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Southern Gothic
EDIT

DECADE OF ORIGIN 19th Century

KEY MOTIFS Criticism of prejudice, decay,

past vs. future

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Southern Gothic is a literary genre

encompassing fashion inspired by the culture of
the American South. It originated in works by 19th-
20th century Southern authors criticizing their
society's racism, sexism, classism, Dxation on the
past, and decaying economy.

Later the aesthetic deviated from literature with

the "regional gothic" trend on tumblr in the mid-
2010s, which places greater emphasis on Liminal
Space, modern American iconography,
evangelicalism, and controversially, hillbilly horror.
Because of this, this entry is divided into two
sections, with one based on the literary movement
and the other on the tumblr revival.

A few movies in the 2000s have gone against the

harmful tropes revolving around “evil hillbillies and
evangelicals in the South”, such as 2010’s Dale and
Tucker Vs Evil. This is still a rarity, though, and is
deDnitely a sociological issue that needs to be
better addressed.

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History

This section is under construction

The aesthetic begins in literature which depicts

and criticizes the American South. Hence, the
general culture of the American South is necessary
background. Note that this is not at an academic
level and only provides context for the aesthetic.

This culture was a slave-society, where the culture

is deDned by the practice of slavery, with all its
aspects being embedded in politics, economics,
popular culture, etc[1]. Therefore, there was often a
general exposure to cruel punishments used on
slaves, anxieties over slave revolts, and the use of
grotesque imagery to dehumanize black people.

Southern societies also emphasized gentility in

families, with wealthy families acting somewhat
like European nobility, wherein marriages and
blood relations were highly important in capital
such as owning slaves and a grand estate[2]. Of
course, this lends well to the use of incest,
decadence, and domestic violence.

Many scholars point to Henry Clay Lewis and Mark

Twain as the Drst to include Gothic tropes in their
depiction of the American South.

The Tumblr aesthetic began when Tumblr user user

clive-gershwin-palmer in January 2015, created a
post that is now deleted.[3] Presumably, it follows
the same format as other "Regional Gothic" posts,
where they write about their regional culture in
bullet-pointed prose mimicking Welcome to
Nightvale, a podcast wherein a Dctional radio host
nonchalantly describes cults, Eldritch
abominations, and cosmic mysteries in their small
town in New Mexico. The trend then picked up in
March 2015, with user korvidian created a post
entitled "south-east queensland gothic"[4].

With the popularity of the Regional Gothic trend,

people from the American South drew upon
bedtime stories, urban legends, and Southern
culture in their text posts. The Regional Gothic later
developed a visual component, as people uploaded
photos of Christian billboards, abandoned
churches, and other things in the visuals section.
With Southern Gothic in particular, there were
many playlists created on the then-popular site
8tracks.com; many creators shared their playlists
on tumblr and gained virality.

This interpretation of the aesthetic slowly Dzzled

out, like many other social media aesthetics do.

Modern Southern Gothic

DECADE OF ORIGIN 2010s

KEY MOTIFS Isolation, religious guilt, the

uncanny

KEY COLOURS black, brown, green, red, white

RELATED AESTHETICS After Hours

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Regional Gothic
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RELATED MEDIA Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Walking Dead

However, the aesthetic has a 2020s revival due to

the popularity of Ethel Cain, a cult indie musician
from Northern Florida who writes music with
Southern Gothic motifs[5]. Her blog strongly
resembles older Southern gothic blogs from the
mid-2010s, and she also produced new content
such as photos from road trips, selDes in her
house, and music videos for her songs. This had
led to newer users discovering the aesthetic,
sometimes erroneously labeled as "Ethel Caincore."

Visuals

Literary

The visuals of the literary movement connect with

the gothic imagery of decay as a metaphor for the
fall of society due to lack of progress. Imagery
tended to emphasize the political themes of the
work and highlight the di_erences between the
plantation class, poor white people, and black
people.

American Civil War imagery

Daguerreotypes
Ghosts and other supernatural beings
Plantation houses in states of decay
Southern Belle-style dresses

Regional Gothic

Abandoned gas stations

Animals with cultish undertones, such as deer
and rams
Bayous and swamps
Billboards with evangelical messages meant to
inspire fear in the reader
Grotesque looking people. This is extremely
controversial due to the classism and
fatphobia inherent in deeming Southerners
"ugly and creepy"
Women in white dresses (not necessarily 19th
century) resembling ghosts
Supernatural and ritualistic objects such as
Ouija boards and candles
Voodoo

Media (Literary)

Please note, a TVTropes page exists for the

aesthetic, as well as it being a genre that is much
observed and compiled.

Books, Anthologies, and Short Stories

"Absalom, Absalom!" by William Faulkner

"A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories"
by Flannery O'Connor
"As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner
"Everything That Rises Must Converge" by
Flannery O'Connor
"Light in August" by William Faulkner
"The Gold-Bug" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
"The Violent Bear it Away" by Flannery
O'Connor
"Wise Blood" by Flannery O'Connor
"And the Ass Saw the Angel" by Nick Cave
"The Raven Boys" series by Maggie Stiefvater
"Tennyson" by Lesley M.M. Blume
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner
"Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn

Movies

Haunted Spooks (1920)

Gone with the Wind (1939)
Swamp Water (1941)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The Young One (1960)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
The Beguiled (1971)
Deliverance (1972)
Sounder (1972)
The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)
Macon County Line (1974)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Eaten Alive (1976)
Ode to Billy Joe (1976)
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
The Evictors (1979)
Wise Blood (1979)
A Day of Judgment (1981)
The Beyond (1981)
Southern Comfort (1981)
The Color Purple (1985)
Crimes of the Heart (1986)
Angel Heart (1987)
From a Whisper to a Scream (1987)
Near Dark (1987)
Mississippi Burning (1988)
Pumpkinhead (1988)
Cape Fear (1991)
Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Flesh and Bone (1993)
Interview With The Vampire (1994)
Sling Blade (1996)
Eve's Bayou (1997)
Gummo (1997)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
The Green Mile (1999)
George Washington (2000)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Frailty (2001)
Big Fish (2003)
The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003)
The Skeleton Key (2005)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005)
Black Snake Moan (2007)
In the Electric Mist (2009)
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Winter's Bone (2010)
Tucker and Dale Vs Evil (2010)
Killer Joe (2011/2012)
Mud (2012)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Jug Face (2013)
Beautiful Creatures (2013)
Joe (2013)
Stoker (2013)
The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of
Georgia (2013)
Jessabelle (2014)
Cold in July (2014)
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Lemonade (2016)
The Beguiled (2017)
Mudbound (2017)
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
The Devil All the Time (2020)
A House on the Bayou (2021)
Haunted Mansion (2023)

TV Shows

American Gothic (1995–1996)

American Horror Story: Coven (2013)
American Horror Story: Freak Show (2014)
American Horror Story: Roanoke (2016)
A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)
Bloodline, seasons 1 (2015) and 2 (2016)
Cloak and Dagger (2018–19)
Hap and Leonard (2016–2018)
Interview With The Vampire, season 1 (2022-
present)
In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995)
Justi]ed (2010–2015)
Lovecraft Country (2020)
Mayfair Witches (2023-present)
Midnight, Texas (2017-2018)
Outcast (2016–2018)
Outer Banks (2020-present)
Outsiders (2016–2017)
Ozark (2017–2022)
Preacher (2016–2019
P-Valley (2020-present)
Rectify (2013–2016)
Sharp Objects (2018)
Tell Me Your Secrets (2021)
The Act (TV series) (2019)
The Heart, She Holler (2011)
The Originals (2013–2018)
The Walking Dead (2010-2022)
True Blood (2008–2014)
True Detective, seasons 1 (2014), and 3 (2019)

Video Games

Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall (2013)

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)
Hunt: Showdown (2018)
Norco (2022)

Music

Southern Gothic music, also known as Dark

Country, describes the umbrella of di_erent genres
typically associated with the American South, such
as Country, Negro Spirituals, Bluegrass, Gospel,
Rock, and Folk. Instrumentation tends to be
acoustic, except electric guitar, and either in a
slower tempo due to the singers' lower pitch and
mournful theme, or in a rapid, scat-like approach
to singing that is typically in more rock-like and
rebellious songs.

The lyrics address the common motifs of Southern

Gothic: poverty, religion, drug addiction, the
supernatural, and death. They often utilize tropes
within novels and folktales, such as making deals
with the Devil at the crossroads, witch trials,
mothers mourning the death of their children, and
becoming a killer.

In playlists, there are exceptions, and multiple

songs that carry across either an abandoned or a
sublime, witch-like sound that do not suggest the
American South are also popular.

Several Goth bands (ironically mostly in Britain’s

Positive-Punk and Australia’s Swampie scenes)
employed imagery and musical styles inkuenced
by the dark side of country and rockabilly.

One of the clearest musical parallels to Southern

Gothic is the Gothic Country subgenre, which was
centered in Denver, Colorado and was pioneered
by David Eugene Edwards' bands, Sixteen
Horsepower and Wovenhand, as well as artists like
Slim Cessna and Jay Munly.

Artists

Leadbelly
Blind Willie Johnson
Geeshie Wiley
Ethel Cain
Sisters of Mercy
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
The Mission
The Gun Club
The Birthday Party
The Cramps
Danielle Dax
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Blues Sacareno
The Brothers Bright
The Dead Weather
Fire on Fire
Tom Waits
Johnny Cash
Rising Appalachia
Robert Johnson
American Murder Song
Rayland Baxter
Delta Rae
The Dead South
The Builders and the Butchers
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Gillian Welch
The Civil Wars
Neko Case
Poor Man's Poison
London After Midnight
Sixteen Horsepower
Wovenhand
Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Jay Munly

Playlists

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PLPtD2znexvd2eabCPTSCpo-A2r8fvxk5f

Gallery

n. ↑
https://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive
/2011/09/the-slave-society-deDned/244581/
o. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planter_class
q. ↑
https://memedocumentation.tumblr.com/post
/115876748265/did-you-invent-the-reigional-
gothic-essays
r. ↑
https://korvidian.tumblr.com/post/1144785935
90/south-east-queensland-gothic-the-
humming-of
s. ↑
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/arts/m
usic/ethel-cain-preachers-daughter.html

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