Do they read "To Kill a Mockingbird" in Southern schools? It seems anti-South to me

imdb ^ | Feb 05 | Churchillbuff/Harper Lee

[churchillbuff]

Pardon the vanity, but since there seem to be a lot of Freepers who are southerners, I thought I could solicit their perspective/experience. The family and I rented "To Kill a Mockingbird" last night. First time I'd watched it in years. A moving film, I grant you. Peck is inspiring. But let's face it, the whites (and blacks) are stereotyped. There are few whites (Atticus Finch and family, the judge, maybe the sheriff) who are anything but vile. For all the "sentimental" remembrances of her childhood by ex-Southerner Harper Lee, in fact this story is a slam on the South. So I ask: Is it read in Southern schools? If so, what do the kids take away from it: a sense of shame about their region?

[churchillbuff]

I hear you, but don't you think it's interesting that Hollywood can't put out a movie about the South without an obligatory Klan or redneck-racist subplot or reference, however brief?

[muir_redwoods]

"I hear you, but don't you think it's interesting that Hollywood can't put out a movie about the South without an obligatory Klan or redneck-racist subplot or reference, however brief?"

Well, Hollywood is full of pretty simple folks but the plot line in Harper Lee's book required a bit of it to work. As for gratuitously adding it to every movie that includes scenes south of Baltimore it does seem over the top. A few years ago I enjoyed Ken Burns' documentary about the Civil War. I looked forward to his work on Baseball. When I started to watch the baseball documentary I realized that, In Burns' mind, rascism was a bigger factor in baseball than it was in the Civil War. I gave up.