🎧 'White Lotus' & Southern Discomfort
I talk to Mississippi-born TikTok star Landon Bryant about Parker Posey's drawl and Dixie doyenne archetype
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For many avid viewers of The White Lotus, there is infinite joy to be found in Parker Posey’s delivery of words like “tsunami” and “Buddhism.” For me, though, it’s Jason Isaacs’ “money laundering” and “am I implicated?” that really seal the deal.
The Southern accents on White Lotus are among a long list of character features and plot elements that have viewers obsessing. Those drawls may seem like surface stuff compared to the incest, violence and general mayhem at the show’s lush, fictional Thailand resort, but consider this: A clip of Posey imitating her character on the Today show exploded on socials, quickly inspiring its own trend of real North Carolinians reciting some of her de facto catchphrases: “Tsunami. Buddhism. No!!!”
As a native Southerner, I’m always interested — and a little apprehensive — when actors from elsewhere try to tackle the accents I’m so familiar with. Same goes for Landon Bryant, better known on TikTok and Instagram as Landon Talks, who lives in the same small Mississippi town where Posey grew up. Early in this season of The White Lotus, Bryant rode to her defense: Parker Posey is a Mississippi icon, and her character talks exactly like all the women you’d find at the country club.
I’ve followed Bryant for years for his funny takes on hyper-specific bits of Southern culture like pallets and caftans, and asked him to join me on this week’s episode to talk not just about White Lotus and Posey, but also other Southern pop culture icons. We were both raised by the divas of Designing Women and Steel Magnolias and remember well the disappointment of movies and TV shows that got our region totally wrong.
I also talk to Bryant about the current landscape for online creators interested in making the leap to Hollywood, as he is. On next week’s pod, I’ll have a conversation with The Ankler’s own Natalie Jarvey, author of Ankler Media’s Like & Subscribe newsletter, where we really get into the nitty gritty of the creator economy. Consider this conversation with Bryant a preview — and also a rallying call for anyone setting a movie or TV show in the South to please, please have him look at your script for an authenticity check.
Hear it all on this week’s podcast, and check out Bryant’s new book, Bless Your Heart: A Field Guide to All Things Southern, available everywhere today.
