficult return, 67, 70–74. dilapidated/dilapidation 105, 125, 135, 148, 169, 189, 189–191. disembodied, 183, 195, 196–198. distinctiveness, 68, 78, 195, 196. and genre, 137. and identity, 29, 68. and southern, 37, 38–50, 61, 78, 115, 127, 183, 185, 189, 195, 202. distortion, 12, 14, 16, 39, 63, 138, 141, 169, 188, 202. and Gothic, 15, 145, 159, 204. and myth, 40, 43. and new American Gothic, 161, 163–165, 166, 179. divide/division, 29, 38, 44, 47, 48, 123, 173, 203, 204, 206. and genre, 150, 172, 176, 177, 179, 190, 191, and Mason Dixon line, 38. and North/South, 37, 38, 49, 61, 204. and otherness, 115, 117, 178. and race, 173, 174, 176, 178, 179, 203. Dixie, 42, 68. Django Unchained, 23, 147. documentaries/documentary 27, 29, 135, 148, 183, 184, 187, 190. and The Civil War, 70. and Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, 29, 147, 184, 185, 203. and voice, 186–187, 188. Douglas, Andrew, 27, 29, 72, 147, 184, 185, 187, 203. Dracula, 109, 112, 117. Dreamland, 197. dualism/duality, 110, 113. and Gothic, 109, 110, 113, 114. DuBois, Blanche, 13–14, 21, 124n. Dukes of Hazzard, The, 137. edges, 104, 136, 167. and Derrida, 99, 129. and genre, 100–102, 149, 149. and Gothic, 104. Edward Scissorhands, 113, 117. emptied of history, 43, 70, 147. enslavement, 147, 169. ephemeral/ephemerality, 131, 142, 146. estrangement, 165. ethereality, 196–198. ethnicity, 38, 204. European, 48, 57, 86n. Eve’s Bayou, 124, 143, 145. exotic/exoticism, 55, 62, 63, 163, 185, 202.

231 fading/faded, 30, 70, 74n, 201, 207. family, 14, 46, 74, 106, 114, 148, 149, 171, 179, 186, 187, 193. and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, 59–60. and secrets, 19, 168. and slavery, 47, 72. and Toys in the Attic, 159, 162, 164, 166–171. Faulkner, William, 11, 19, 37, 59, 76, 90, 105, 129, 136, 138, 138n, 139n, 160, 174, 193. Fool Killer, The, 17, 26, 142. Frailty, 17, 22, 27, 144. Frankenstein, 87, 110, 113, 150, 168. and Frankensteins, 150. and genre, 113. and Koontz, 101–102. and the Other, 117. and Shelley, 85, 86, 102. Fried Green Tomatoes, 147. fundamentalism/fundamentalist, 11, 15, 17, 23, 27, 30, 41, 49, 139, 144. Futurama, 15, 16. genre (see also, mode), 11, 14, 17–30, 49, 78–79, 85–103, 106, 116, 127, 129, 130, 135, 149, 150, 183–185, 190, 191, 201–207. and collapse, 30, 101, 104, 106, 207. and conventions, 11, 15, 18, 22, 25, 27, 29, 85–93, 103, 109, 114, 123, 127, 130, 135, 137, 168, 176, 179, 184, 203, 205, 207. Ghosts of Mississippi, 16, 22, 147. Gift, The, 16, 22, 26, 143. Gingerbread Man, The, 16, 136, 142. Glass Menagerie, The, 138. Gone with the Wind, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, 68n. gothic (see also, Southern Gothic), 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 28, 29, 30, 29, 56, 57, 72, 75, 85–87, 109, 114, 116, 123, 126, 136, 137, 139, 140, 147, 149, 150, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 170–179, 184, 188–194, 203, 205–207. and dualism, 110, 113. and exaggeration, 145, 148, 161, 163, 164, 165, 203. and excess, 139, 145, 148, 188, 202. and genre/mode, 79, 87–99, 100–106, 130, 189, 205. and otherness, 110, 111, 112, 114, 117. and ruin, 14, 15, 148. Green Mile, The, 22, 26, 136, 149. grotesque, 55, 56, 59, 116, 135, 139, 143, 144, 147, 148, 159, 162, 163, 165–167, 203. and southern, 15, 135, 139, 140. Handsome Family, The, 194. Hart of Dixie, 62. haunt/haunted (see also, haunting), 26, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75–77, 106, 114, 116, 125, 142, 146, 168, 171, 172, 175, 197, 198. and atmosphere, 195, and Gothic, 87, 89, 111,

232 

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

and history, 39, 71, 78, 171, 172, and landscape, 23, and the Other, 112, 114–117, and the South, 72, 73, haunting, 26, 27, 28, 67, 71–79, 86, 126, 139, 140, 143, 145, 172, 196, 203, 206. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 86n, 91, 105, 137. Hays code (see production code). Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The, 139, 161. Heavens Fall, 142. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, 59. Hillbilly Elegy, 136, 142. hillbilly/hillbillies 15, 16, 17, 19, 23, 30, 49, 59, 60, 61, 135, 136, 141, 142, 189, 204, 207. Hollywood, 12, 14, 19, 21, 22, 27, 29, 44, 58, 102, 112, 127, 138, 139n, 160, 160n, 162, 163, 191. hoodoo, 74n. hospitality (see southern hospitality). Hounddog, 142. Hunger, The, 102. Hurricane Katrina, 27, 128. Hush…hush, Sweet Charlotte, 26, 125, 143, 161.

loss, 14, 69, 70–73, 138, 140, 148, 183, 188–194, 203. Lost Boys, The, 102.

I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, 58. Imitation of Life, 174. incest/incestuous, 15, 16, 141, 143, 144, 159, 164, 166, 169, 179, 203. In Cold Blood, 139, 142. industrial/industrialized, 23, 42, 43n, 49, 67, 126, 126n, 192, 193. Internship, The, 15. Interview with the Vampire, 112, 140. In the Electric Mist, 140, 145, 146. In the Heat of the Night, 26, 146. Into the Abyss, 27, 142. Intruder in the Dust, 138. invagination, 98–100, 207. iterability, 97–104, 179, 190.

NCIS: New Orleans, 137. Neon Bible, The, 144. new American gothic, 159, 162–167, 179. Night of the Hunter, The, 17, 27, 124, 128, 139, 144. No Mercy, 143. North, 37, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50, 56, 59, 62, 67, 146, 147, 202, 203, 206. and North/South divide, 38, 39, 40, 47, 48, 49, 50, 61, 63, 68, 78, 115, 116, 195, 204. Nosferatu, 102. nostalgia, 13, 21, 40, 42, 55, 62, 67, 68, 69–70, 103, 172, 192.

Junebug, 128, 142. Killer Inside Me, The,142. Killer Joe, 142. Koontz, Dean, 99–102. Ku Klux Klan, 70. landscape, 23, 47, 55, 56, 62, 69, 71, 123, 125, 139, 142, 185, 189, 193, 194, 197, 204, 207. and film, 126, 127. and Gothic, 56, 86, 87, 201. and haunted, 23. and industrialized, 23, 126, 193. and ruin, 24, 201. and southern, 39, 56, 57, 140, 145, 149, 166, 185, 188, 190. Last Exorcism, The, 17, 23, 27, 144. Last of the Mobile Hotshots, 138. Little Chenier: A Cajun Story, 27, 124, 143. Long Hot Summer, The, 129, 138, 160n.

Mason Dixon line, 38, 61, 201, 204. melancholy, 14, 28, 69, 89, 104, 148, 186, 203. Member of the Wedding, The, 139. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 124, 145, 149, 195. Mississippi Burning, 16, 147. mode (see also, genre), 20, 29, 86–99, 203, 205. modernity, 12, 16, 19, 40, 67, 146, 188, 192, 193, 194, 198. Monster’s Ball, 22, 26, 142. moonlight and magnolias, 67, 67n. Morrison, Toni, 47, 72. Mud, 23, 124, 143. Murder in the Bayou, 23, 55, 143. My Louisiana Love, 148. My Louisiana Sky, 27, 142. myth, 37, 40, 42–43, 55, 56, 67, 68, 71, 113, 147, 160, 172, 192.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 22, 136, 148. occident (see also, orient), 51. O’Connor, Flannery, 59, 67. Old South, 11, 12–13, 20–21, 40–45, 55, 57, 67–68, 68n, 69, 71, 78, 147, 159, 172, 176, 178, 192. On Death Row, 27. orient, 51. Orpheus Descending, 27, 138. otherness (see also, southern otherness), 11, 16, 24, 29, 37, 39, 40, 41, 48–50, 59, 60, 79, 109, 110–117, 135, 136, 137, 138, 143, 144, 147, 173–175, 178, 206. Other Voices, Other Rooms, 114, 139. Paperboy, The, 23, 142. passing (as white), 159, 174–176, 179. place, 87, 103, 145, 207. and southern, 47, 127, 148, 177, 185, 188, 193, 196, 204. and Southern Gothic, 75. plantation/s, 11, 14, 15, 21, 41, 47, 56, 58, 62, 68, 68n, 73, 74, 125, 126, 135, 139, 189. and economy, 11, 20.

Index

and idyll, 41. and tourism, 42, 43, 62. poststructuralism/poststructuralist, 20, 85, 98, 115, 117, 206. Pretty Baby, 142. Princess and the Frog, The, 143, 145. production code, 160, 161. progress (economic and/or cultural), 44, 49, 55, 59, 61, 62, 67. race, 19, 39, 47, 49, 73, 145, 147, 171, 172, 173–179, 204. Raintree County, 137. Rat Bastards, 59. Reaping, The, 17, 143. Rectify, 17, 23, 26, 124, 142, 144. redneck, 17, 19, 23, 24, 26, 49, 55, 56, 59–61, 136, 141, 142, 145. Reivers, The, 136. religion, 11, 14, 17, 27, 30, 57, 76, 144, 146, 148, 184. Road Trip, 15. Roots, 137. ruin/s, 14–15, 23, 24, 26, 28, 56–57, 74n, 79, 89, 103–106, 111, 116, 140, 148, 168, 183, 188–192, 195, 201, 203, 208. Ruthless People, 15. Sad and the Beautiful World of Sparklehorse, The, 148. Sanctuary, 138, 139n, 160, 160n. Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, 27, 29, 124, 148, 183–197, 202, 203. secrets,19, 175, 179. and Gothic, 103. and the past, 72, 161. and the South, 186, 198, 204. and Toys in the Attic, 167, 168–172. Sharp Objects, 23, 204. Shrek Forever After, 16. Skeleton Key, The, 23, 26, 74, 75, 124, 128, 135, 143, 145. Simpsons, The, 15, 16. slavery, 11, 12, 14, 15, 15n, 19, 21, 28, 37, 39, 43, 45, 48, 55, 69, 70, 71–76, 126, 135, 136, 145–147, 168–175, 178–179. Sling Blade, 22, 26, 124, 142. Sound and the Fury, The, 26, 105, 129, 138, 160n. South (see also, Old South; sunny South; benighted South), 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19–24, 29–30, 37–51, 55, 62, 63, 67–78, 85, 89, 109, 115, 117, 123–129, 135–150, 159, 172, 173, 176, 178, 183, 184–198, 201–206, 207. and antebellum, 12, 13. and commodification, 55, 56–59. and Gothic, 13, 15–16, 18, 19, 24, 28, 114, 116, 188, 207. and haunted, 72, 73, 116, 168, 172. and otherness, 16, 17, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 72, 109, 115, 116, 197, 202.

233 southern (see also, Southern Gothic) and backwardness, 15, 16, 23, 28, 39, 48, 136, 141, 142, 144, 149, 202. and belle, 11, 12, 21, 30, 41, 42, 62, 68, 149, 165, 168, 169, 189, 207. and courtroom, 16, 17, 23, 30. and culture, 42–43, 68, 71, 142. and customs, 18, 23, 47, 62, 202. and hospitality, 40–42, 67–69. and otherness, 11, 14, 16, 28, 30, 40, 50, 59, 60, 63, 78, 137, 138, 140, 183, 202. South Park, 16. Southern Comfort, 58, 124, 144. Southern Gothic, 11, 14–30, 74–76, 86–88, 91–99, 100, 115–117, 123–131, 135–146, 150–151, 159, 160, 171, 185, 189, 192, 193, 198, 201–208. Southern Gothic, 23, 27. Spanish moss, 57, 74, 144. Steel Magnolias, 61, 62. Story of Temple Drake, The, 139, 139n. structuralism/structuralist, 85, 93, 94, 95n. Suddenly, Last Summer, 138, 160, 160n, 161. Summer and Smoke, 160n. sunny south, 37, 41–44, 61, 67, 78, 136, 147–149. swamp, 15, 19, 23, 26, 55, 56–61, 72, 73, 74, 127, 135, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 185, 189, 193, 194, 196, 197, 201. Swamp Country, 58. Swamp Fire, 58. Swamp People, 55, 59, 60, 61, 127, 143. Swamp Thing, 143. Swamp Water, 26, 143. Swamp Women, 58. Sweet Bird of Youth, 138, 160n. Sweet Home Alabama, 137. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The, 142. Things that Hang from Trees, 142. This Property is Condemned, 124, 138. Tideland, 148. Tiger King, 23, 55, 142. Tobacco Money Feeds my Family, 148. Tobacco Road, 136. To Kill a Mockingbird, 11, 16, 17, 26, 124, 128, 139. Tomorrow, 138, 138n. To Sleep with Anger, 145, 146. tourism, 42, 55, 56, 62, 191. Town that Dreaded Sundown, The, 137. Toys in the Attic, 29, 147, 159–179, 183, 192, 202–203. Treme, 137. Trouble the Water, 27. True Blood, 23, 24, 74, 124, 136, 140. True Detective, 17, 23, 24, 27, 55, 124, 126, 144, 145, 191, 201, 207. Twilight Saga, The, 102. Two Moon Junction, 149. Two Thousand Maniacs!, 146.

234  undecidability, 109, 111–116, 117, 173, 174-177, 178, 183, 195, 196, 198, 206. Undertow, 142. underworld, 17, 57, 136, and Dante, 57, 197. unsaid, 24, 25, 28. vampire, 27, 73, 102–103, 112, 140, 191. and Gothic, 111, 174. and otherness, 111–112. and True Blood, 24, 74. Voodoo/Vodun, 15, 15n, 23, 56–57, 74n, 74–76, 125, 126, 135, 144–146. voice/voices (see also, documentary and voice), 69, 78, 106, 128, 129, 186, 197. and documentary, 186–188. and spectral, 114, 117. and voice of God, 187–188.

The American Southern Gothic on Screen

The Walking Dead, 16n, 24. Walpole, Horace, 86, 90, 103–105, 109, 189, 207. war (see Civil War) Waterboy, The, 58. White, Jim, 185–190, 194–196, 198. whiteness, 159, 179. Winter’s Bone, 142. Wise Blood, 136, 139. X-Files, The, 17. Yankee, 47, 49, 146, 147. Young One, The, 147. Zombieland, 15.