No matter where you’re from, you have a perception of the American south. You may associate New Orleans with jazz and alcohol, Florida with sunshine and retirement homes, or the entire region with the all-encompassing moral reckoning surrounding the horrific history of slavery and the confederacy that still reverberates today. In addition to what is taught about the south in history books or one’s own lived experiences, much of our associations with it, inadvertently or not, also stems from the media we consume.
The South Never Plays Itself is at times a syllabus for film buffs and historians. Beard analyzes not just blockbuster hits and classic films, but also lesser known or forgotten indies that never were indoctrinated into the canon of important southern films. He also paints a thorough picture of the mechanics behind each of these films throughout history—from the changing studio system, to bits of trivia about the writers and directors who honed in on the south.
Beard has a fond love, albeit a complicated one, for the south as his home. The diversity of the south is crucial to understanding it as a nebulous entity—as is grappling with its extensive and complicated history—and films have a substantial role in telling the stories of the south in all of its facets. Throughout The South Plays Itself, Beard methodically and thoughtfully attempts to answer the question of which versions of the south are represented on screen and why—and how those versions helped establish the cultural capital of the south as we know it.
