Reese Witherspoons Southern accent in her Draper James ad: hokey or fine?

Many commenters hate that I have strong feelings about bangs. But does anyone care that I also have strong feelings about accents? I do. I really do. More specifically, I have strong feelings about really over-the-top, hokey, patronizing accents. I loathe when British people “put on” an American accent to mock us. I hate when non-New Yorkers butcher the New York accent. No one but a true Bostonian should ever attempt the Boston accent. And living here in the South, I hate when people fake their Southern accents. When you’re attuned to the real Southern accent, a fake Southern accent sounds like fingernails on a chalk board.

Which brings me to Reese Witherspoon. Reese grew up in Tennessee. By any stretch of the imagination, she has a real Tennessee accent. After living and working in LA and doing many films where she had to lose the Southern accent and adopt a flatter, more all-purpose accent, I would suspect that Reese probably isn’t even conscious of when she sounds “Tennessee” and when she sounds “LA.” It happens. But whatever she’s doing in this promotional video for her Draper James brand is… too much. That’s not real. That’s hokey as hell.

Draper James is basically “Southern Goop,” at least that’s what Reese hopes. She wants Draper James to carve out a healthy piece of clothing/lifestyle/southern-charm pie. She wants the branding to be… like, nouveau Designing Women. Thus, the accent. It sounds awful. It’s like she’s trying to sound like Daisy Duke.

For reference, this is Reese’s natural accent, as heard on her arrest video. Keep in mind, she was sh-tfaced and most Southerns sound even more twangy when they’re drunk. That’s what she really sounds like. Not this fake-Alabama, “BISCUIT EMOJI Y’ALL” nonsense.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

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