Episode 69
What is the Bible Belt?
America's Bible Belt, a term coined nearly a century ago, remains a significant cultural and political phenomenon, representing regions in the South and parts of the Midwest known for their strong evangelical Christian traditions.
In this episode, we dive into the origins and implications of this term, exploring how it encapsulates not just a geographical area but also a complex interplay of religion, politics, and societal stereotypes.
From its roots in H.L. Mencken's critical portrayal of the South during the 1920s, to how this perception continues to shape contemporary political rhetoric and cultural narratives, we explore the Bible Belt's association with conservative values and white supremacy, and the ongoing relevance of the Bible Belt in understanding America's evolving identity and the challenges posed by its enduring stereotypes.
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Special guest for this episode:
- Dr. Megan Hunt, a cultural historian of the modern United States at Edinburgh University, whose new book, Southern by the Grace of God, is available
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Highlights from this episode:
- The Bible Belt is a term that originated in the 1920s, symbolizing a religiously devout region in America.
- Historically, the Bible Belt is associated with evangelical Christianity, particularly in the Southern United States.
- Contemporary politics often leverage the concept of the Bible Belt to appeal to religious values.
- The notion of the Bible Belt helps to perpetuate stereotypes about the South and its culture.
- Migration patterns have spread the values of the Bible Belt beyond its traditional geographical boundaries.
- Hollywood's portrayal of religion in the South often simplifies and distorts the complexity of local culture.
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Additional Resources:
Southern by the Grace of God by Megan Hunt
https://www.dukeupress.edu/reconstructing-dixie
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And if you like this episode, you might also love:
When Did the 50 States Become the 50 States
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Transcript
America is officially not a religious country.
Liam Heffernan:The Constitution creates a clear separation between church and state.
Liam Heffernan:And yet in God We Trust is printed on every banknote.
Liam Heffernan:God is endorsed by every successful presidential candidate.
Liam Heffernan:And most of US outside the US may not know all 50 states, but we have heard of one particular region.
Liam Heffernan:So in this episode, I want to know, what is the Bible Belt?
Liam Heffernan:Welcome to America, a history podcast.
Liam Heffernan:I'm Liam Heffernan, and every week we answer a different question to understand the people, the places, and the events that make the USA what it is today.
Liam Heffernan:To discuss this, I am joined by a cultural historian of the modern United States at Edinburgh University, whose new book, Southern by the Grace of God, is available to buy right now.
Liam Heffernan:Depending on when you're listening to this, maybe not in the UK just yet, but we'll put some links in the show notes so that you can access it straight away.
Liam Heffernan:Welcome to the show, Dr.
Liam Heffernan:Megan Hunt.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Hi, Liam.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Thanks for having me.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Thanks for the invitation.
Liam Heffernan:Oh, it's a pleasure to have you on the show.
Liam Heffernan:And we were saying before we started recording just how, you know, this podcast has been going for over a year now, and we haven't actually addressed religion, which just feels like a bit of a crime for an American history podcast.
Liam Heffernan:So I'm glad to be able to do that with you today.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, definitely a massive, massive issue, but I think we'll probably get into some of the reasons why.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's simultaneously a very obviously American topic, but also maybe the one that we know the least about or at least, you know, we can think about.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Where the stereotypes end and the realities begin is something I often think about with my students.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah.
Liam Heffernan:And I think just the very, you know, question that we're trying to answer today, you know, the Bible Belt itself isn't, you know, isn't an actual place, but it's come to represent just a part of America, hasn't it?
Liam Heffernan:So I guess let's just start if you could tell us a bit more about.
Liam Heffernan:What exactly do we mean when we say the Bible Belt?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, so the Bible Belt as a term is actually, you know, almost exactly 100 years old.
Dr. Megan Hunt: It was coined in the: Dr. Megan Hunt:mencken, who was very famous, you know, in.
Dr. Megan Hunt:In his own day.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And he was actually based in Baltimore, which is interesting because Baltimore in Maryland is often considered a sort of border state region anyway.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I guess in some respects he had quite strong views, maybe on, you know, what made the border south different from the deep south, etc.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But he was particularly known for his really biting criticisms.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think there's a lot that Mencken is responsible for in terms of both journalistic sort of traditions in the United States, but also particularly in terms of his representations of the South.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So he is quite famous for being incredibly critical of the region, for referring to it in all sorts of derogatory terms.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, he felt that the south had no real culture, that it was sort of deeply rooted in violence.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And religion in particular, was something he was really conscious of.
Dr. Megan Hunt: And so in: Dr. Megan Hunt: in a way that was even in the: Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think he was referring to a geographical region.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think he definitely had the south, and particularly the Deep south in mind.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think he was also, you know, using the term somewhat metaphorically for the idea of a region being quite constrained by its religious beliefs.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So if we think about, you know, what a belt is and what it can do if it's uncomfortable or if it's kind of, you know, it's a restrictive tool, obviously.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so he was definitely thinking sort of metaphorically as well.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's kind of interesting, I think, because often when we think about the south or the Deep south or all of these sorts of terms, generally speaking, I think we're often thinking about the former Confederacy, so basically the states that formed the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But actually, the Bible Belt is often used kind of interchangeably for the south, but at the same time, it maybe has a slightly wider reach.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Because if we think about the parts of the country that are the most religious, that still have the highest rates of church attendance and sort of religious beliefs, then actually we do move slightly beyond the Confederacy income, you know, encompasses states like Oklahoma in particular.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So it's often used interchangeably with the South.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think one of the things that historians of the south are very prone to doing is sort of debating where the south begins and ends and all of these different terms like Deep south border, south, upper south, etc.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So the Bible Belt is.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Is kind of one of those interchangeable terms, but I think it also has come to mean a sort of shorthand for, you know, areas of the United States, particularly that Southern belt, that still have, you know, very religious cultures and communities.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think it's important to emphasize that this is a particular, particular type of evangelical Christian tradition that we're talking about.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, there are obviously other parts of the country that are deeply religious or, you know, defined by religious populations, like Utah, for example, with, you know, a significant Mormon population.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But we wouldn't refer to that as the Bible Belt.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So it is a very particular image of sort of evangelical Christianity that is developing here.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so, you know, it can simply just acknowledge that these are areas where religion still matters profoundly to many residents.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think it also has an element of pejorativeness to it, you know, taken by.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And that's how men can certainly, I think, intended it, you know, 100 years ago that this was shorthand for a whole host of political and cultural views that he disagreed with.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And I guess, you know, sort of liberal commentators have, you know, continue to disagree with.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So it's because of that association with the South, I think, in particular, that it's become one in a long line of stereotypes that help many Americans make sense of their sort of country's political reality, maybe.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But it has quite significant power, I think, obviously, beyond the United States, and I guess that's why we're talking about it today.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah, And I'm actually interested to just touch on the sort of the use of the Bible Belt, particularly in the political arena.
Liam Heffernan:I mean, you know, we're.
Liam Heffernan:We're recording this as we have, you know, just over a month until the US Election.
Liam Heffernan:So politics is sort of quite front and center in people's minds.
Liam Heffernan:And I just wonder how the Bible Belt is maybe used within political rhetoric as a.
Liam Heffernan:As a sort of campaign tool to appeal maybe not just to a region, but to a particular sort of value system.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely a sense of, you know, how things might play in.
Dr. Megan Hunt:The Bible Belt is probably a fairly common discussion that political strategists have.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And again, you know, as I've said, there are lots of different ways that the south has maybe been defined before historically.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so I do think that it's one of those manifestations of thinking about the south as a region that is somewhat removed from the rest of the country.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so maybe that, you know, politicians have to be particularly sensitive or aware of if they want to appeal in those states.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think what's interesting about the Bible Belt today is that I think most commentators would see that as encompassing actually not just the south, but quite significant parts of the Midwest as well.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And certainly, you know, the Midwest is only really second to the Deep south in terms of its levels of religious adherence and things like that.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I guess I would say in the time since Menken's assertion in the 20s, it's probably become actually more encompassing.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think we would probably see more of the country as being part of that Bible Belt today, which is interesting because it sort of moves it out of this explicit Southern focus, but I guess it also acknowledges the extent.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Extent to which it's associated with the Republican Party in particular.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so, you know, for those big Republican heartlands are not just in Southern states, they're actually very powerful across the Midwest as well.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah.
Liam Heffernan:I mean, do you think also the, you know, in the last hundred years, as, you know, the world becomes a bit more connected, it's easier for people to move about.
Liam Heffernan:You know, individuals who may have been born and raised in the Bible Belt no longer in today's world feel was rooted, you know, geographically.
Liam Heffernan:And so people who sort of embody the values that are known to encompass the Bible Belt move elsewhere, and then that sort of spreads, and that's why it's maybe becoming a bit more widespread.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, I mean, you know, historians have traced migration out of the south, you know, across the 20th century in particular, and, you know, we've had a lot of attention given to what's known as the Great Migration of African Americans out of the south and taking their religious traditions with them to, you know, big northern cities, for example.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But also, you know, white Southerners as well, migrated out of the region.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And there's been quite a lot of attention, particularly on places in Southern California which tend to be more conservative than other parts of the state.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And even, you know, in the 70s and the 80s, they were often seen as, you know, hotbeds of conservatism.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And they were very significant in mobilizing for Ronald Reagan in particular, who is obviously, you know, from California.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So there is a sort of sense.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Absolutely.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, that Southerners have taken their religious traditions with them wherever they've.
Dr. Megan Hunt:They've gone.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so, yeah, you know, there's a sort of Southernization thesis that historians have thought about of, you know, to what extent has the nation become more Southern, you know, particularly toward, you know, across the 20th century.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so we're still kind of grappling with a lot of that today, I think.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah.
Liam Heffernan:And I wonder if one of the reasons that we find the idea of the Bible Belt.
Liam Heffernan:So fascinating is because it's becoming sort of inextricably linked to these kind of perceptions about stereotypes of what we understand the American south to be.
Liam Heffernan:And it's almost glamorized to an extent, isn't it?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, I mean, I think there's a sort of inevitability to it.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know something, the term like Bible Belt makes it much easier to scapegoat the south and to continue to associate it with particular types of politics that we might not be comfortable with.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's much easier to associate them with a particular place.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So there's a sort of.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Definitely a tool that it provides, which is a bit irresistible, really.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think it's also linked to an idea that it's impossible to change.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So it sort of simultaneously gives us that scapegoat, but it also relieves us from having to dismantle many of these structures that we might deem oppressive.
Dr. Megan Hunt:That the Bible Belt, in theory, kind of upholds that if we associate it with one region in particular, it's much easier for everybody else to sort of wash their hands of it and say, well, you know, you have to be.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You have to sort of play to the Bible Belt in certain ways rather than maybe challenging it or, you know, dismantling the stereotype.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It actually, on a sort of surface level, it actually provides a lot of answers to why the United States appears as it does perhaps both internally and externally, when thinking about an international stage like we are.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, many of the things that we associate with being stereotypically American in Britain or in Europe, I think, are actually quite Southern.
Dr. Megan Hunt:They're often deeply rooted in that assumed Bible Belt culture.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think it is quite an irresistible explainer, really, if we continue to see this vast country as kind of under this buckle of the Bible Belt.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It helps explain a lot of things, but it also removes a lot of that nuance.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And, you know, one of the things that I particularly conscious of is thinking about how much this is a white image, that when we're thinking about the Bible Belt, we are overwhelmingly thinking of a very white stereotype, which, you know, not only ignores the diversity of the region, but it also assumes a lot about what we mean by Southern, which is kind of inherently problematic as well.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Obviously, we'll talk about that more, I'm sure, but I think it's.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's very irresistible.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It gives us kind of easy answers to a lot of the questions that we might have, but it arguably obscures as much as it explains.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah, I mean, it feels like, there's almost something quite derivative about saying, you know, just because you're a Christian from the south, that clearly God and your faith must be the most important thing in your life.
Liam Heffernan:And that's.
Liam Heffernan:It feels like by defining someone as being from the Bible Belt, that's what we're sort of saying.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But then I think in a way, what we see in Southern history is the ways in which kind of other viewpoints have really dictated a lot of Southern history.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So there's often this assumption that, you know, white Southerners have acted as they have because of their religion.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I guess you could argue that they've acted in those ways in spite of their religion.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, they.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Their interpretations and sort of uses of the Bible to justify slavery, segregation, etc.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, don't ring true for many other groups of Christians, both within the United States and around the world.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think there is this sort of question of, you know, have people been guided by their Southernness or have they been guided by their Christianity?
Dr. Megan Hunt:And there's definitely an assumption that the two things have worked in tandem when there's lots of interesting examples of how the two have fused together.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But often, you know, in reality, this is a story of race.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's a story of white supremacy, and religion has been used in all sorts of ways to kind of bolster those existing mindsets.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Really?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So it's.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's a.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's a very complicated story, obviously, but I think, yeah, we're often obscuring what many of these debates were really about.
Liam Heffernan:I mean, do.
Liam Heffernan:Do you think that it's a complete coincidence that that religion has proliferated in the same regions that have, you know, white supremacy has, and sort of this sort of more extreme form of racism in the U.S.
Liam Heffernan:you know, is that.
Liam Heffernan:Is that just a coincidence, or is there actually a link between the two there?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the civil rights movement in particular and how it's represented in popular culture often plays out as a sort of clash between two religious traditions that actually you have a sort of social gospel idea that, you know, Martin Luther King and many other African Americans represented, which is that, you know, your religious faith can be a force for good in the world and that, you know, you shouldn't use your faith as a reason to sort of step back from politics.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But actually, you know, it can define your sense of right and wrong, and that should be utilized to make the world a better place.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And then you obviously have a much more conservative interpretation, which is that, you know, Anything beyond what happens in the church is in some way sort of dilutes the power of your connection with God.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So there are two, you know, two very distinct, distinct religious traditions that.
Dr. Megan Hunt:That have kind of developed in the region that have then contributed to this central conflict of the, you know, certainly of the mid and second half of the 20th century around, you know, different groups utilizing religion in quite different ways to articulate for entirely, you know, an entirely different vision of the south that comes through in those things.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so I think that's really, really fascinating.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And I guess one of the things I'm most interested.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Interested in is how that then offers this fairly simplistic image for media to latch onto, which is that you have these kind of two versions of Christianity, one of which is kind of rooted in a sort of spiritual quest to make the world a better place, and one which is desperately trying to cling to older traditions.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And in many ways, these things play out across the, you know, across the centuries.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think in.
Dr. Megan Hunt:In our generational terms, it's often been defined by that central conflict in the south in particular.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think, you know, what you obscure if you focus solely on that is the way that many of those same battles happened elsewhere.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, it's not.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's not that segregation was a wholly Southern issue.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You have lots of.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Of white Americans defending segregation in all sorts of ways without using religion to do so.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think because of the particularly entrenched legal systems that we had in the south, obviously the emphasis has tended to be on those conflicts.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But again, if we sort of associate religion and white supremacy, then we actually obscure the ways in which white supremacy is kind of built into many structures of, you know, the U.S.
Dr. Megan Hunt:government systems, whether locally or federally.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, so again, it's like it's a kind of comforting stereotype that obscures us from focusing on more structural issues.
Liam Heffernan:I feel like stereotypes only really have gravitas and impact when they're perpetuated by popular media.
Liam Heffernan:And.
Liam Heffernan:And I wonder how much of a role that has played in building up the importance of this Bible Belt demographic.
Liam Heffernan:And.
Liam Heffernan:And I'm really interested actually, in hearing more about the work you've done, which has fed into your.
Liam Heffernan:Your book because you've looked quite closely at how, you know, Hollywood and popular media have.
Liam Heffernan:Have done that, right?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So my.
Dr. Megan Hunt:My book, Southern by the Grace of God, focuses on the ways that Hollywood has used race and religion in particular, to sort of introduce audiences to the south, but also, I think, as a backdrop for films that have tried to engage with the legacies of the civil rights movement or, you know, the sort of lasting racial tensions across the later part of the 20th century and into the 21st.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so the idea that the south is the natural place to position these stories, particularly if, you know, if they are fictional.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think obviously if you're depicting or you're representing particular types of historical events, then you're a bit more limited in terms of where you might situate these things.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think it is interesting how much Hollywood returns to the south when it comes to topics of sort of social and political tensions, violence, etc.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So, yeah, in many ways the book is really about these two sort of traditions, really.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Firstly, that religion, when presented within an African American community, is represented often as a sort of deeply positive, a very spiritual thing which often helps that community deal with unspeakable violence, tragedy, etc.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But it's a very one dimensional representation that undermines and overlooks any political potential or power within these communities.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think it is assumed to be a very positive representation.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's certainly something that gives those communities a sort of inherent value system that is represented positively, even if it's quite limited.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Alternatively, though, Hollywood is often much less positive in its representation of white Southern religion, which is almost always negative, deeply connected with white supremacy, and sometimes even in its most extreme forms, like the Ku Klux Klan and, you know, the imagery of the burning cross, etc.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think what emerges then is this positive yet static depiction of black religion and a deeply suspicious and very limited representation of white religion in the region.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's rare that you actually see a mainstream white Southern church on screen, but you'll often see, you know, kind of Ku Klux Klan gatherings or other white supremacist gatherings that are being enacted under this kind of cloak of religion, but ultimately are mostly about race.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So as I sort of suggested before, they, these two representations offer this very obvious distinct good and bad characterizations.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And for civil rights dramas in particular, you see how these two communities use faith for distinctly different ends.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And, you know, the central drama of some of the narratives that I look at, like Mississippi Burning, for example, from the late 80s, you know, really magnifies that idea that you have two deeply religious communities that are basically at war with each other.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But one of the things that I'm most interested in is then the people who are sort of thrust into the middle of that by these narratives.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so I pay particular attention in the book to the sort of redeemed white Southern characters.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So Usually middle class men who have sort of abandoned their religious upbringings as much as they've seemingly risen above the sort of white supremacist viewpoints of, you know, their parents or their neighbours.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And often in civil rights narratives, these are.
Dr. Megan Hunt:They're often lawyers, the, you know, the sort of Atticus Finch type characters that you see not only in the 60s, but also in the 90s through the kind of John Grisham adaptations like A Time to Kill.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But also sometimes it is just outside agents.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So it might be, you know, FBI agents, law enforcement, people who've come from outside the region, usually white middle class men who sort of position themselves between, between these two warring communities.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And I think what that does is it sort of redeems whiteness from, you know, this association with white supremacy and sort of presents this idea that there have always been positive white forces in the world.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So, yeah, I'm sort of interested in that initial juxtaposition between black and white religion in the south in these narratives.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But then also what gets referred to, I guess, as like the divisions within whiteness where you have your kind of good white characters and bad.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And usually the bad white characters are the ones that are deeply defined by their Southern religiosity as much as by their sort of white supremacist views.
Liam Heffernan:And this is where I'm really keen to understand if this is life imitating art or art imitating life.
Liam Heffernan:Because when you look at some very real events, things like mass shootings in America, they tend to be white, usually Christian men.
Liam Heffernan:And I, I mean, and that's just one example, I think, of how religion has.
Liam Heffernan:Is sort of used as a justification by, by white, mainly men.
Liam Heffernan:I.
Liam Heffernan:And I just wonder if it's because of this Hollywood reputation presentation that, you know, religion in the hands of the white man can be quite a dangerous tool, but in the hands of the black man can be quite liberating.
Liam Heffernan:And was Hollywood simply reflecting the reality or have they in some way encouraged that?
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think it comes from a sort of lack of comfort with religion.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think realistically, a lot of Hollywood filmmakers, you know, similar to a lot of journalists or even a lot of academic academics, have traditionally not been religious.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And I think there's a profound discomfort with religion amongst a lot of.
Dr. Megan Hunt:A lot of those people in those professions, you know, to be perfectly honest.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so I think it's much easier to understand the appeal of religion for communities that don't look like yours.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so I think, you know, we have to acknowledge that the majority of historians of the south have traditionally been white in the same way that the majority of Hollywood filmmakers have.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And, you know, and by that I mean that, you know, those communities have been effectively hindered from entering into all of these professions for reasons across, you know, across the decades, across the centuries.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think there is a sort of profound discomfort with religion, which means that when it's in other communities that are very tangibly different from yours, it's easier to see what the appeal might be and to, as I said before, not necessarily treat it with profound respect because these images of black religiosity are often very limited.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But it's almost like an assumption, therefore, that that is a big part of African American life.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so even if we present it in a fairly one dimensional way, it's something that we have to acknowledge as being very powerful, I think, when it comes to white religiosity, because that's not something that people, ne, the people who are making these decisions necessarily identify with.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think there is a tendency, therefore, to present it in a more sort of demonized way because it's just.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's just not something that they identify with and it's actually something that they see as a force for bad in the world, you know.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so some of the filmmakers that I look at are quite explicit in their acknowledgement that, you know, they want their villains to be these kinds of monsters of the South.
Dr. Megan Hunt:They want them to be violent, they want them to be profoundly religious.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And almost that religiosity of those characters is what makes them so otherworldly.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, it's like you can't reason with these people because they're answering to this higher power that none of us can really identify with.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so it actually plays into the sort of construction of many of these cinematic villains, I think.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think it's worth acknowledging, you know, who's making these decisions and what their own connections or engagement with religion might be.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And, you know, it comes back to our central questions at the very beginning about that association of the region with religion.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And it's also the region that we associate most with racial tension, you know, and historical crimes of white supremacy in North America.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So it's not surprising necessarily that people make these sort of characterizations.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think it's worth thinking about the sort of demographics who are making those connections as well.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And as I said before, what you don't tend to see are sort of moderate religious communities, mainstream white religious communities, communities you also don't see any depiction of, you know, the countless white Southerners who joined the civil rights movement because their faith compelled them to do so.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And, you know, the way in which they reflected on the sort of racial traditions of their region and found it to be completely contradictory with their religious understandings.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But that's not.
Dr. Megan Hunt:That's not of interest necessarily to these sort of sensational narratives.
Liam Heffernan:It does feel, though, that as more so in recent years, as Hollywood and the media becomes more diverse, that we are seeing more.
Liam Heffernan:More nuance in how.
Liam Heffernan:In how religion is represented.
Liam Heffernan:You know, we're not just seeing it through this kind of white male gaze anymore.
Liam Heffernan:And do you think that that is changing the wider perceptions of.
Liam Heffernan:Of religion?
Liam Heffernan:And I would say more specifically of, you know, Christianity in the U.S.
Liam Heffernan:yeah.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I mean, I think what's interesting, I guess, is that films in general, I think, cannot approach issues with this assumption of the south as being dramatically different anymore.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think a number of major events, particularly Black Lives Matter protests, you know, a few years ago, have made it really difficult to really argue with any, you know, real conviction that race is a Southern problem anymore or that any of the other political issues that affect, you know, the United States are inherently Southern.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I just don't think that's something that can be reasonably argued anymore, I think, you know, and so I have these conversations with my students often at the beginning of courses on the south to sort of reflect on their understanding of the region and how much of that has been shaped by the media.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And I think they definitely still know these kind of Southern stereotypes, but I think they're also much more aware of how constructed they are now, which is, I think, really interesting.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so, you know, given that, you know, for some of our younger students, you know, the killing of George Floyd will be.
Dr. Megan Hunt:That's the sort of seminal event that they will think of when they think of race in America.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And obviously that, you know, that did not happen in the South.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think that sort of central entry point to some of these questions for a lot of people has changed.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so a lot of the films that I look at in the 80s and the 90s were sort of simultaneously reflecting on the legacy of the 50s and 60s, but they were also trying to make some kind of comment on the racial present.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And it obviously suited them to continue to put those narratives in the South.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And I just don't think that that's.
Dr. Megan Hunt:That's the reality anymore.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so while you do still get some films that sort of pedal those narratives, I'm thinking about, you know, something like Green Book, for example, which very much presents the south as different from the rest of the country.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think generally speaking, there's not as much of that anymore, which is a really interesting development.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Obviously, you know, in its own right.
Liam Heffernan:Do you, do you think then the Bible Belt, as you've explained, was a term that was conceived from quite a negative place.
Liam Heffernan:Do you think it still gets a bad rep, or have we sort of moved beyond that now?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, I think, you know, you asked me before about connections with the election and the ways in which, you know, political candidates or strategies and journalists might be thinking about the term Bible Belt and, you know, I guess whether it's a term that they would use today.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so, you know, I, I do think that it does still have traction.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think, you know, there are these surveys of religion in the United States fairly regularly that sort of attempt to quantify the level of religiosity in a particular state.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And the reality is, is that, you know, we do still see much, much higher levels of religious adherence in what has traditionally been known as the Bible Belt.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But also, as I mentioned before, states like Utah, you know, Oklahoma, which is very much within our kind of concept of the modern south, but it wouldn't fit into that sort of old confederacy idea of the south necessarily.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And the Midwest is also really important for thinking about religion in America today.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think the Bible Belt still holds traction because I think it is, it is an acknowledgement that there are still parts of the United States that are much more religious than others.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, but I guess the question is, is that the anomaly, you know, is the Bible Belt the anomaly?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Because actually our perception of the Bible Belt is probably getting bigger, and is it actually the more secular states that are maybe the outlier would be another way to think about that question.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think it does still hold a lot of traction politically.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I think, as you know, it's a way to explain a lot of political views in the United States and to maybe, particularly for journalists that are maybe based in other parts of the country or even other parts of the world, it's a way to sort of explain some of the sort of rhetoric that we continue to see, you know, but I guess it's, it's also just an acknowledgement of, you know, the fact that this is a very, very big country and different states have different priorities, different states have different demographic makeups.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And, you know, they, there are states that still have really high levels of religious identity, and there are states that don't, you know, and how a political system that has to navigate all of those things is always going to be pretty fascinating.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah.
Liam Heffernan:I mean, it's quite a unique landscape in the US just because of how divided it is and I guess the fact that it's maybe becoming less divided and political parties are really struggling to work out how to adapt to that because I guess those campaign lines were so clear in the past and now as we touched on, you know, with sort of more migration around the, to different parts of the country, you know, those demographics are being mixed up so much, I guess.
Liam Heffernan:Is there such a clear cut Bible Belt now as there was before?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, as I said, I think, I think to be honest, it's probably more the other way around where, as you know, those views are maybe more widespread than I think most sort of liberal politicians and most liberal journalists might acknowledge.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Really, I think it's, as I said, it's easier to think about this as an anomaly than it is to actually engage with.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Why such vast waves of the country are still massively dominated by evangelical religion is a really historic, you know, historically that's a fascinating question.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But how you engage with that if that's not your identity is quite different.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Difficult.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And that's what we see I think, with, you know, partly why the region has been so mythologized and why it often proves so exotic for filmmakers, but also, you know, thinking about journalists and politicians as well.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, I started by talking about H.L.
Dr. Megan Hunt:menken and, and you know, he saw part of his responsibility to his readers was to sort of help them understand this region that he thought was so vastly different from the parts of the country that he knew.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But so much of it was kind of projection.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, until the Scopes trial, he hadn't been further south than Virginia, but he still had this like concept that the south was ruled by, you know, he called them sort of barbarous peasants and you know, everyone needed to know about this, but not in a way that necessarily forced him to go there.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah.
Liam Heffernan:And I guess, you know, to sort of wrap up our very brief conversation today, I wonder if you've had any sort of first hand experience yourself of what's considered the Bible Belt or of anyone who, you know, identifies as being from the Bible Belt and if that reality sort of matched the expectation.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Well, I mean, I've definitely traveled in, yeah, parts of the country that we would consider the Bible Belt.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And you know, there's definitely elements that you identify in terms of, you know, numbers of churches, kind of open identification as, as a Christian, etc that is quite unusual from a sort of British perspective.
Dr. Megan Hunt:That's just Obviously not how most people would open a conversation, etc.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think there's also, you know, a sort of charm to that that people are attracted to, but also a bit of like, mutual confusion.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I find American are often quite confused as to why we find their country so fascinating, particularly the further you get from big cities that are obviously more accustomed to tourism.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So, you know, as someone who's traveled and researched quite a lot in the South, I think people are often quite, you know, they're happy that you're there, but they're quite confused as to why you're there and why you're interested in, you know, their small town or, you know, whatever.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And I think of that is actually equally about what they perceive British people to be like.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, I think it often says as much about what they think of us and how they've absorbed images of Britain, maybe through the media that don't necessarily then track when they're faced with, you know, someone like me in their sort of diner or cafe or whatever it might be.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So I think it's a kind of mutual performance like that we, that we kind of enter into that.
Dr. Megan Hunt:That's really interesting.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But I think for, you know, as someone who is a cultural historian of the south, there's also this distinct paradox that you're very aware of at all times where this is a part of the country that has defined itself on its tourism and hospitality in, you know, in the last, you know, hundred years or so.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But at the same time as doing that, particularly in the aftermath of, of the Civil War, when the south really did pivot to a more sort of tourism driven economy, you know, this is also a region that has a profound history of exclusion.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, so on the one hand it represents itself as a welcoming place, but we know that historically and, you know, that just isn't the case.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, there are whole histories of racial segregation, rejection of the idea of women's suffrage, et cetera, that we can, and you know, that we can think about that make it hard to reconcile.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so there's.
Dr. Megan Hunt:There's a really great book actually by Tara McPherson.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It's probably about 20 years old now, but it's really about that performance of race, gender and kind of nostalgia about the south really.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And she sort of writes about the ways in which that it is a bit of a performance, which is not to say that the people you meet in the south today are fake or putting on an act or something, but they are part of this longer tradition of, you know, a delicately balanced image of the south, which is open and warm and friendly, but is, you know, kind of masking this history of profound exclusion.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so I guess what I'm trying to say is it's maybe hard for me to put some of that out of my mind sometimes, but hopefully, you know, the, your listeners are slightly more able to just kind of be in the moment and enjoy themselves when, when they're in the region.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah, but I think you make a valid point because there is still that knee jerk sort of stereotype when you think of, you know, the south and sort of the Southern hospitality and you think of like, this image of, you know, the Southern belle and the plantation, and they're such problematic images, but they still define what we imagine to be the South.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And again, it's about thinking what people want when they travel to these places.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, there's been huge debates around plantation tourism in particular, you know, the idea that people, some people still want to see this kind of grandeur of the sort of former plantation owner without really engaging with the reality that these were enslavers, that the wealth that they have was, was, was, was, you know, kind of accrued through, through slavery.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And, you know, I think more.
Dr. Megan Hunt:It certainly appears that more places have obviously in the last few years had to acknowledge the realities of these sites and, and sort of embed that into their tourism model and be a bit more historically responsible.
Dr. Megan Hunt:But then there are always people who don't want that.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so it's, it's, you know, thinking about how these sites and these towns and cities even have navigated that history in an economy that is increasingly rooted in tourism is, is really fascinating.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so some which have really engaged with that history and some that continue not to.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so, you know, again, the, the Tara McPherson book that I mentioned, you know, she engages with, you know, the idea that these are, all, these plates are all spinning at the same time in the South.
Dr. Megan Hunt:You know, all of these different histories which are very much connected, you know, they're all kind of spinning at the same time.
Dr. Megan Hunt:And so much of the media and the tourism industry is kind of trying to keep all those plates spinning.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah.
Liam Heffernan:And I feel like there's.
Liam Heffernan:There's so much more there that we need to touch on, and perhaps there's future episodes in that.
Liam Heffernan:I mean, you know, religion in the US Was never going to be solved in one episode, but I think we've, we've opened that can of worms adequately for now.
Liam Heffernan:So, Megan, thank you so much for joining the podcast and for talking about that in this episode.
Liam Heffernan:For anyone listening, if you did enjoy this conversation, we're going to leave some links in the show notes and not just to Megan's book, which you should absolutely check out, but some of the other stuff that we've mentioned to if you did want to learn a little bit more.
Liam Heffernan:Megan, for anyone that wants to connect with you directly, where can they do that?
Dr. Megan Hunt:Yeah, so you can find the majority of my contact details on the University of Edinburgh staff page that I have.
Dr. Megan Hunt:So if you, I'm sure if you search for, you know, Megan Hunt, University of Edinburgh, you should be able to find me fairly easily.
Dr. Megan Hunt:I'm also on Twitter and my Twitter handle is Underscore Megan.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Underscore Hunt.
Dr. Megan Hunt:Underscore.
Liam Heffernan:Wonderful.
Liam Heffernan:Thank you.
Liam Heffernan:And yep, I'm still on X as well.
Liam Heffernan:Hanging in there at thisisthe hef.
Liam Heffernan:And I'm also on LinkedIn, so just search for my name on there.
Liam Heffernan:If you enjoy listening to this podcast, I urge you to leave a rating and a review wherever you're listening to this and give us a follow as well because then all future episodes will appear like magic in your feed.
Liam Heffernan:And that also really helps us out as well.
Liam Heffernan:Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.
