“Now I don’t know about y’all, but I sure as hell didn’t come down from the goddamn smoky mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily, and then jump out of a fuckin' air-o-plane, to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain’t got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass-murderin' manic, and they need to be destroyed.”
Lieutenant Aldo Raine welcomes his Jewish-American soldier unit along with the audience of the film “Inglorious Basterds” with this little allocution. We don’t even need to hear the second half of his first sentence – as soon as Brad Pitt opens his mouth it is unmistakable in our reception that this character is from the Southern States of America.
This Southern accent was influenced by the early immigrants including the Scots and Irish. In addition the history of slaves and the interactions between Anglo European settlers and African-Americans effected the way people talk in the Southern states. The most recognizable feature of the contemporary dialect is the way many Southerners pronounce the vowel which is often elongated. Instead of a short and distinct “Hi” we get “Hah” – this is known as the Southern drawl.
His language might be the most outstanding attribute but there are other things that shape Aldo as a man from the South. Our pop culture-craving brain is actually full of features and ideas about the Southeastern and South-central part of the United States – whether we have been to Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma or Texas or we have not. Besides the “y’all” and the way he pronounces “killin’ nazi business” the aware movie watcher notices many more peculiar traits.
Naturally we immediately take in his outer appearance and maybe detect the huge scar on his neck which is probably not by accident very visible in his first scene. The scar verifies another idea about people from the South: they’re prone to violence. Being the leader of the so-called Inglorious Basterds who are out to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible this image of the violent Southern man applies to Aldo pretty accurately.
To put it in a nutshell it is obvious that Aldo Raine meets most of our main perceived Southern images. He is a very strong and relentless character, but he can also dress up nicely and look like a gentleman as he does when he accompanies Bridget von Hammersmark to her movie premiere. He prides himself in his heritage; emphasizing that he is a direct descendant of legendary mountain man Jim Bridger. He even sniffs tobacco like nobody’s business. The intriguing thing to consider about this outline of his character is that it was actually done by a “Southern child”! Just like Aldo , Quentin Tarantino grew up in Tennessee. So even though we get an exaggerated and overdone characater of a Southern man it is not done by an outsider who imagines people from the South to behave this way – it is Tarantino’s own perception and his tribute to his hometown.
This typecasting of a regional character is not just created to amuse the audience; because we have all these images about a certain region we also subconsciously have expectations of that character. Aldo starts talking and we pretty much know he is not the nice guy of the story – he’s not the villain either. Our knowledge of people from that area determines our expectations of how the movie will play out. Simultaneously it determines how the character affects the story line. Aldo is going to do his best to accomplish his goal to contribute to win this war and he is not afraid of violence. In fact he is so unafraid he uses the traditional act of Native Americans of scalping his victims to provide a trophy of battle.
Drawing a line to another component of the character – he is also an American. Now there are a few American charcters depicted in the film, but we get the idea that Aldo personifies the ultimate American. Be it good or bad. In a very amusing scene three of Basterds pretend to be Italian so they are not to be recognized as Americans. This is complicated by the fact that none of them are able to speak another language. For Europeans this is a typical trait of Americans, they can only speak English. On a more positive notion the goal of the Basterds is to fight the National Social party of Germany and by that bring freedom to Europe. Throughout history the United States has obtained external politics that help other nations to become democratic and free – by all available means.
From the perspective of our theme: exploring the culture and ideas of a specific region represented in an popcultural artifact the film by Quentin Tarantino is a perfect example of how regional traits in people play out in the course of a movie. We are thrown in the middle of the Second World War and watch characters from the States, France, Great Britain and Germany deal and dialogue with each other. Throw in some Nazis and Jews. The film does not only focus on the brutal outcome of this fictional war but also includes as many regional traits and iconic symbols as Tarantino managed to fit in. The conversations of the characters are just as if not more crucial than the physical conflicts.
So we urge you when watching this masterpiece to not only pay attention to the bombs and fires going off, but listen to the people of different nations and backgrounds trying to communicate with each other. The outcome of their dialogues is sometimes just as fatal as Lieutenant Raine reaching for his scalp knife.
Sources:
- http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/AmericanDialects.htm
- http://wiki.tarantino.info/index.php?title=Lt._Aldo_Raine&oldid=19845
- http://inglouriousbasterds.wikia.com/wiki/Aldo_Raine
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