Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 19, 1993 TAG: 9312190219
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by LUCY LEE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Columnist Maryln Schwartz's message about today's South can be summarized\ by the title of her book's final chapter: "It's a Whole New World, but We\ Never Forget Our Roots."
Even though Southern Belles in the New South work for money, let their\ hair go gray, and have their parties catered, they still heed their\ grandmothers' advice: "Always wear your neckline lower in the back than you do in the front. It's not the impression you make, it's the impression you leave."\ As in her previous book, "A Southern Belle Primer," much of the focus is on\ the Belle. We learn that "Scarlett still clings to tradition, worships her\ daddy and likes to dress up and flirt. Only now she's in group therapy to help\ her understand why."
On one level such comments are funny; on another, they are annoying. Many upper-class white women today are not in a "dress up and flirt" mode. And although I realize we're not to take this book seriously, it's still hard to accept generalizations based on such a minute segment of the population. The vast majority of Southerners - minorities and middle and working class whites - do not exist in Schwartz's South.
She is on target with her analysis of the factors leading to a New South. Chief among is on target with her analysis of the factors leading to a New South. Chief among them is the women's movement. An Alabama mother remembers that she was raised to try to be Miss Alabama. She raises her daughter (named Rhett!) to try to be governor of Alabama. And contemporary women are more likely to sport Gucci briefcases than white gloves.
Technology has also shaped contemporary Southerners. Before\ air-conditioning, people sat on their front porches at night in order to cool off and they talked to each other. Nowadays everyone stays inside and watches TV. The kids see things no well-bred Southern child should see, and, even worse, they absorb New York and California accents.
Along with TV, a large influx of Northerners is contributing to the homogenization of the South. Many who are transferred by national companies arrive kicking and screaming, but they soon become more Southern than Southerners. They are captivated by such phenomena as William Faulkner and Elvis Presley being equally revered, or by a nationally respected American art collection housed in a red, Japanese-style building in Tuscaloosa - the national headquarters of Gulf State Paper Corporation. Another eccentricity - neighborhood supermarkets named the Piggly Wiggly or Jitney Jungle - is offset by the fact that "Southerners take care of you when you're sick and they come to your funeral."
According to Bill Ferris, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, even people from other countries are fascinated with the South. They find it exotic as well as comfortable. Like their own worlds, it is filled with "small towns, family reunions and a kind of attachment to traditions, similar to what people might know in a Russian village or an African community."
In tribute to having a Southerner in the White House, Schwartz devotes a whole chapter to "Ozark Chic." She points out that "Comedians are having a field day with all the Arkansas jokes. They just can't seem to grasp how a state that has a football yell that sounds like a hog call (Suuuuuuuuueeeeeeeee) has produced a man who has the power to declare nuclear war.`"
This is the kind of observation that makes "New Times in the Old South" worth reading and the book is chocked full of them. My favorite is Schwartz's definition of what constitutes the South: "Just go into any `home cooking' restaurant in any town you're visiting. If the menu lists macaroni and cheese as a vegetable - you know you're in the South.`
Lucy Lee is a free-lance writer in Roanoke.
by CNB