
          The Salt of Memory— Nostalgia, Class, and the Lesbian in
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
          By Wilson, JulieJulie Wilson
          Volume 14, No. 3, pp. 5-11
          
          
            "Of course, most of the house is all boarded up
and falling down now, but when we came down the street, the
headlights hit the windows in such a way that, just for a minute, that
house looked to me just like it had... some seventy years ago, all lit
up and full of fun and noise... I guess, driving by that house and me
being so homesick made me go back in my mind... "—Ninny
Threadgoode1
          
          Ninny's words strike a clear, piercing note in the heart of rural
Americans who have witnessed the steady erosion of their farms, towns,
and lives. Trying to read about such experiences is never easy. Trying
to write well about them may be even harder. One author who gives it a
try is Fannie Flagg—a successful Southerner extraordinaire. A talented
radio personality, television comedienne, film actress, and most
recently novelist, Flagg has a distinctive style. She exhibited this
individuality as early as her teens, when she wore a wet suit, mask,
and flippers in the Miss Alabama swimsuit competition. This quirky,
feminist humor shows up in her novels Daisy Fay and the Miracle
Man (1981) and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop
Cafe (1987). Flagg exhibits a gift for storytelling. She spins
her tales at the deceptively easy going pace of the Southern, rural American
grapevine. If you rely on stereotype alone, you will most certainly
overlook Flagg's complicated characters and messages. Fried Green
Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe especially demonstrates this
sophistication. Recently adapted to film, the characters Ninny, Idgie,
Ruth, and Evelyn endear themselves to us as old friends. My mother and
I came home after seeing the movie and speculated for hours (a


crucial downhome activity) about these women's lives. Although we are
Midwesterners and they are Southerners, we recognized a rural
connection and excitedly chatted about them as we do people who live
or once lived just down the road.
          We soon discovered that one very troubling thing happens to the
reader or viewer of Flagg's story. It seems the subject matter induces
a nostalgic homesickness. Images of rural America—especially,
it seems, of the rural South—when presented to the larger
culture can appear to be an untapped wellspring of bright solidarity
and folksy idealism. Of course, those of us who live in the fields and
valleys know that this is a tainted stereotype; yet, like Ninny
Threadgoode, we can still be tempted to "go back in our minds" to an
imagined past.
          Nostalgia, that longing for things, persons, or situations that are
not present, comes from the Latin root word nostos which means "a return." Both the German and
French words for nostalgia (heim weh and nostalgie, respectively) mean "homesickness." In
the book Nostalgia and Sexual Difference Janice Doane
and Devon Hodges describe nostalgia as a counterproductive yearning
that not only "put[s] women in their place—[but puts] writing
in its place too."2That place is
always decidedly in a nonthreatening past. "In a nostalgic mode of
articulation," they explain, "the referent...acts as an authentic
origin or center from which to disparage the degenerate present."3 As described by these authors,
nostalgia can be considered a dangerously propagandistic part of some
representations. Interestingly, Fredric Jameson disagrees. He cautions
us from entirely dismissing nostalgic narrative. He writes,"...if
nostalgia as a political motivation is most frequently associated with
Fascism, there is no reason why a nostalgia conscious of itself, a
lucid and remorseless dissatisfaction with the present...cannot
furnish as adequate a revolutionary stimulus as any other."4 When we engage a novel or film like
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe we cannot
ignore the troubling, dialectical nature of nostalgia.
          How often do those of us who identify as rural Americans wish we
could return to the past? Certainly we are uncomfortable with the
present—crumbling homesteads, flattened economies, bumpkin
stereotypes. But homesickness is a symptom of some systemic malady,
not a cure for it. We should explore nostalgia by asking questions of
it: Can a representation of rural America exist without nostalgia?
Does the nostalgia in Flagg's novel tend to most easily placate white rural Americans? What are the dangers of
succumbing to the repressive impulses of nostalgia (unexamined racism,
classism, and heterosexism) that Jameson describes? And at the same
time, how can we appreciate the prophetic poignancy of Flagg's rural
American characters without attempting to run back to the past and be
comforted by them?
          Perhaps bell hooks begins to answer these difficult
questions. Whites can learn much from advice she offers the
African-American community in her book Yearning. She
writes, "If we fall prey to the contemporary ahistorical mood, we will
forget that we have not stayed in one place, that we have journeyed
away from home .... We have not gone the distance, but we can never
turn back."5 It takes a brave pair
of eyes to keep looking forward in today's political and cultural
climate. Those of us who are white must especially listen carefully to
hooks' words. We must find a way to allow narratives like Flagg's to
infuse us with a forward-looking strength, not a back-paddling
homesickness. I don't believe Flagg intentionally wishes to blur our
vision. A close look at her novels shows that she has considered those
peculiar institutions of racism, heterosexism, and classism. However,
beneath her work rushes a strong undercurrent of nostalgia. The most
overt manifestations of this precarious undertow appear in the film
adaptation of the novel where, unfortunately, a good deal of
ahistorical license reigns.
          We can use the text of Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe to demonstrate several disturbing trends in contemporary American culture. First of all, it seems that we use nostalgia to trivialize rural narratives. Flagg's stories are most often labeled "oldtimey" or "sentimental." I believe discounting rural experience in such a way allows us to deposit mythological "traditional family values" into the stereotype of the rural American. We also show a tendency to displace class onto the figure of the outsider, since at heart we believe that American culture is classless. How do we do this? Most often by denying our contemporary class locations—other times we do it by displacing class onto race. Unfor-

tunately, we also have an habitual tendency to overlook gay, lesbian,
or bisexual lives in these narratives. For example, we contort lesbian
sexuality into the universal, unthreatening value of "friendship."
This is because we believe we will keep lesbians powerless by
enclosing them in the homophobic circle of the traditional American
family.
          
            The Story
          
          Let's take a closer look, then, at Fannie Flagg's novel
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and see
what we find there. There are many story lines in this book, weaving
from the past into the present and back. We are introduced to a white,
Southern, middle-aged, working-class housewife named Evelyn
Couch. Evelyn and her husband Ed are coded as upper
working-class—by the house they live in (tiny clone
subdivision), Ed's occupation (insurance agent), Evelyn's career
aspirations (Mary Kay dealer), their cars (Fort Escort and Ford
LTD—known as "the poor man's Lincoln") and food and drink cues
such as the omnipresent can of Budweiser.
          Quite by accident Evelyn meets Ninny Threadgoode at the Rose
Terrace nursing home. Ninny is a spry eighty-six year-old (white,
Southern, and rural-American) who enjoys telling stories about her
past. She wryly notes, "It's funny, when you're a child you think time
will never go by, but when you hit about twenty, time passes like
you're on the fast train to Memphis" (p.
6). Evelyn's friendship with Ninny changes her life. At first a deeply
depressed woman who feels her life is out of control, Evelyn
eveatually takes charge of it with the help of Ninny, Stresstabs
Number Ten, and Mary Kay cosmetics.
          Through her memories, Ninny narrates other story lines; these take
place in her hometown of Whistle Stop, Alabama, and are mainly
concerned with two white_women (Idgie and Ruth) who ran the Whistle
Stop Cafe in the 1920s and 30s. The cafe operated as a community
center of sorts that brought people together. Of course, it's
necessary to point out that the cafe brought primarily white_people
together in a time of severe segregation. African-Americans were
quietly sold food from the back door of the cafe.
          Although Flagg does not label Idgie and Ruth "lesbian," she codes them as such. This problematizes the novel by encouraging a more complicated look at early twentieth-century American society. In the film adaptation, Ninny says, "Everyone was in love with Ruth," and we are supposed to know that this includes Idgie as well. Friendship, or more specifically, what Catharine Stimpson calls primal love is the dominant thread in the fabric of these stories.6 The two main bonds are those between Idgie and Ruth in the early twentieth century and Evelyn and Ninny in the late twentieth century. Evelyn is so depressed she fantasizes about suicide; Ninny saves her from this fate. Evelyn also saves Ninny by becoming her


emotional support. Idgie saves Ruth's life by rescuing her from a
violent marriage. And Ruth saves Idgie from a lonely and aimless
alcoholic existence. Other story lines show Sipsey saving Ruth's baby,
and the Whistle Stop Cafe's owners saving homeless transients from
starvation. Most often, Flagg suggests that bonds of friendship lead
to salvation of one kind or another.
          It might be a good idea to take a closer look at one thing these
women are saving their friends from—marriage. For Idgie, it
doesn't exist as a possibility. For Ruth, it is a violent and vicious
trap. For Evelyn, marriage has alienated her from a good view of herself and a connection to other women. Out of this foursome, only
for Ninny is marriage represented as positive and lifegiving. And
incidentally, she buried her husband thirty-one years before she met
Evelyn!
          An important story line in Flagg's novel tells the tale of the
African-American characters Sipsey, her son George, his wife Onzell,
and their children Naughty Bird, Jasper, and Arvis. Flagg attempts to
place the realities of African-American life next to the realities of
white life in order to show the real-lived texture of racism in
twentieth-century America. This story line is important because of the
way Flagg develops the African-American characters. An omniscient
narrator exposes the hardships these characters face, as well as the
joys they experience. These sections ground the book and help the
reader resist a cloudy, ahistorical nostalgia. Flagg successfully
persuades the reader that this period of history is certainly not one
African-American characters would wish to return to. This information
should give the homesick white person some pause. To the detriment of
the film, however, the story of Sipsey's family is not included. This
makes the movie much more vulnerable to nostalgic racism. In the film,
the African-American characters are only seen in servant/worker
representations (except for when Sipsey attends a funeral). We do see
the characters of Mrs. Otis's daughter Naughty Bird and the nurse
Geneene—but not often enough to balance out the subservient
representations.
          Much dramatic tension in the story comes from the character of
Ruth's abusive husband Frank Bennett. Sipsey murders Frank when he
comes to steal Ruth's baby. This murder becomes an important element
in the plot of the novel. Idgie takes the rap for Sipsey, because she
assumes the law will gladly hang an African-American woman for a white
man's murder. In the novel this justifiable homicide is part of the
plotline, but it doesn't really become more important than Evelyn and
Ninny's story, Ruth and Idgie's story, or the story of Sipsey's
family. Of course, it certainly is not incidental to the
plot—it operates as a taut thread that pulls the other stories
together. In the film this murder is raised to a more central plot
position where it provides conventional suspense for the viewer.
          Ultimately, in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle

Stop Cafe the main event is Evelyn's profound life change. She
achieves this transformation by listening to stories about Ruth and
Idgie's life together. Although Ninny tells other stories, the ones
about Idgie and Ruth are the ones that Evelyn repeatedly asks for and
about. Interestingly, her identification with and empowerment through
lesbians would support the argument that this story can be seen as
inherently lesbian. It also seems as though the story plays best to a
white, female audience of all sexual persuasions. Evelyn's
transformation is a good example of the dialectical nature of
nostalgia. Although she is positively influenced by Ninny's memories,
she also nearly loses touch with reality because of her obsession with
them. Flagg writes, "Sitting there all these weeks listening to
stories about the cafe and Whistle Stop had become more of a reality
than her own life with Ed in Birmingham" (p. 134).
          What about Class?
          Identified by sociologists as one of the fundamental types of
social stratification, "class" is a difficult term to define in
contemporary American society. Much of this is because of an overt
mystification of class, as well as definite regional variations of
this horizontal layering. Most Americans, when asked, will identify
themselves as middle-class. There are usually only two factors people
take into consideration when asked about their class
location—education and income. Womanist Katie Cannon challenges
this simplistic notion by positing at least thirteen clear class
indicators—among them ancestry, social distance, manners,
values, and language. In the book The Imperial Middle
Benjamin DeMott writes, "Several hallowed
concepts—independence, individualism, choice—are woven
into this [American] web of illusion and self-deception. But presiding
over the whole stands the icon of classlessness...."7 Despite obfuscation, ignorance, and
outright denial, class does operate as a major force in American
society. The class structure of nineteenth-century industrial
capitalism as theorized by Weber and Marx has changed over time, to be
sure, yet it remains a relevant point of departure for any analysis of
American culture.
          Far from being absent, class permeates Flagg's Fried Green
Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe—both the novel and
the film. Often, however, a feel-good nostalgia threatens to blur our
view of it by making us feel so warmly about Whistle Stop, Alabama,
that we fail to take a clear-eyed look at the class structure in place
there. By wiping our eyes we can begin to see that Whistle Stop
society indeed has clear class divisions. It seems a good argument to
posit that class is most obviously displaced onto the figure of the
outsider—primarily the African-American community, white
transients, and racist villain Frank Bennett.
          Whistle Stop residents appear to be fairly homogeneous in the
story; they seem to be free of hierarchy. Even Poppa
Threadgoode—probably the most stable figure in Whistle
Stop—as Ninny remembers, "...wasn't rich, but it seemed to us
at the time he was. He owned the only store in town" (p. 26). Whistle
Stop consists of a group of like-minded, cohesive citizens. Perhaps
they ultimately represent the traditional American family community;
purportedly always middle-class and certainly always white.
          Class distinctions become most apparent when the outsider enters
the scene. We see some examples of a lower class in the figures of
white, homeless transients who drop in and out of Whistle Stop. The
upper classes are perhaps represented by Frank Bennett. He is
definitely an outsider—an out-of-stater who owns eight-hundred
acres of land. His shoes are polished to a bright sheen and he has his
hair barbered regularly. Unfortunately, the film confuses this notion
somewhat by representing Bennett's home as shoddy and
unpainted. Lastly, the institution of racism creates obvious
outsiders.
          Whistle Stop is a town where whites exist in a position of race and
class power over African-Americans, who live across the tracks in an
area called "Troutville." In Ninny's memories they are all dirt
poor—seemingly only one class of people. Flagg tries to show us
much more; the intersection of class and race is complicated in the
novel when she includes middle to upper-class African-American
characters. Our omniscient narrator shows us Chicago and Birmingham
communities where the population is much more diverse. George and
Onzell's son Arvis, for example, falls in love with a town very
different from Troutville. In "the overalls of a country boy" he views
Birmingham, Alabama—an exciting, turbulent urban environment
unlike slow-moving Troutville.
          Unfortunately, the filmmakers confuse an already confusing issue by
trying not to displace class onto race. In order to demonstrate that
everyone in Whistle Stop is really equal, they show the town of
Troutville as a shanty town with African-Americans and whites living
together in poverty. One scene even goes so far as to show Ruth
teaching a racially integrated group of small children how to
read. The filmmakers end up exercising too much license with
historical reality here. The book, to its credit, attempts to describe
the more accurate situation of strictly segregated racism.
          
            What about Lesbians?
          
          The lesbian as a category of identity is a phenomenon new to the twentieth century. In The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Sedgwick writes, "Foucault among other his-

torians locates in about the nineteenth century a shift in European
thought from viewing same-sex sexuality as a matter of prohibited and
isolated genital acts...to viewing it as a function of stable
definitions of identity."8 This
shift from acts to identity impacted the representation of same-sex
relationships between women. Much of the issue of lesbian
representation has to do with visibility. How can one assume when a
character is lesbian? Fortunately, there are many traditional lesbian
cues in twentieth-century fiction; among these are cross dressing,
butch/femme roles, the lesbian bar, food sharing as sex, psychological
trauma that supposedly induces same-sex desire, and tragic, premature
death.
          From such stock cues, we can conclude that Flagg's characters Ruth
and Idgie are lesbians. For example, Idgie only dresses in men's
clothes, Ruth only in women's—this codes them as
butch/femme. Idgie also spends a considerable amount of time at the
Wagon Wheel River and Fishing Club, an establishment run by bisexual
Eva Bates—much to the consternation of jealous Ruth. And Ruth
later tragically dies of cancer at age thirty-two. Another typical
indicator is food standing in for the sexual act. We see Idgie offer
ajar of honey to Ruth. When Ruth accepts this offer, we know she
accepts more than just honey.
          Like class, lesbianism is alive and well in Fried Green
Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe—albeit not always
clearly recognizable. And it is unfortunately only distilled into
white characters, something that should not be overlooked. Lesbianism
is also obscured by a heterosexist variety of nostalgia, and because
of this is perhaps even more difficult to see than class. Idgie and
Ruth are firmly ensconced within the
quintessential American family—the Threadgoodes. We know this is not the usual stomping
ground for out lesbians! Is the lesbian invisible then? Definitely
not. As shown above, the novel and the film outline several stock
lesbian cues when introducing both Idgie and Ruth. For example, in the
film we are led to believe that after Idgie and Ruth witness the death
of their mutual, heterosexual love interest Buddy (Idgie's big brother
and Ruth's boyfriend) they are indelibly marked for
lesbianism. Interestingly, this never happens in the book. Why would
the filmmakers have inserted such a scene if not to try to provide a
homophobically "logical" reason for this most tenacious friendship?
Upon close examination, and in so many ways, Ruth and Idgie can be
seen as the classic American, twentieth-century, white lesbian
couple.
          The film displaces and diminishes overt lesbianism in a
variety of ways, while at the same time exploits the sensuality
between the female characters. Food stands in for lesbian
sexuality. Ruth and Idgie kiss only once (a brief peck on the cheek
during a skinny dipping scene), but they do have a raucous food fight
where they have ample opportunity to touch as they smear edibles all
over each other. Still, viewers are not shown a tongue kiss or sex
scene, and it is possible that by transferring these lesbian cues onto
the traditionally noble value of "friendship" a viewer can leave the
theater in denial of the lesbianism in the film. The problem with Ruth
and Idgie is not that they are invisible to a
heterosexist lens, but rather, skillfully manipulated by it.
          Some other questions we might ask in relation to the issue of
lesbianism in the story have to do with the transhistorical value of
friendship. Could the lesbian, trapped inside the traditional,
supposedly middle-class, white American family be forced to serve as a
vessel for the value of friendship, or Stimpson's "primal love," which
saves the women in this story from physical, spiritual and/or
emotional death? Perhaps so. We might come to this conclusion
especially because of the fact that the lesbians are suspiciously only
in the past. There are no visible lesbians in
Evelyn's world. This is especially strange since she lives in the
post-Stonewall era. If anything, the 1980s should be the place to find
lesbians. But we aren't shown any. So we should wonder just how Ruth
and Idgie are used to embody the concept of a primal love. It also
seems that this transhistorical love takes a decidedly heterosexist
twist and ultimately "evolves"—from Ruth and Idgie's lesbian love to
Evelyn and Ninny's platonic, apparently heterosexual, mother/daughter
love.



Is the apolitical/pre-Stonewall/non-feminist lesbian being held up as
the ideal here? Idgie and Ruth are accepted in their community because
they never openly identify themselves as lesbians. They are instead,
"best friends." Did Ruth and Idgie pass as straight? Or did they
simply exist on the edge of an historical moment that forboded great
changes in the concept of lesbian identity? Is Flagg trying to give
contemporary lesbians an assimilationist message here?
          Certainly we see lesbians represented in a non-threatening manner
in this story; visible to the eye, but vulnerable to the studied
manipulation of filmmakers who reinforce the deliberate ignorance of
homophobic viewers. Because of the general paucity of lesbian
representation in novels and films, however, Ruth and
Idgie—despite manipulation—do seem a welcome
sight. Certainly the lesbian viewer is accustomed to taking the bad
with the bad! For example, compared to the grossly caricatured
representation of the lesbian in films such as Basic
Instinct, Ruth and Idgie appear to be the salt of the lesbian
earth. If we see the story as an affirmation of lesbian agency in the
early twentieth century, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle
Stop Cafe may indeed show the positive side of a look back
towards "home." It is crucial, however, that we not get so excited
about Idgie and Ruth that we cast a hasty, non-critical gaze.
          
            The Salt of the Earth
          
          Oftentimes rural Americans are called "the salt of the earth."
Perhaps salt can be a helpful metaphor for the situation we find
ourselves in when we try to sort out the issue of nostalgia in rural
narratives. How can we represent our memories of rural America without
succumbing to nostalgic close-mindedness?
          A bible story tells of the flight of Lot and his family from
Sodom. Warned by God to flee without looking back, Lot's wife
(unfortunately, the story does not tell us her name) disobeyed and
took a last glance. This sight turned her into a pillar of salt. Why
did this unnamed woman look back? Why did she become salt? Her glance
can be seen as folly or bravery; perhaps both. And how many of us
might have done the same thing? After all, it was her lifelong home
she turned back to gaze upon. In antiquity, salt was often associated
with a destruction of life, a land gone to waste. Yet among the
ancients, to eat salt was also to create a bond of friendship. Today
we take things that people say with "a grain of salt" when we suspect
untruthfulness. Epsom salts soothe our tired feet. Smelling salts
bring us out of a dead faint. We know we need salt in moderate,
heathful doses; heathcare workers caution us from oversalting
foods. Perhaps nostalgia is the sickness we get from overdosing on the
precious salt of memory. We need to exhibit the same courage Lot's
wife did and look back—even if we risk the wrath of hetero-patriarchal
gods. But we must not look too long, lest our minds become rigid,
close-minded pillars of memory.
          We see that nostalgia can be a destructive force. Yet we also know
our memories of life in rural America are crucial data in a battle
against far more destructive powers. How, then, can we take action?
Perhaps a few ways we can do so are by looking hard at our soft
memories, listening critically to our own stories, and making a
concerted effort to be aware of our social location.
          Let's return to bell hooks' message about yearning. She tells us
not to let ourselves turn back, however strong the longing. She calls
us to ask the hard questions of our soft memories; to try and stretch
our minds; to see our tendency to conspire with strong undercurrents
of feel-good nostalgia. She encourages us to confront the mind-numbing
power of homesickness. Bell hooks' challenge should definitely not be
lost to white America. It calls us to task. Part of white_people's
internalized racism manifests itself in our habit of looking through
blurry eyes at the past. This clouding allows us to overlook the
racism, classism, and heterosexism in our history; and it makes us
sick with the moral agony of harboring unethical, contradictory doses
of isms fed to us daily by our media and by
each other. Clinging to the skirts of an ahistorical past only makes
our sickness worse.
          Can nostalgic memory ever be revolutionary? If, like Evelyn Couch,
our look back empowers us to make positive changes in our present
situation, then the answer is "yes." However, more often than not,
nostalgia infects us with an unshakeable social illness. This sickness
weakens our desire for social justice, and revolutionary impulses
drown in the too-salty waters of ahistorical recollection.
          NOTES
          Fannie Flagg, Fried Green
Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (New_York 1989),
p. 8. References to the novel will be indicated by FGT and the page number.
          Janice Doane and Devon Hodges,
Nostalgia and Sexual Difference (New_York 1987), p. 10.
          Ibid., p. 8.
          Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form (Princeton 1971), p. 82.
          bell hooks, Yearning (Boston 1990), p. 40.
          Catharine Stimpson, Where the
Meanings Are (New_York 1988), p. 108.
          Benjamin DeMott, The Imperial Middle (New_York 1990), p. 11.
          Eve Sedgwick, The Epistemology
of the Closet (Berkeley 1991), p. 83.
          
            A rural Kansas native, Julie Wilson, currently lives and
works in Atlanta where she is an Emory graduate
student.
          
        
