12 - Features and uses of southern style

Summary

Introduction

In a local newspaper article covering his retirement as a longstanding member of the school board of Bryan, Texas, Travis Bryan, Jr., a banker and a descendent of the European Americans who founded the city, is described as “defy[ing] stereotypes, vacillating between being a hard-nosed businessman and a God-fearing southern gentleman who is prone to tears when he talks about ‘those little faces looking out of the school bus windows’” (Levey 1991: A1). To the writer of the article, a man like Bryan has to “vacillate” between acting like a businessman and being “God-fearing” and “prone to tears.” Acting like a “southern gentleman” is inconsistent with being “hard-nosed,” and the coexistence of the two ways of acting in one person's repertoire is evidence that he is special.

Bryan “defies stereotypes,” however, only in a fairly stereotypical way. The article's characterization exemplifies an image of what it takes to be a successful Southerner that is frequently adduced in popular discourse about southernness. According to this familiar trope, a person cannot be simultaneously “hard” in the way required for practical efficacy and “soft” in the southern way, so one has to alternate between the two styles. The ideal Southerner is someone who can make effective use of both, someone who can be “hard” (like a Northerner) for strategic reasons but whose more natural style is the “soft” southern one.