A month or two ago, the boyfriend and I went to see Walk the Line. Very good movie, I recommend picking it up if you haven’t seen it, even if you don’t care for Cash’s music.
The theater was pretty packed that evening, and something happened that I found very odd. There’s a scene towards the end of the movie where June and her family are trying to help get John off the drugs. They’re holed up in his house with her mom and dad; John is going through withdrawal symptoms; he’s laid up in bed.
Then, the dealer comes by to bring John some more pills. The dad goes up, yelling at the dealer, telling him to get the hell outta here, and waving his shotgun around. The dealer gets back in his car and slams it in reverse as the camera pans back. When the camera pans back, you can see mom standing there as well with her shotgun.
The entire theater erupts in laughter.
It takes me a moment to figure out what they’re laughing at, then I figure out it’s the idea of a woman with a shotgun. That’s not a common sight in California, I guess.
Frankly, I would have found the scene more believable if mom had said, “Get the hell out of here.” to the dealer in a low, menacing voice, with the gun pointed dead on at him. Southern women are strong — I know — I have an entire family of these strong women. Sometimes they’re too strong for their own good. (Plus, the only time I’ve heard the words, “Get down, she’s liable to shoot us.” was in relation some crazy woman an uncle of mine married).
I don’t just mean strong in the physical sense, though they’re that too. My grandmother won’t blink an eye at ripping up the rocks in her foyer to re-grout or getting her hands into a project such as ripping out a wall to expand her house or carrying a park bench into her backyard. It’s why her back goes out so often.
But, I also mean strong in the emotional sense too. When they go through rough patches, (nearly) no one knows it. Buck up; keep moving forward; don’t let it keep you down. They keep their head up to keep their family from coming down to where they are.
The reason I say southern women are too strong for their own good — they don’t allow the men in their life to help them out. They’re running headstrong into the next project or problem, and they’ll tackle it their way. If a man is around and wants to help, well, great, but adhere to what I’m already doing or go away. You end up with some very passive or very unhappy men in this situation. Or, you end up with a man who just doesn’t want to interrupt anymore, which leads to the woman feeling like he never helps do anything and she’s operating on her own in the world.
So, back to Walk the Line. I knew both my mother and my aunt had seen the movie on separate occasions, so I explained the scene and the laughter. I was met with, “Why?”.
I guess the scene wasn’t as funny in the South.
