General Sociology: Sweet Home Alabama

Teddy Olson
Ms. Pendleton
General Sociology
14 March 2016
Sweet Home Alabama
A girl from Alabama named Melanie turned Fashion Designer in order to make it big in New York. After getting her big debut at the launch of her clothing line's first runway show she gets a big surprise as her boyfriend Andrew, the mayor's son, proposes to her. Shortly after being proposed to, she drives back home to Alabama to try and get her husband, Jake, to divorce her so she can marry her fiancée Andrew without him knowing she was married before. But throughout her stay in Alabama, Jake refuses her request to sign the divorce papers over and over and the two of them get into shenanigans, fighting, and reminiscing about their pasts and the rest of the small town

adventures of her past. Eventually Jake gives in and signs the divorce papers, but during the time she has spent in her hometown Melanie's begun to have second thoughts about her life. Melanie and Jake talk about their past for a while and briefly kiss before Jake tells her that she should go back to New York. But as she wrestles with her past emotions and gets ready to leave for New York, her fiancée arrives in town to surprise her and Andrew learns of her secret ex-husband. Melanie's fiancée storms off, disappointed in her for lying to him, before returning a short while later accepting her past mistakes.
Melanie and Andrew fly back to New York to plan their wedding, which Melanie decides should be held in her hometown of Alabama, much to Andrew's mother's chagrin.

So with their quiet country wedding planned out, the two fly back to New York. Now back in the south, Melanie and her friends from New York visit a large glass shop/restaurant that that find out is owned by Jake, who has apparently been selling glassware inspired by memories from their childhood. Now worrying about the wedding and second-guessing her decision to marry Andrew, Melanie and her family meet with Andrew and his mom to finish preparations for the

wedding.
With all the preparations complete the day of the wedding is upon them, as a storm begins rolling into town. With everyone in their seats Melanie starts walking down the aisle when, suddenly, the ceremony is interrupted by an old man with urgent news! He has Melanie's divorce paperwork in hand and says that while she got Jake to sign the documents Melanie never signed them. Looking back on everything, and with pen and paper in hand, Melanie tells Andrew that he doesn't really want to marry her, and that she can't marry him. So as the rain begins to pour, she leaves the ceremony and drives off to find Jake out in the storm at the spot of their childhood memories. Melanie confesses her feelings to him and after some heartfelt banter and a kiss in the rain, they drive back to the half finished wedding, eat cake, and dance away to the tune of “Sweet Home Alabama” as the credits begin to roll.
This movie plays a lot into folkways and norms of these two very different social groups, those between the people and culture of New York versus the lifestyle and friends in Melanie's hometown in Alabama. The traditional behaviors and folkways of this small southern town in Alabama tend to be more neighborly, with mostly medium to large families with low-income, and where everyone in town knows everyone else. Whereas the norms and folkways in New York are more those of a dangerous dog-eat-dog race to be the best, where your social image can make or break your road to success. One example where these two different folkways clashed is a scene from the movie where Melanie's dad offers to show the mayor of New York his “fancy” chair. And while this chair, with it's fold-out capabilities, may be fancy for this low-income southern household, it's not really something you want to show off to the Mayor of New York, but since Melanie's dad didn't know this he showed her how it worked and the Mayor freaked out.
Sweet Home Alabama also demonstrates some good examples of social stratification.

Social stratification is a system that ranks people in categories based off of social inequality that arises between groups of people. As Melanie grew up in a low-income area and decided to move out to New York to make it big in New York, she was more well-liked and accepted by her peers. However, once Melanie went back to Alabama, the locals weren't a big fan of her new social status and her rich-folk, better than us, attitude. But Melanie was also guilty of pre-judging her old friends due to their lower social standings and simplistic lifestyles, even going so far as to accuse Jake of doing illegal activities when she found out he had made a sizable amount of

money.
And finally, the looking-glass self is a big player behind the scenes of this movie. The looking glass self is a concept that explains how we view ourselves in the way that we believe others see us. Good examples of this concept in action during the movie would be Andrew's mother, the Mayor of New York, always trying to keep her son out of trouble to save the votes, or looking into Melanie's past to uncover any secrets she may be hiding before the press can use them against her. But this concept also came into play several times when Jake discovered how Melanie was making it big in New York and he decided that he wouldn't be good enough in her eyes, so he went out and made an upstart glass-making business.