Fried Green Tomatoes And The Queer Literacy Canon By Jaime Parker

Often times when thinking of the south and southerners what comes to mind is the image of a white man who’s a manual laborer maybe with a stay-at-home wife and some kids. While this may be the typical image of a southerner it is far from the reality of many southerners. This stereotypical image of a southerner is present in those both inside and outside of the south which is why other types of southerners are overlooked when talking about the south. The LGBT+ community is one such type of southern community that is often not discussed and gets buried under the rest of southern culture and community. Although, there are some works and discussions that include LGBT+ southerners either outright or subtlety behind the scenes. The film Fried Green Tomatoes is one such example of this subtle representation. Comparatively an excerpt from The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literacy Canon by Jaime Parker has many of the same messages as Fried Green Tomatoes but is not subtle and is a modern discussion on the queer south.

The article discusses how the community in the south is often ignored as many try to pretend it doesn’t exist or believe most queer southerners leave the south for “safe havens” in other states and cities. While many people keep this belief it doesn’t necessarily ring true. As stated in the article “…the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament is a roving capital of the southern sisterhood, and it is anything but subtle, but if you ask the fathers and the busloads of white-haired retirees about all the lesbians they will look at you blankly, whether they noticed them or not.” (Parker). This quote shows how while many pretend the LGBT+ community doesn’t exist in the south, it is indeed there, and no matter how much people ignore it, it’s not going