How is your region portrayed in pop culture?

I was digging around trying to find a movie to rent yesterday when I stumbled on a trailer for Ben Affleck's new movie, "The Town," which is set in Charlestown, Mass. It's at least the third movie he's done that was set in Massachusetts (Good Will Hunting, Gone Baby Gone, I'm sure there are others), and I wondered if these are fair portrayals of the state. My impressions: They can't enunciate the letter R. They have notoriously corrupt police. Their janitors are smarter than the students at the country's most prestigious institution of higher learning. I'm sure people who live there don't find these references flattering.

Then I got to thinking about my own area (Atlanta) and wondered what the definitive pop culture connection is. Designing Women? Sharkey's Machine? Driving Miss Daisy? ATL? I don't know that any of those capture Atlanta, but the options are limited.

What about your area? Are the movie and TV references there accurate or fair?

 

Being from the heart of the Southern Appalachians, the hillbilly thing is always present.

 

As somebody born and raised below the Mason-Dixon, I can safely say that most movies/TV shows set in the South get it wrong in several ways. Either we're illiterate hicks/rednecks/hillbillies or we're rich folks who talk like Paula Deen who long for the Land of Cotton days again.

 

And don't forget that everyone is sweaty since the only two methods of cooling oneself are 1) a piece of thin cardboard attached to a stick; and 2) an oscillating metal fan made in 1950.

 

I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, so I shocked people in college in the Lower Peninsula by not having a thick "Fargo"-esque accent.

And as much as Jeff Daniels has done to support Michigan in tough times over the last few years, "Escanaba in da Moonlight" was just plain inexcusable.

 

No one from Wisconsin sounds like The Fonz, Laverne, Lenny, or Squiggy.

 

Sounds like reality TV to me. And I'd love DisembodiedOwlHead to check in on this one.

 

This is how I picture people from Tennessee

 

Where I'm from, people think we say "yinz" and each sandwiches with cole slaw and french fries.

Where I live, people think we fuck our relatives and have no teeth. We also make silly videos.

 

Trey will also do nicely. Has the ratio of shoes to feet gotten to .75 yet?

 

Trey, I've never met anybody outside of Pittsburgh who knew about the sandwiches with fries and cole slaw on them. Hell, I'm not sure how many people outside of the region know about "yinz."

They do think the place is still polluted and utterly obsessed with football -- so it's a fairly accurate portrayal in those regards.

 

Pretty much got it dead-on.