#overly southern barney

[project1939]

Day 90- Film: Ruby Gentry 

Release date: December 25th, 1952. 

Studio: 20th Century Fox 

Genre: Drama 

Director: King Vidor 

Producer: Joseph Bernhard, King Vidor 

Actors: Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston, Karl Malden 

Plot Summary: 

My Rating (out of five stars): ** ½ 

Along with My Son John and Red Planet Mars, I don’t know if any other 1952 film has infuriated me so much. It’s an 82 minute ode to slut shaming and seeing women as nothing more than sex objects. Ruby gets blamed if she lets a man touch her, and she gets blamed if she fights him off. Everything is her own fault, apparently, because the men are just men, you see! Men do nothing but sexualize her, and when she acts like she knows it, then she’s just a dirty whore. Except for the narrator, who does nothing but pity her whenever he isn’t staring lasciviously at her. 

The Good: 

Karl Malden. He’s always so good in anything he does. Part of me didn’t like him because he jumped on Ruby the minute his wife died, but at least he treated her like more than something to go to bed with. 

The character of Letitia Gentry, who was like a mother figure to Ruby. The only person ever in the whole movie who was genuinely and selflessly nice to her was of course a woman, because she didn’t want to f-ck her. She actually had blood get up to her brain instead of staying in her pelvis!  

I liked seeing the Dragnet cop in this! (Barney Phillips.) I knew he looked familiar! His character sucked somewhat, though. Even though he clearly pitied Ruby and chastised those who judged her, he was also standing in line to be with her. 

The Bad: 

God, where to start?! The men, first of all. As I’ve stated, all of the men in the film treated her like she was just breasts and a vagina. Even her brother- although he didn’t lust after her (seemingly!), he was obsessed with her “sexual sin.” 

Charleton Heston. I’ve never been a fan, and I wasn’t here. He often overplayed things to the point of humor, and he had to deliver some terrible lines. He tried occasionally to speak with a hint of a Southern accent, but it didn’t really work. 

Jennifer Jones. I’ve never really liked her either. I don’t find her charismatic or appealing really. Some of this could be my own junk, because I adore Robert Walker, and she very publicly jilted him for David O. Selznick, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood at the time. Most of the reason I don’t like her in this, though, is the film’s fault and not her own. 

Ruby wearing a pair of jeans so tight, with such camel-toe, that it almost hurt to watch! 

The script was pretty bad. The dialogue especially- it sounded almost like a soap opera at times. The plot was just as ridiculously melodramatic. 

The narration was just dumb and overly obvious. 

Boake Tackman. What kind of name is Boake Tackman? 

The character of the brother. Like most religious zealots of an Abrahamic faith, he couldn’t focus on anything but women being somehow impure. 

The accents. Yes, accents are almost always an after-thought in Classical Hollywood, and it is mostly true here. Everyone had varying degrees of Southern accents, even though they were all from the same area. Some of it could be plausible, because there were two main classes in the movie- those in the upper-class probably would have less of a twang than the poor folks. But it still didn’t work.  

Even the fricking movie poster overtly blames everything on Ruby. She’s a sexual sinner! Not the men who rape her, cheat on their wives with her, or ogle her like their eyes are going to fall out whenever they see her. It makes me want to scream. 

[angels-heap]

14 and 17 for the ask game!

[Questions from this post!]

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

I'm assuming this is supposed to be a petty gripe, so: Barney addressing Gordon with Overly Southern pet names that I simply cannot take seriously coming from his character. Every now and then, I get curious and check out the AO3 tag and go "oh, here's a new fic that people seem to like" and then... BAM.

In the authors' defense, (1) I'm aware that this is a matter of personal preference, though I maintain that he's really not that fucking southern (and southern people do not all talk Like That) and (2) I should know better at this point. My online experience will be so much better when I finally internalize that pretty much every free//houn fic by an unknown author comes with an implicit label...

... and proceed accordingly.

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

I feel like I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I hunger for fanworks (gen or shippy) that really delve into the fucked up aspects of the post-HL2 setting without being melodramatic for the sake of it.* I live for a specific balance between fluffy/happy and realistic/depressing that I feel like I rarely see in HL art or fic, which I guess can best be described as "the same tone as canon but with heightened extremes on either end"? I know it when I see it but I cannot describe it. I hope someone out there understands.

*A certain flavor of melodrama is also desirable (I'm not a complete hypocrite) but it's gotta hit just right, y'know?

[angels-heap]

16 & 10?

Oh boy, more questions! [From this post.]

10. worst part of fanon

Objectively: Whatever bizarre-ass, bad-faith interpretation of one (1) incredibly vague line of exposition in Half Life 2 that made 2/3 of the fandom lose their shit about freemance in 2020.

In my personal opinion: Overly southern cowboy caricature Barney. Yeah, sure, you could argue that he has a slight southern accent. Hell, I typically write him that way. But for the love of all that is good and holy, if you're gonna flanderize the poor bastard, at least overexaggerate a plot-relevant trait that he actually, unambiguously possesses in canon.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Aside from the aforementioned garbage fanon, I've mentioned before that I don't get the appeal of "feral Gordon" characterization. There's nothing wrong with it and I'm sure some folks draw/write/roleplay it well, but it just doesn't do anything for me.

[angels-heap]

THANK you for talking about the weird way people characterize barney like. i swear these people just grab random tf2 engineer voicelines and drop them at the end of every sentence he says

It’s so validating to hear that I’m not the only person who’s bothered by Overly Southern Barney. I’ve complained about this a lot more in semi-private spaces because I didn’t want to be That Guy, but enough is enough. Every day, I see posts in the wild that are like “I don’t know anything about Half Life but I simp so hard for southern gentleman Barney Calhoun” and every time, without fail, a part of my soul shrivels up and dies. 

I also headcanon Barney as having southern roots and tend to give him a bit of an accent, but like... some of the people who have made a name for themselves with Southern Gentleman Barney have clearly never met a modern southerner. The only people I know in real life who say “darlin’” every other word are grandmas and/or people who are obviously being sarcastic. Get outta here with your exaggerated parody of southern slang and weird classist stereotypes. 

I wonder if any of these people who think Barney is a main character who is canonically gay and/or hella southern end up actually playing the games. How do they cope with the shock?

[angels-heap]

ooo, i'm working on a barney calhoun fic rn! what should i avoid/highlight?

I’m not the HL fandom characterization police and you can write whatever you want, but if you really want my two cents...

Lately, it’s become popular fanon that Barney is some sort of stereotypically southern cowboy caricature, for some reason. As I have discussed in the past, I don’t understand where that characterization came from and I think a lot of folks who try to write Barney as Extremely Southern sound ridiculous at best (due to having little/no understanding of how southern slang works) or kind of classist and/or negatively stereotypical at worst. 

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t write him as having a southern accent or background if that’s something you want to include in a fic. Hell, I usually write him with a bit of an accent and a complicated relationship with a deep southern upbringing. Just know that your mileage may vary with readers, because a lot of folks don’t hear the accent at all in canon (a valid interpretation; it can also come off as midwestern or generally unremarkable), and remember that a little slang and phonetic accent-writing can go a long way if that’s the impression you want to create. No need to overdo it. It sounds more natural if you don’t. 

(Also, if this is a freehoun fic, please make sure the terms of endearment you select for Barney to use with his 20-something year old male partner are not exclusively used by southern grandmothers. Big personal pet peeve there.)

Aside from that, the HL fandom has gone through a few other phases of weird Barney characterization, including Douchebarney (whose entire purpose in life was to cockblock freemance in the most obnoxious way possible) and Sad Alcoholic Barney (self-explanatory). Neither of those tropes are inherently bad in moderation, but don’t make the same mistakes I did as a young fic writer and lean too far into either of them. 

I can’t tell you what to highlight because that totally depends on what your fic is about, so that concludes my word-vomit of advice. Barney’s got a lot of neat backstory and potential as a character beyond being southern, alcoholic, and/or a Douchey Sitcom Friend. I’m excited to see what direction you take with your fic!

[angels-heap]

Since I’m having an irredeemably shitty day to cap off my irredeemably shitty month, I’m going to start yeeting my most controversial, petty fandom opinions into the abyss at a much more rapid rate. Don’t reblog this.

And to start us off...

Once again, Barney Calhoun’s defining character trait is not his (fairly subtle) hint of an accent. He is not a cowboy man. He is not a southern gentleman. An argument could be made that his accent isn’t even southern. 

I guess I can’t stop anyone from reducing his character to “haha southern [possibly alcoholic] cowboy man who is gay for Gordon,” but goddamn, is that really all you’re capable of reading into his character despite all the interesting stated and implied lore and the general tone of the HL series? Also, some of you people are on real thin fuckin’ ice with all your dumb southerner stereotypes and dialogue that is both OOC for canon Barney and OOC for like, actual modern southerners. I know this stupid website loves to reduce the entire American South to either (a) a monolithic community of irredeemable racists who are responsible for the country’s woes (nevermind that marginalized people in the south exist and suffer the most from the issues in the region) or (b) haha funny cowboy stereotypes, but cut that shit out. Or at least take it far, far away from Half Life. Especially if you have never played, watched, or engaged with any canon HL media in your life. 

It’s not gatekeeping to ask people to know very, very basic things about a piece of media and its characters before churning out content for it, or at least before coming into my fucking inbox to tell me that my more-or-less canon compliant interpretations are wrong and bad. And it’s definitely not gatekeeping to ask y’all to make sure your one-dimensional, unintentionally OOC Barney headcanons aren’t perpetuating harmful and shitty stereotypes about southerners.

It is gatekeeping to ask you to quit making Barney say “darlin’” every other word, I guess, so I won’t tell you you can’t, but God I wish you wouldn’t. 

[angels-heap]

yo there's not like, one way of writing southerners? i know people who say darlin' and stuff unironically who are younger than 30 and i live in the northern south. theres millions of southerners from all over and different places have different accents and speech patterns. it depends where you hc barney being from. not to mention that valve made barney a stereotype in and of himself. his accent isnt even consistent between lines in the same game.

Fair point and thanks for bringing it up! I still stand by my stance that distilling Barney’s entire personality down to a generic southern caricature is lazy at best and actively harmful at worst when it gets really stereotypical, but yeah, my personal pet peeve about the “darlin’” thing has gotten too much of a spotlight in this whole discussion. 

I grew up in/near the “redneck riviera” (southern Alabama/northern Florida), for context, and this whole conversation has renewed my interest in learning about the quirks of southern language and slang between regions. 

As for Valve’s role in the whole thing... honestly, I can’t tell if Mike Shapiro was going for a particular accent or if he was just trying to do something other than his normal speaking voice and that’s what came out. Seeing as Valve didn’t give us any other lore about Barney that would imply he has any connection to the south, I’m not sure this can be pinned on them. 

It’s a fanon thing and it’s not inherently bad, but when I’ve got people up in my inbox telling me my portrayal of Barney is OOC because he’s “not southern enough” (???) and the dude’s fanon characterization starts and ends with a collection of miscellaneous southern tropes, it’s a bit yikes. 

[angels-heap]

Hi! I read of the past few days' Southern Barney Discourse all at once, and had HC ideas. I'm Fake Southern, so: What if he only briefly lived in the south, but had a southern parent? We pick up a lot of our speech patterns from our parents, and spending early childhood amidst the south before moving to Cali would be a recipe for repressed twang (I've met people who get teased aggressively in Cali for their accent...) Maybe it connects him to America/childhood now that he's in City 17?

Ooh, yeah! That’s pretty much what I headcanon for him – that he had a southern parent and/or grew up in the south, and then lost (or consciously shed) most the accent when he moved to CA. 

I know it’s not uncommon for people to pick up the accents of those around them without necessarily being aware that they’re doing it, so it makes sense that moving to a new region would make a southern accent a lot less pronounced. 

Same brainwaves with the American connection from City 17, too. Someone else pointed out that his accent is kind of inconsistent between voice lines, but perhaps that could be explained in-universe as a consequence of him either unintentionally slipping in and out of the accent or trying to consciously re-introduce it when he doesn’t have to suppress it for CP reasons. Lots to think about! 

[angels-heap]

probably cause I'm not American and also I haven't seen much of the fan content you're talking about but I literally didn't notice that Barney had a southern accent at all its always just been American™ to me like everyone else's ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The supposed accent seems to be most apparent to Americans who don’t live in the South. Southerners either don’t notice it or think it’s pretty subtle (because we know how pronounced it is in actual southerners), and people outside the US (rightfully) don’t think it stands out as remarkable, because it... doesn’t. It’s a slight twang at best, and it could just as easily be interpreted as midwestern or any number of other regional accents. 

All we know about Barney’s origin story is that he canonically spent some time in California (west coast) for college/technical school. His VA’s from Massachusetts (northeast). Mike Shapiro does seem to have a big of a twang in his speaking/singing voice at times, but still nothing approaching a southern gentleman cowboy accent or whatever. 

As for Overly Southern Barney in fan content, maybe it’s not as prevalent as it was a few months ago? I haven’t really been keeping up with new freehoun stuff on ao3 lately, but for a while, a lot of new fics seemed to have Barney saying “darlin’” and referencing southern cultural stereotypes every other sentence. And one doesn’t have to spend very long in the tags on tumblr or searching on twitter to find someone gushing about how hard they simp for southern dreamboat Barney (usually accompanied by an outright admission that they’ve never played the games). Coincidentally, these tend to be the same people who are ready to throw hands over freemance based on second- or thirdhand misinformation. 

Again, people are entitled to their headcanons, even if I don’t “get” them. But it baffles me to see people thinking Overly Southern Barney is canon, and it also bothers me to see people perpetuating harmful or ignorant southern stereotypes in their fanworks because they obviously either loathe or fetishize southern culture. 

[angels-heap]

I feel like the Barney accent thing is very similar to the Tommy stutter thing. It’s there in canon but people jsut. Go crazy and dial it WAAAAAY up

Obligatory disclaimer that I haven’t voluntarily consumed much hlvr//ai fan content recently, but yeah, that sounds about right. 

There’s so much more to Barney’s character than this very slight, not necessarily southern accent, and seeing people dial it up to 100 and draw on romanticized and/or harmful southern stereotypes as a substitute for actually fleshing out the hints of personality we’ve seen in canon leaves a really sour taste in my mouth.

[angels-heap]

I’ve never seen overly southern Barney, tho I can understand why it would be irritating to find. I do have to ask, you use him using the word “darlin’” every other sentence as an example a lot, but is him using that occasionally still okay?

I use that as an example a lot because that was one of the first things that stood out to me when this trend started gaining momentum, but I’ll concede that it’s not the best example of potentially problematic Overly Southern Barney characterization. 

I’m not here to tell you what is and isn’t okay, aside from asking folks to make sure they’re not fetishizing southern culture or perpetuating harmful stereotypes. My aversion to “darlin,’” specifically, is mostly a matter of personal taste. (Upon reflection, I think I dislike it partially because it can come off as condescending or disingenuous based on my own southern upbringing experiences, and I can’t quite imagine canon Barney actually saying it, but that’s just me.) 

If you like the idea of Barney saying “darlin’” and want to sprinkle a couple of ‘em into a fic or a piece of fanart, go for it! It’s not inherently problematic, variations in characterization are the spice of fandom, and even from a personal taste standpoint, I’ve read a few fanworks that contained the occasional “darlin’” and enjoyed them just fine. 

Nobody’s saying Barney can’t be a little southern, as a treat! Folks are just getting tired of seeing his entire character reduced to that one fanon trait.

[angels-heap]

I Know you probably don’t want more southern barney disk horse (is it even that?) here but as someone who’s lived in the Deep South in backfucksville texas if I heard anyone say “darlin’” in our accent it’d be ON SIGHT bro. literally no one would respect you after that. your reputation would be gone. there’s no coming back from that. I could give more examples of yankees not knowing wtf they’re talking about but that’s the closest thing on my mind rn

I don’t... think it’s discourse? I’m not advocating for anybody to be cancelled off the face of the earth for Overly Southern Barney sins and I have HL canon (or lack thereof) on my side for this one. AFAIK, this isn’t a super unpopular opinion either. This has kind of devolved into vaguely fandom-related informal linguistics research at this point. 

And I don’t mind talking about it! So I’ve been asking other southerners about this over the last few days, and yeah, it sounds like the frequency and genuineness of “darlin’” and other stereotypical pet names varies a lot by region. Most people who grew up in the part of the south that I did agree that if anyone under like, 70 says it, they’re almost definitely being sarcastic and/or trying to sound southern and failing. Sounds like that’s even more pronounced in the part of Texas you’re from. But a friend who grew up in Arkansas says those kinds of pet names are pretty common and usually genuine there (albeit often delivered with a tinge of sexism, which wouldn’t be present in a hypothetical freehoun context). Fascinating stuff.

From this, I’ve concluded that I might’ve been a little too quick to assume that virtually all writers of Overly Southern Barney are yankees who have no idea what they’re talking about. However, especially seeing as southerners tend not to notice Barney’s supposed accent as much (again, anecdotal evidence), I’m still willing to bet some of ‘em are, and I stand by my assertion that anyone who goes that route should be conscious of the stereotypes they’re invoking.

[angels-heap]

I’m in a freehoun mood, but I love myself too much to dig through the AO3 tag for something readable right now. Does anyone have new(ish) freehoun fic recs that aren’t written by or for the discourse kids and that don’t feature Overly Southern Barney?