Southern belle

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For other uses, see Southern Belle (disambiguation).

Cover illustration of Harper's Weekly, September 7, 1861 showing a stereotypical "Southern belle"

A southern belle (derived from the French belle, 'beautiful') is an archetype for a young woman of the American Old South's antebellum upper class. During the period, Kentuckian Sallie Ward of Louisville was the most noted belle in the South, and her portrait, which hangs in the Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, is often called "The Southern Belle."

A Southern Belle epitomized southern hospitality, cultivation of beauty and a flirtatious yet chaste demeanor. The stereotype continues to have a powerful aspirational draw for many people. Today, they are associated with sweetness, hospitality, and cleverness. A southern belle will usually have a southern accent (the thicker the better). Books like We're Just Like You, Only Prettier, The Southern Belle Primer, and The Southern Belle Handbook draw inspiration from this archetype and are plentiful. Other current terms in popular culture related to "southern belles" include "Ya Ya Sisters," "GRITS (Girls Raised In The South)," "Sweet Potato Queens," and "Bulldozers disguised as powder-puffs."

To detractors, the southern belle stereotype is a symbol of repressed, "corseted" young women nostalgic for a bygone era; anti-feminist, racially prejudiced, and obsessed with material concerns.

[edit] Use in literature

Gone with the Wind is probably the most famous treatment of the southern belle. The character of Blanche DuBois in the play and film A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is a woman who tries desperately to convince others that she is a belle despite contradicting evidence. The character Amanda in Williams' The Glass Menagerie considers herself to be a southern belle, yet clearly has long since passed her years of youth. The movie Steel Magnolias showcases a variety of southern belles from differing social classes. Daisy in The Great Gatsby also epitomises the characteristics of being a southern belle, having been raised in Louisville, Kentucky.

Although a southern belle can be of any background, traditional symbols in film have often been juxtaposed to the enslaved woman or hired maid servant.