Raising South Carolina

So the other night a Spanish friend and I watched Raising Arizona, which in Spain is called Arizona Baby. My friend is a big fan of Los Hermanos Coen, but she’d never seen this one, and I thought it might contribute to her understanding of American culture.

Boy, did it.

As it happened, the most difficult part of the movie for my friend to accept was perhaps the most realistic aspect of the plot: the fact nearly everyone in the movie is armed. Mind you, this film requires the suspension of more than a little disbelief. A lot of unlikely things happen. Gale and Evelle Snopes tunnel out of prison. H.I. McDonough dodges a shit-storm of lead from the firearms in question, plus a pack of riled-up dogs. The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse snatches a housefly out of the air with two fingers. Nathan, Jr., an infant, survives being left on top of a getaway car (twice), and then one hell of a ride on the handle bars of a Harley. All of this was easy enough for my friend to accept. She did not question it. But the fact that H.I. McDonough is armed, Gale and Evelle Snopes are armed, the teenage cashier at the Quick Stop is armed, the manager at the supermarket is armed, and Nathan Arizona (née Huffhines) is armed—she had to wonder if this wasn’t exaggerating things a bit.

“I do not believe this,” she said. “All these guns? What is this?”

It had never occurred to me that the-better-part-of-a-population-packing-heat might seem a little odd, if not downright psychotic. My friend had a point. All I could offer was a lame, “Well—you know—it’s Arizona.”

She squinted at me, as if that had not really settled things. “Yes? So many guns? Like the Middle East?”

I offered something about a lingering frontier mentality in the West, a cowboy ethic that had never quite died.

“Ah,” she said—not totally reassured, but a little. “So then not in your part? Where you live not so many guns?”

“Well…” I hesitated. I’m from South Carolina. “How ’bout that Holly Hunter?!”

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Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.