The Lexington advertiser. [volume] (Lexington, Miss.) 1904-1985, 1962-04-05


planter, of the one-gallused
mobs converging on the court
house to lynch the innocent
Negro, of every kir.d of deca-
dence, cruelty and immortality
that can afflict the human
soul. This is the South of
current literature, of the con-
temporary stage and screen
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
from its vantage point or.
the shores of Lake Erie took
a compassionate look at the
American South a few days
ago and decided that its Dixie
brothers are being grossly
that a Hollywood scenario
libeled.
The Plain Dealer recalled
writer had recently licked off
for The New York Times
some of the themes he has
included in scf.on plays he
has written about the South.
Among them:
"Lechery, impotence, homo
sexuality and alcoholism. Bro
thels, r~-ymphomania, dope adj
diction, Satyriasis, frigidity,
schizophrnia, Venereal disease
adultery and incest"
Said the scenarist:
when you set your movie
in the South your characters
can be outrageous without
being considered insane by
movie audiences. The public
seems to be willing to forgive
gross eccentricitv in the South
that it will not accept in
other areas. Take Cat on q
Hot Tir. Roof = if you were
to cast Big Daddy on Park
Avenue people would say he
is a nut and should be put
away"
Why does the South have
to take this licking? Well it's
true the South has had more
than its share of sharecror-
pers, POI white trash, hi l.
billies, etc. The American
custom of scorning the South
got under way in the pre-
Civil War slavery debate,
and when that war came the
Union soldiers, like all GI's,
had little good 10 say about
their enemies Oh the southern
countryside that provided
mud, fever, mosquitoes and
snipers.
The minstrel shows of the
late 10Th cent? ry spread fer
and wide the .dea that the
South was the home of hick
humor AID primitive hoe
downs. Tom Jackson's cele-
brated "SIow Train Through
ArkaEsau' didn't help. Nor
cid, as a natter Of fact, some
Of the louI-routhed pol,ti-
clans the South sent north,
characters like Cotton Ed
Smith, Tom Heflin and Huey
Long.
But two authentic South
erners, William Faulkner and
Tennessee Williams have PEI
haps done the best job Of
peddling the -dea that Dixie
is the hone of the sloppy, the
depraved. the cruel and the
subhuman. And this has been
caught up nv the NAACP
and its sympathizers who
that people who
have withheld full civil rights
for Negroes must be very
low people indeed. Thus, a
book or a play canning white
Southerners is almost sure
to be received sympathetica!-
ly by the book reviewers and
drama critics Of the influell-
tial eastern newspapers and
magazines.
This has resulted in d sad
psychological trauma among
southerners. It has caused a
defer.se psychosis, q frus-
trated resentment against the
groundswell of the time, and
a desire to return to the hal
cyon days when the Robert
E. Lee whistled for the land
ing. when the young folks
or. the little cabin floor
and the lights burned bright
in Tara, and when buck
wheat cakes were made ct
batter. This, too, is a
from reality.
Problems are not to be sol
we'd by fantasy. There is no
long-range profit to America
if r.ortherners assume an
80. Nxxx4&fx 4EAzx4--s2G II