From the makers of Gossip Girl, Hart of Dixie created by Leila Gerstein, first aired on September 26th 2011 on the CW. Two years later it also aired in Germany on SIXX. Starring Rachel Bilson, former main character from the O.C., as the main character doctor Zoe Hart. It’s a comedy-dramatic show that is set in the South, dealing with conflicts of the area as well as showing stereotypes and anti –stereotypes being brought to life at the Warner Brothers lot in Hollywood, California.
Having watched the show and being pretty addicted to it we thought it would be a fitting artifact for our class blog. We wanted to focus on the different characters of the show with its stereotypes and how they actually change throughout the series and the little fictional town BlueBell itself.
“Oh ok, someone needs to tell the people of this town that it's 2011”
New Yorker to the core, Zoe Hart is focused and dedicated to become a cardio-thoracic surgeon, just like her father. The big city image is reflected in her way of talking very fast and moreover in her style of clothing. She's used to the hectic, fast forward and anonymous living in the big city. She is being told to work as a GP for a year to become a better doctor, so she gets the fellowship she wants.
Zoe decides to accept an offer from a stranger, Dr. Harley Wilkes, to work with him at his small medical practice in BlueBell, Alabama. Turns out that Harley had passed away and left his half of the medical practice to her in his will. Zoe Hart couldn't be more out of place although she's trying to fit in and adapt to life in a small close-knit town. It's obvious that two worlds are crashing into each other. Zoe often finds herself in trouble through not understanding the prideful Southerners' ways and also the due to the town’s lack of acceptance and integration. Her way of thinking still causes a lot of difficulties in adapting into the southern culture and the small town.
“BlueBell is who I am”
Everyone loves George Tucker, town’s golden boy and a real southern gentleman; he also is the only lawyer in BlueBell, working at his own small firm. He used to live in New York for 2 years, to work at a renowned law firm. Breaking up with Lemon because he has deep feelings for Zoe, he finds himself not just torn between two women but also torn between his hometown BlueBell and the adventurous New York City, two worlds which couldn’t be more different.
"I would offer you to give you a ride but I don't want you to get any ideas”
Being a womanizer and a bad boy he is a bartender at the Rammer Jammer. Even though he doesn’t want to show any feelings he cares a lot about his father who is a drunk. Handing him money whenever his father asks for it, Wade doesn’t know that he is actually burying it all in his backyard to save it for his son. Having deep feelings for Zoe, he still tries to keep up his “I don’t care about anything” attitude trying to remain the cool guy, which turns out to be quite fatal for him.
After Wade and Lemon win a big prize together they decide to buy the Rammer Jammer and become partners, fulfilling his dream of having his own bar one day, making him feel like he really achieved something instead of just feeling like a failure all the time.
“Why do you make fun of us? Why do you laugh at the things we eat? Why do you mock our traditions? Is it because you think you're better than us?”
Since her mother left when she was younger, Lemon is taking care of her father, Brick Breeland, and her teenage sister Magnolia, trying to replace her mother as good as possible.
You can’t help but notice that Lemon dislikes Zoe even more than her father does, not really surprising, considering Zoe being the reason her engagement to George Tucker broke. Although she wasn’t too innocent herself, given her affair with Lavon, when George lived in New York. Zoe turns her life upside down, facing new challenges in her life.
Lemon being the epitome of BlueBell’s Southern Belles, is going through a lot of changes throughout the series. At first she is perfectly satisfied with just being a Belle, always looking perfect, with her main goal to get married and become a housewife, she suddenly wants to achieve more in her life.
Her first real attempt to work for a living, by sharing a catering company with her best friend didn’t work out too well. However after becoming a bar owner she really seems to be satisfied in her new role as a working woman.
“I am Mayor Lavon Hayes”
After a great career as a linebacker, who played in the NFL for ten years, Lavon Hayes decided to move back home and was elected Mayor of BlueBell. Lavon is Zoe's best friend and tries to mediate between Zoe and the town. He combines the old and the new south in his character. Lavon is a local boy and proud of his home town. He cherishes and celebrates the different traditions with pride. He is representing a new generation and a futuristic way of thinking by promoting the town and its attraction. People look up to him and treat him with a lot of respect. He loves to talk in the third person to underline his status. He really fits into the position of a mayor because he exactly knows who he is; he knows the town and the people. He is easygoing and would make any sacrifice to showcase BlueBell as the place to be. Lavon owns a plantation where his great, great grandparents once worked.
“Dr. Brick Breeland is no one's assistant. Most certainly not to some arrogant New York newbie“
Brick Breeland is the home town doctor and symbolizes the past and traditional way of thinking. After Wilkes’ death he carried the sole medical responsibility of BlueBell. Compared to Lavon, Brick has a deeply rooted suspicion towards strangers and in this case people outside from BlueBell. He knows his town and the people by heart so he uses this advantage towards Zoe to show her that she is no threat to him with her medical abilities. Although he seems like Zoe's counterpoint, he always has the best interest of BlueBell in mind. Being left by his wife, he is very glad to have Lemon, who takes on the responsibilities of a mother role. He spoils both of his daughters and seems to be a little bit overwhelmed in some parental cases. But still, the southern values like being family orientated, loyal and hard working are combined in his character. Brick symbolizes the old fashioned, southern gentleman.
BlueBell is fictionally located around 30 miles from Mobile, Alabama. Its location is approximately where the real town of Point Clear, Alabama is situated. The fictional setting for Hart of Dixie, BlueBell, Alabama was founded many years ago, in 1702, by Cyrus Lavinius Jeremiah Jones.
It's about as traditional as a place gets. The main character Zoe Hart gets immediately confronted with the town’s traditions and festivities. She and Lemon first meet while Lemon and her fellow belles are in full Civil War-era garb in the town square, keeping BlueBell's tradition alive.
BlueBell's people are showing great values in loving and caring for each other. As a lot of real small towns in the south or in general, it has its own tons of town traditions, like various competitions and celebrations on the town square which are unique to their town (Gumbo Cook-Off, Planksgiving, Miss Cinnamon Cider Pageant, Turtle Derby,..). The story is often based on those events in the town. But not only are the town traditions important but also the family genealogy. The people are deeply connected with the past and the way they established themselves in the town's history.
They try to maintain the town in its historical values and are generally careful towards new things and people. BlueBell's inhabitants are sweet and down-to-Earth and simple but not in the "slow" sense but in the anti-materialistic sense.
Various stereotypes about the south are shown in the series but not in a ridiculous kind of way but to emphasize the differences between the culture clashes even more. These include: a bus dropping Zoe Hart off on her way to BlueBell in the middle of a field with a place-name sign: BlueBell 3 Miles, a kindly stranger in a pick-up truck immediately wanting to rescue her; women in colorful hoop dresses dancing in the town square; a mayor who lives on an old plantation and everyone talking behind Zoe's back because she's a "Yankee."
The southern hospitality is a huge priority to Bluebell: particularly warm, sweet, and welcoming to visitors to their homes, or to the South in general. But whereas Mayor Hayes and George Tucker are welcoming Zoe the majority of Bluebell's inhabitants are suspicious and treading her as an intruder.
One would think that privacy in those small towns is nearly non-existent that is if you take BlueBell as a role model.
Every fact and gossip, howsoever small and unimportant it is, will be transformed into the spectacular subject of the town. It seems like a natural thing and a logical consequence if you put the town and according to that the people in the center of attention. A paragon would be the four old ladies sitting on a bench in town square talking about the latest gossip.
But how does “Hart of Dixie” deal with the “real” South and its issues?
The panel discussed the South with reverence. There aren't any special episodes addressing racial issues in the Deep South. This show wants to keep it light. “Hart of Dixie” presents a small town where characters of different ‘races’ get along by using a divers cast including African Americans and Asian Americans as part of BlueBell's inhabitants.
It tries to show the rural South in a fair light and it may help to make the South a little more accessible to some people who have never been there. But it is still a show in the romantic dramedy genre.
There are some critics about the fictional town of BlueBell and how it would stand to represent the South as a whole. In our opinion some of those critics are not justified. “Hart of Dixie” never proclaimed to illustrate the “real” South. It's a comedy-drama not a documentary report. Of course one can expect an insight into the south because of the setting of the series but it is clear from the beginning that the series is playing with the image of the south and its people in an entertaining way be it through the Characters or the town itself. We can't lose sight of the entertaining aspect of this television series. The humor is the key. The show does touch upon racial boundaries (the relationship between Lavon and Lemon) and Deep South stereotypes, but at its heart, it's a feel-good comedy. Its complete disregard of racial relations and the tension that still exists in the South e.g. by cast an African American as the mayor of Bluebell. The series doesn't show any difficulties of having a black man as the head of the town. Also he's living and owning a plantation where his relatives used to work at. The series shows disregard for the connection to slavery.
“Hart of Dixie” doesn’t address the complexities of interracial relationships in the South, relationships that characters on the show float into and out of with no worries or reservations and consequences. The series shows in this particular aspect a way of forward thinking and demonstrate how it should be, but unfortunately not how it is nowadays.
On her way to become a cardio-thoracic surgeon, Zoe Hart, a young New Yorker doctor, didn’t get the fellowship she wanted. As she said, “[she] put all her eggs in the wrong basket”. Trying to become a better doctor, she takes up an offer to work as a general practitioner in BlueBell, Alabama.
A whole new world, she could have never imagined opens up to her in BlueBell. She finds out that the old man who kept offering her a job at his practice, was her biological father, who left her half the practice after he died. In BlueBell things are completely different, compared to New York City.
Not all of the people in BlueBell are too happy about her arrival. It seems like those southerners are not too happy about changes. Zoe tries to gain patients in order to keep one half of the practice, which is kind of difficult given the fact that not a lot of people want her in their small town in the first place. Besides the struggles at work Zoe finds herself having deep feelings for George who is engaged to Lemon, her arch-enemy. It seems like nothing is working out for her the way she was used to anymore. Although George calls off his weeding, Zoe doesn’t want to be a rebound girl and decided that he should find himself a girl that he really cares about and date her. He found that girl in Wade’s ex-wife, Tansy. It takes Zoe quite some time until she finally falls for bad-boy Wade. Their relationship starts off rather complicated but develops into something real, which Wade screwed up in the end.
The people of BlueBell grow to love and appreciate Zoe as a member of their town, just as Zoe grows to love the town and its people as well.
All of the characters have their ups and downs throughout the show, which keeps it interesting and makes you want to see what happens next. Among others the show is loaded with love stories, drama, medicine, fashion and lots of humor. It shows the romantic image of a southern small town as well as dealing with some of the conflicts of changes and integration. It’s a wonderful show and really worth watching. We can’t wait for the next season to start.
"The Heart of Dixie" what does it even mean? Some research told us that “The Heart of Dixie” was a phrase developed in the 1940s and 1950s by the Alabama Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber sought a more distinctive slogan for their state and promoted that "Alabama is geographically the Heart of Dixie". In 1951, with backing from the Alabama Chamber of Commerce, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill to add "Heart of Dixie" to automobile license plates. And according to the Oxford English Dictionary is “Heart of Dixie” the informal name for Alabama.
To us "Hart of Dixie" is not only a wordplay with Zoe’s last name ‘Hart’ and the actual word ‘heart’, since the series is about Zoe and her love life but also deals with all the difficulties that come with love in general, but also the ‘hart/heart’ more specifically about her medical abilities. Her assistant medical director criticizes her for not having enough HEART and sympathy for her patients and not caring enough for their personal issues. Furthermore it is looks like an Oxymoron, given her surname Hart sounding like the word “hard” in case of difficult to deal with, not soft or being ruthless but also means ‘heart’ which is the exact opposite to it. It describes her personal attitude and character at the beginning and implies her change throughout the series, when ‘hard’ slowly changes into ‘heart’. She is not only becoming a better doctor but more importantly she is becoming a better person.
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