Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Khan]

Most Texas that I've encountered don't have the so-called "Texan accent" - and if they do, it's not thick - because Texas, like Oklahoma, isn't a strictly Southern state.  It's more Southwest/Sunbelt than South.  You don't really encounter a true Southern accent until you go to, say, Arkansas or Missouri.  

Now, Texas, I would argue, is more ostentatious than Oklahoma, but even they get misrepresented all the time by characters like Florence Jean Castleberry on "Alice."  People criticized Donna Reed for the way she dressed as Miss Ellie on DALLAS - upscale, but not showy - but the truth is, that IS how older women from Texas dressed back then!  It's Barbara Bel Geddes who had it all wrong with all those Esther Walton originals.

Edited February 18 by Khan

[DRW50]

I suppose you could say early Josh and Trish fit the bill (was it stated in Marland's run that they were from Tulsa?). After that point I think they just got swept into Kobe/Long remaking Texas and the idea many had at that time that anyone in the South with money was just like the Ewing family.

Edited February 18 by DRW50

[Contessa Donatella]

Thanks. I understand, though, why they changed that.

Why it matters is obvious at least to me. Phillip destroyed Harley's house & if that was the beginning of its ramshackleness, then, you see?

[Reverend Ruthledge]

I'm originally from Texas so I can answer this. There isn't a "typical" Texas accent since it's so big. There are regional accents. However, the umbrella accent is the Texas twang. It is not at all like the Southern accent which is a slow drawl. Texans, by the way, consider themselves Texans first and foremost. Not really "Southern". Perhaps they will wear that term only because of their disdain for the North. But they never call themselves "Southerners" and they definitely don't have the Southern accent they do in the Deep South. The only other state where people have a somewhat similar accent to the Texan accent is Oklahoma. Albeit, it's a much milder form and it's usually just the way they pronounce certain words. People from Arkansas have a similar accent but only to East Texans (who have a different accent from the rest of Texas). The East Texas accent is a lot more twangy than the typical Texas twang (think Ross Perot for those of you old enough to do so). 

[Vee]

Precisely. There was no need for that. Phillip had been gone for years so whatever he did to the house was no longer relevant by 2008, and I sure don't remember seeing Harley living in a construction site before Peapack. They were just using frankly downmarket, rough-ass locations a lot of the time and it was embarrassing.

[Soaplovers]

I lived in Texas for a few years and I only heard an accent if I was in the Waco area, or in a smaller town that was isolated.

Austin, where I lived, didn't have any sort of accent...but they certainly were into the bigger the better mantra.

I lived in Texas in the late 2010s/early 2020s.

Perhaps maybe there was a more pronounced accent back in the 80s in Oklahoma/Texas.

[Reverend Ruthledge]

You are correct. In fact, I was going to mention that in my post. Things have changed. Especially in cities such as Austin which feels now like it has more transplants from other states than native Texans. I grew up in the 80s and I'm actually from Waco. I didn't even realize I had an accent until I moved to another state and people were making fun of my accent. When I go to Texas for visits now, I hear the accent less and less. 

[Contessa Donatella]

As a Southerner, and for most of my early life, someone from the Deep South, I have always said that in general neither Texans nor Floridians are Southerners.

[Khan]

ICAM!!

[DRW50]

I guess George W Bush might be one of the last examples of a Texas accent on the broad national stage. 

I just read that Larry Gates, whose most famous roles were as Southerners, was born in Minnesota. He stayed there until he graduated from college and then went to Virginia, per his Wiki. I wonder if he ever talked about why he was so often cast in those parts.

I am not sure if any of the Lewis actors were born in the South - not sure where Rebecca Hollen was born. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

Interesting.  I do remember on Another World in the 1970s and 80s, the entire Frame family was from Oklahoma and none of them had any type of identifiable accent.  

[Contessa Donatella]

But, Beverlee McKinsey as Iris on AW had what was called a "honey-dripping" accent, which I do not think is a real thing.

[P.J.]

I never watched Texas. I do want to stress that I don't blame the actors, who were obviously directed to do that. I did notice that when they weren't all together (and by the '90's), it toned down a lot. God, when Kimmer started, I'm surprised she didn't sprain her tongue.

What was odd was that Billy, Trish and Josh weren't nearly as "southern" when they debuted. It ramps up with HB and his yee-haws and Reva and her thick (at times) accent.

Stillwater, Oklahoma, according to a blurb from SOD when she debuted.

[Mona Kane Croft]

Yes, Beverlee did have a slight accent which didn't really fit the character who had been raised in Manhattan and in boarding-schools in Europe.  But still, it worked.  And I doubt most casual fans even noticed it.  

[DRW50]

Thanks. That explains why Trish always felt like the most believable to me of the family.

I think you could just write Iris off as eccentric.