It has been 30 years to the day since audiences got their first glimpse of Truvy’s beauty salon and the women who made it special. “Steel Magnolias” debuted as an Off-Broadway play, but within two years the Louisiana-set stage production was a hit movie that took its place in modern cinema as one of Hollywood’s rare positive depictions of the South.
Nearly three decades later, 1989’s “Steel Magnolias” is undeniably one of the ’80s movies that became certifiably Americana — and in the company of films such as “Raging Bull,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and “Top Gun.” The story of six women who gather at the previously mentioned local beauty parlor is one of the few Hollywood films set in the South without an ax to grind against the people or the region. It also has every bit as much estrogen as “Rambo” has testosterone — and its success proved that intelligent, character-oriented films aimed at women could bring in huge box office numbers.
Filmed on location in Louisiana instead of a Hollywood sound stage, the film has an authenticity that prevents it from aging. The accents — even from the Yankee cast members — ring true to the ear. Director Herbert Ross’ camera channels the picturesque beauty of Louisiana into something tangible. And writer Robert Harling’s fondness and respect for the characters imbues every scene with a warm pathos.
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Scene after scene captures the way small-town life incubates gossip and gives people the feeling that your business is also theirs; a community becomes family, or at least feels that way.
Missing entirely are many of cinema’s usual tropes about the South; there are no Klansmen, no acerbic, intolerant Christian lectures, no halfwits barely capable of saying their own names. On the contrary, the script’s wit ensures that the film continues to receive as much praise for its laughs as it does its heart. Lines such as “I’m not crazy, M’Lynn, I’ve just been in a very bad mood for 40 years,” and “The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize” give it a flair rarely found in most “chick flicks.”
The film’s star power — Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, and Daryl Hannah were all in the cast — ensured that the female characters demonstrated resilience, beauty, even optimism in the face of tragedy. It was also the first hit for Julia Roberts — she played the sweet but doomed Shelby, whose demise has inspired countless tears from viewers.
Writer Harling, who penned both the play and the film, based “Steel Magnolias” on his family and neighbors in Natchitoches, Louisiana. His sister, Susan, died of complications from type 1 diabetes, and shortly afterward he set out to preserve her memory through art.
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The story’s beauty parlor is a town melting pot where women of different classes, social standings, and dispositions come together to share their joys and tribulations. That hair is also done is almost ancillary to the group therapy.
“When I was a kid, the mystique of the beauty parlor was that guys were never allowed,” Harling recently told Garden & Gun magazine. “You didn’t know what went on in there, and they all came back different somehow.”
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Though based on individuals specific to Harling’s hometown experience, it’s easy to recognize pieces of the characters who are commonly found in any part of the South. The mother and daughter whose deep bond both inspires and belies their differences; the stately and prosperous widow; the prickly, eccentric curmudgeon with a good heart; and the upbeat, gossipy beautician whose shop becomes a nexus for the women’s social lives — they’re all present.
“After my sister’s funeral, everybody came over to the house. I was watching the men in the den, and they were a mess. My dad couldn’t talk about anything; none of them knew what to do. And I could see into the kitchen, and there were all these women and they were laughing and telling stories and dishing things out,” said Harling. “And I thought, ‘This is very interesting. The women are getting it done and the guys cannot function.'”
Indeed, the film’s male characters, who went entirely unseen in the play, don’t have the same emotional fortitude of the women. The men leave on work trips or ineffectually stumble through life’s tests.
Critics of the film often claim that it was short on the male perspective — but that misses the point. It’s the women who are celebrated, their relationships with one another giving them the strength to withstand the difficulties of life. Through this affectionate portrayal of these engaging characters, “Steel Magnolias” remains perhaps the most notable paean to the delicate but strong women who make small-town Southern life so unique. ±
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