Verisimilitude

[dr_whom]

So, I've been watching House of Cards. The protagonist, played by Kevin Spacey, is the ruthless, power-hungry Majority Whip of the House of Representatives, Rep. Francis Underwood (D-SC). And you know, I had a hard time getting my suspension of disbelief to accept a white Democrat from South Carolina with seniority in the House—I mean, seriously, this guy must have won reelection as a freshman congressman in the Republican wave of 1994, and held on through the 1990s and 2000s as Southern white Democrats became a rarer and rarer species, all with a constituent base apparently made up of rural mostly white peach farmers. But then I looked up the actual fifth Congressional district of South Carolina, and apparently it was held by a white Democrat up until the big Republican gains of 2010—and who knows if that even happened in the show's universe. (Probably not, since the show's universe has a Democratic House majority in the 212th Congress.) So I guess I withdraw that objection! Though it still seems more surprising that a first-termer like Underwood would have held his seat in 1994 than that the real-life Rep. John Spratt hung on after 12 years in office.

It's a brilliant tactical move on the part of the writers to make Underwood a Democrat from South Carolina, though, to avoid alienating any of their audience—conservatives can assume he's evil because he's a Democrat, and liberals can assume he's evil because he's a Dixiecrat.

Meanwhile, another main character on the show is Rep. Peter Russo (D-PA), played by Corey Stoll, and his constituents include a bunch of South Philly shipbuilders, and every single one of them has a New York accent, and that's just unforgivable.

Comments

[theevilgenius.livejournal.com]

I happen to be from about a five minute drive west of SC district 5. In general the I-95 corridor is a bit less right leaning-than people gut expect from the state; it's really the wealthier upstate that is the most conservative.

[theevilgenius.livejournal.com]

Or, excuse me, what used to be district 5--I hadn't been paying attention when they redistricted.

[dr_whom]

Fascinating! Though "less right-leaning than most of South Carolina" isn't a very high bar to clear, I suppose.

[qnmark.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, they give people from all over the East Coast (or even from non-East Coast generic working-class backgrounds) New York accents. For example, the Scout from TF2 (http://www.teamfortress.com/movies.php) is supposed to be from Boston but has a New York accent.

[dr_whom]

Oh, sure. Another example that comes to mind is the movie Blue Jasmine, in which Bobby Canavale and Max Cassella's characters are working-class guys from San Francisco who have New York accents. Presumably this pattern originates with filmmakers and actors from New York, for whom the New York accent just indexes "working class" (the same reason I did a Boston accent as Juror #3 in Twelve Angry Men), and then there are enough filmmakers and actors from New York that that enregisterment caught on in general, and I bet even filmmakers and casting directors who aren't from New York make the same associations.

[novalis.livejournal.com]

Actually, SF -> Brooklyn isn't crazy: http://www.academia.edu/2807255/_I_went_to_school_back_East...in_Berkeley_San_Francisco_English_and_San_Francisco_Identity

[dr_whom]

Yes, but e.g. "The people who described it were always over the age of forty and usually over the age of sixty"—it's not really part of the dialect of San Francisco anymore.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

I have southern relations who are devoted Democrats. But they're considered outliers.

[lalaithlockhart.livejournal.com]

This is a really interesting post!

[dr_whom]

Thanks!