I tend to let these things go, as there are so many to come across my dash that I wouldn’t have time to address them all, even if I were so inclined. But this one is so egregiously erroneous that I can’t help but comment. Often, it seems that people believe Southern Gothic is Wednesday Addams with a drawl. This here looks like a CAPTCHA challenge where all the choices are wrong.
This suggests to me that the person responsible knows precious little about either firearms or fucking. You don’t hang a shotgun above the bed because it would be awkward as hell to get hold of when needed. Furthermore, unless the folks occupying that bed are the most lackadaisical lays ever, when they get to going at it, that sucker is gonna fall off and hit somebody in the head. You want Southern? A Victorian or Art Deco headboard that’s been handed down four or five generations and shows it. Possibly a set of floral print sheets that might’ve last been fashionable when Carter was in office. Most importantly, a quilt, handmade from scraps too small for making dresses or curtains out of. Not a store bought comforter from the JCPenney. And if the wall happened not to be covered in gaudy wallpaper, garish paint, or wood veneer paneling, then it would almost certainly boast water stains, from the roof that seemed always to be a leakin’.
Shingle style architecture is pretty common in New England, but you don’t see much of it below the Mason Dixon. Even if this were a church in Mississippi, for instance, why would that be enough to qualify as Southern Gothic? The South is lousy with churches. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a church. New ones popping up every day, as if we were hurting for more. What would qualify as Southern Gothic? Show me a structure that looks as if it were cobbled together out of scrap, by willing hands that weren’t especially suited for the task, whitewashed and emblazoned with rapture speak. One might not know for certain whether the building is a house of the Lord or one of ill repute, until the lettering on the flashing sign out front becomes legible. The taking up of serpents and drinking of strychnine is optional, though strongly advised.
I live in West Tennessee, in a county of around 15,000 souls. About twenty odd years ago, through pure happenstance, the prefix on our county’s license plates came up as 666. The state had to reissue hundreds of plates because the folks here just flat out refused to use them. That whole Number of the Beast business is taken very seriously here in the Bible Belt. Spiritual aversion aside, there’s nothing to suggest that this door nor the domicile to which it is attached are located anywhere near the South. Could it be a crack house in Nashville? Sure. Could be a daycare in Des Moines. We just don’t know.
An axe. That’s pretty much all that can be ascertained from the photo. Perhaps if it were wedged into a stump next to a smokehouse. Or if it were lying atop a Confederate flag, beside a plate of chitlins. One might deduce something from the sheath, or the cheek being painted red, or the hole bored through the handle, or whether that handle is oak or hickory. As it is though, all anyone can state with a degree of certainty is that this is an axe. Ancestry and affiliation unknown.
This is from Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes.
This one’s fine. In the sense that if you Google “Southern Gothic”, about one in ten photos is of a tree covered with Spanish Moss. So it’s not wrong. It’s just easy.
Look, I can appreciate your appreciation of ‘Southern Gothic’ as an aesthetic or a way of life or whatever it is you imagine it to be. But maybe put a little more effort behind your enthusiasm. Think about this stuff before you go spreading it around.
