So THAT'S what a kerfuffle looks like

[thedeadlyhook]

Gorgeous day outside. First really nice, sunny day we've had in awhile. Went for a nice long bike ride, which makes me feel all virtuous. (We'll see how long that lasts.) In fandom news...

I see from my flist that fandom seems to be blowing up about Veronica Mars (see rusty_halo for a link). Or rather, flinging nasties at each other about various impressions of the accuracy of depiction of SoCal life and the female high school experience, yadda yadda within VM. I have nothing to add to that argument, since I don't watch VM - sadly, because I would really like to support a show with a spunky female lead, but I have a short temper for high school-based shows, to which I've only made exceptions for Buffy, Smallville, and... well, Power Rangers, I guess, to go farther back. High school I hated. Passionately. Revisiting it is about as enticing to me as having teeth pulled, so unless there are werewolves, vampires, crypto-freaks, or transforming kung-fu monsters, I can't even bring myself to think about caring. No offense to VM fans, because plenty of people I read on LJ really seem to like it, so I'm pretty sure it's a solid show.

But I do remain puzzled about the regional aspect of the kerfuffle, the is-this-what-SoCal life is really like question. I'm not sure why anyone should care either way. Either you connect to a situation or you don't, and you know, I didn't go to school in SoCal. And unfortuately, just about every high school drama is set there, which sometimes makes for head-scratching on my part. I mean, I liked Donnie Darko but didn't completely "get" a lot of it - I'm from hicksville, and we didn't do things that way. Was it good art? Sure. Should I be blamed for not getting it? Huh-uh. If the work isn't speaking to me, it doesn't say anything in particular about the artist's integrity, just that it's not speaking to me. I think this is a connection that keeps getting missed when discussing TV. The audience's only responsibilty is to be entertained and/or engaged, or not. If that ain't happenin', well, there's a lot of reasons that could be. Blaming the audience isn't probably the right one.

For the most part, I've stopped wondering why TV and film don't bother to depict much of American life outside of its own sort of navel-gazing creative centers, New York and L.A. It's a function of the producers and creators, no question - they're doing what they more or less "know." I don't mind it, for the most part, because life in the heartlands can be kinda boring, and New York and L.A. are glamorous - that's why celebrities et al live there. But the flipside is that sometimes I wonder how out-of-touch the industry really is, and can see why conservatives get uptight about "values" sometimes, since even the fantasy versions of "small town America" seldom match anything recognizeable about small town life. I remember laughing really hard at the name of Lana's original boyfriend in Smallville (can't remember it now) as the sort of male-model name that would get one laughed at fairly consistently in a real small-town setting, and also that show's high school cliche thang of sexy!cheerleaders and school politics. And I will never be able to get past that school newspaper. Sweeties, I remember three things about high school: 1) being bored 2) being neurotic about what everyone thought of me and 3) being hormonal and hysterical. High school on TV is too well adjusted for starters, too pretty for seconds (believable, maybe, in Beverly Hills, not Kansas), and where are all the classes? The greasy junk food runs? The hanging-around-parking-lots because there's nowhere else to go? Only in fiction could this be an attractive setting.

But then again, I'm probably oversensitive. I used to get teeth-grindingly annoyed at Twin Peaks for what I perceived to be its viewpoint that people from small towns are all knuckle-dragging hicks running off at the gums about weasels and lumber and cherry pie. I've since been told that I was just seeing the wrong episodes (by some freak of circumstance, every time I tuned in I seemed to get the Log Lady or the Pine Weasel, nothing that anyone ever told me was "cool") and plan to give the series an actual fair watch-through... but still. The whole NY/LA-centric thing that Hollywood has... sometimes it feels like we haven't escaped that high school cliquery thing at all. Whatever.

Now I'm wondering how long it's been since there's been a show about high schoolers set in New York? Do we have to go all the way back to Welcome Back Kotter? Or Fame, maybe? Just wondering. Isn't it about time to reverse the trend started by 90210?

Comments

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

Must say, as kerfuffles go, that was a doozy. It was sort of like Godfather II-- even deeper and richer than the original. :)

As for the SoCal stuff -- I was born and grew up in Orange County, and I have to admit that part of the kerfuffle baffled me. Class warfare? In Orange County? Only recently I was remarking to a friend how, when I was a kid, you could literally drive an hour and a half in any direction (well, except west, because you'd end up in the water) without seeing any shift in economic scale. It was a huge sprawling landscape of sameness. Los Angeles, yes -- Compton and Bel Air are a contrast, to say the least -- but not Orange County.

But the flipside is that sometimes I wonder how out-of-touch the industry really is, and can see why conservatives get uptight about "values" sometimes, since even the fantasy versions of "small town America" seldom match anything recognizeable about small town life.

Also a conversation I've had, with a fellow Los Angelean before I fled to the midwest (he ended up moving out of LA too, to a small town in the northwest). I can understand shows portraying life in southern California as glamorous, and casting pretty kids, because they think that's what people want to watch. But the way small town life is depicted is truly strange, and often smacks of hostility.

Eh, I like small towns. I lived in one for a couple years in my 20s, and I remember it as one of the happiest times of my life. As I get older I see myself moving farther and farther out, into the rural places. Keep Manhattan and gimme that countryside.

Wow, what a rambling reply :) Sorry about that.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Oh, never worry about rambling replies. I love 'em to bits.

I only dipped my toe in the smallest part of this particular controversy, but I was amazed at how huge that conversation got, with all the "and then she said..." Really understand now what people mean about being in online fandom as being part of a cultural moment. I guess only being involved in something like that would make you understand what it's like.

But the way small town life is depicted is truly strange, and often smacks of hostility.

The stereotyping does get pretty annoying at times. I remember quite liking the movie Fargo because quite a few of those people felt recognizably "real" to me of the kind of area I grew up in, and that felt very rare.

As I get older I see myself moving farther and farther out, into the rural places. Keep Manhattan and gimme that countryside.

The older I get the more I see the appeal too. I have great memories from being a child in a small town - it was only as a teenager, when you've explored everything there is to see and want to grow, but there's nowhere else to go and nothing new to discover that it gets limiting. I think as one gets older, that pattern starts to reverse again a bit, where you start to long for the peace and quiet.

And now you've gone and reminded me of Green Acres! They sure don't make opening songs like that anymore...

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

remember quite liking the movie Fargo because quite a few of those people felt recognizably "real" to me of the kind of area I grew up in, and that felt very rare.

Yes! When replying I tried to think of a few "small town" depictions that didn't seem condescending or shallow, and Fargo came to mind. I didn't mention it because I felt I was already drifting longwindedly all over the place. :)

And someone else has mentioned Northern Exposure. Another good one.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I suspect that this is because all the people in the arts and entertainment who grew up in small towns are the ones who left there screaming like bats out of hell as soon as they were old enough, and still hate where they grew up.

[tesla321.livejournal.com]

I have this thing: I spend my work week in arguments. Arguments over child support and visitation, over fines to pay, over prison sentences, over evidence. I try my very bestest to stay the hell away from arguing when I'm online. I have strong opinions about fic pairings and cultural depictions, about people not using LJ cuts and posting about what they eat for breakfast, and oh, politics, but I'm not going to get into a fuss about the stuff. Because life is too freaking short.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh. I did put this behind a cut, didn't I? (worries)

So basically you stay away from the whole kerfuffle-y things in general, right?

[tesla321.livejournal.com]

I actually try to stay away. I don't go and read about disputes. I see people showing links to these slanging matches but I don't go look. I figure that I'm not paid to referee. And why add to it? If people are already fighting about something online, they've already entrenched themselves in their opinion. And if someone is bringing up hot topics so as to get attention, then, I don't want to give that attention. My Mama always used to say, "Ignore them and they'll go away" and I don't know why one can't leave someone stewing in their own LJ.

And, as I said, since I deal with issues of crime and punishment on one hand---like yesterday morning when I was talking to four different people behind the bars at the city jail---I don't have the patience to listen to someone argue about these wankery topics.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'd say Everwood would only count as half high school. Sure you have the Amy/Ephram stuff, but you have just as much stuff with the adults that revolve around the adults. I suppose Everwood then fits into "family" television.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I watch it about three times a year so I'm no expert, but all the eps that I've seen tend to focus on Treat Williams and the other doctor in town as much as it focuses on the teens. That's probably largely because they paid more to have Treat Williams star in the show.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm seriously out of touch. I recognize some of those titles, but watched none of them. I think there may have been a ten-year period where all I watched on TV were Saturday morning cartoons and Star Trek reruns. And The Simpsons.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Have to agree that I have little to say about the kerfuffle because like you, I have little patience with teen/high school shows. That's the reason why I haven't gotten into VM. I just have no desire to watch a bunch of teenagers do rather unrealistic things. I like my unreality to be in-your-face unreality with aliens, robots, witches and vampires.

And, I grew up in a small town. Pretty much the only "small town" show I've ever really liked is Northern Exposure.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I had heard good things about Northern Exposure, but I think at the time I was too worried about the possiblity that it would turn into City Man Shows Ignorant Locals How It's Done that I never bothered to watch it and find out. Clearly I am oversensitive.

But yeah, I like my unreality to be right out there in the form of hardcore fantasy. Easy in contrast then to have some relative "real" reality.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

The amusing thing about Northern Exposure was that it upended that expectation.

Joel (city guy) shows up thinking he's moving to the sticks (and he is) and expects all the people in town to be yokels. He rails against being forced to live in the boonies because of the contract in his medical school loans.

What he discovers, however, almost always goes contrary to his expectations. The locals are a group of highly intelligent, eclectic people of all sorts of personalities and backgrounds. A female bush pilot (Maggie). A philosophical local DJ who waxes poetic about Nietzsche and finds meaning and symbolism in darn near everything. A young Native American (Ed) who is obsessed with film making and movies(especially old black and white moview), a bombastic retired astronaught. The gruff mountain man... who is a 5-star gourmet chef and his hypochondriac wife. And the town keeps adding to its diverse array of characters (A Native American millionaire, a gay couple who runs the local inn, an obsessive concert violinist, etc). The locals took great pride in smart, sophisticated people who also love where they live. The locals are anything but stereotypes. They're quirky, intelligent, and if anything it makes fun of the guy from the city who is constantly caught up short by what's going on around him. It's a quirky, funny series that goes off on wild flights of fantasy (it mines a lot of Native American culture and mythology). It ultimately became a bit too quirky (especially after Joel left town and was replaced by a New York yuppie couple who were never as endearing) but it never lost its affection for its characters. It was definitely a quality program and the DVDs are worthwhile.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Okay, now you're making me want to see this. My own origins are almost up in the "Great White North" myself, so it'd be nice to see something tackling that from a not-backwoods perspective. I may have to check our local video store and see if they have the discs for rent. Thanks for the synopsis!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I believe it may still re-run on the Hallmark channel, but I don't know its schedule.

[kassto.livejournal.com]

I remember one hysterical episode where Joel and Maggie and the American Indian guy were snowed in, in some little cabin in the wilds, and they start playing Monopoly and get into this huge argument about the rules -- about whether or not you put all tax payments into the middle of the board and win them if you land on Free Parking. Which used to be a huge topic of dispute when we were kids.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hey, feel lucky. You didn't grow up in ALABAMA. The way that the South is portrayed on TV is just ... ::shudder::

[tesla321.livejournal.com]

Don't even get me started. I practice law in Alabama, and almost all of my friends are "blue". I shudder every time the national news starts with, "Today, in Montgomery..."

[http://users.livejournal.com/wisteria_/]

Oh, I hear ya. I can't quite identify with the small-town aspect, since I've always lived in huge cities, but I'm also annoyed by how TV and movies act like everything revolves around California (I don't mind NYC so much, just because I love New York. ;) When the local news did a bit about Extreme Makeover: Home Edition filming here last week, I was shocked to discover that the show has finally realized that there are needy people outside of SoCal. Yeah, I know that logistics make setting shows there much easier, but still.

In a larger sense, pop culture itself tends to assume that the rest of the country wants to be like California. How often do you see the CA lifestyle held up as the paragon of what we supposedly want in life? I'm so petty and stubborn that I stopped shopping at Mervyn's when they changed their official name to "Mervyn's California". (Okay, and I'm also silly. ;) Cali is nice and all -- I've been to LA twice and liked it well enough -- but I have no desire to live that lifestyle.

(And I'm with shipperx in hating the way the South is portrayed in the media. Sure, we have our share of crazy, closed-minded rural folks, but hell, doesn't everywhere?)

Thanks for the rant. I've been tempted to make the same one!

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

You're welcome for the rant. I don't even know where it came from, really - I guess I just suddenly started wishing for something that wouldn't leave us all arguing about the kinds of things I saw people arguing about. Although I suppose that must happen anyway. I haven't been involved in fandom long enough to be sure what's typical.

I live in San Francisco now myself, so I've become a die-hard city girl. New York I love, but to be honest, I can't stand LA and the have-to-drive-everywhere lifestyle. Why it's held up as the American ideal, I'm sure I don't know. Maybe it does just come down to logistics, but if that were the case, seems like we should see more shows set in Canada, as much filming as is done up there. Hey, Vancouver is a nice place!

And yeah, on the depiction of the South: I'm originally from Michigan myself, which is about as north as it gets, so yeah, I can attest that close-mindedness is not a regional thing. Nor is open-mindedness - you get both anywhere. Even here in "liberal" SF.

[lillianmorgan.livejournal.com]

Huh. See you've already mentioned Fargo, Twin Peaks (plus there's Northern Exposure). The word that always springs to mind with pieces of American teev that don't take place in cities is usually "quirky". Which is silly really, because surely the rest of America isn't like that at all.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Yeah, how did it end up that most of the country is "quirky"? What happened there?

[ailleurs.livejournal.com]

Wow--I was going to comment on your post last night when you first put this up, but it was well after midnight and bed was calling. It's interesting how these kinds of things just build up heads of steam and then blow up. This thread seems to have developed a life of its own, hasn't it?

I was just going to say (last night before I tucked myself in), that this high school fascination theme has been done, flogged and should now be ceremoniously buried beneath 6 feet of celluloid. It just seems to be another one of TV's fads--along the same lines as the Cop Show, the Lawyer Show and Quirky Sitcom Show. Hopefully it'll go the same way as prime time soap opera.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Oh, god... the Cop Show. When I was growing up, that's literally all there was. Each with the recommended RDA of car chases per ep. Although none of those types have really died. Yet. They just get resurrected time after time in new faces and flavors.

Maybe it's just TV's infamous conservatism when it comes to new ideas that stifles anything that doesn't come off like a rehash of something else. I think it's only the launch of new networks in the last decade or so, of Fox and WB and made-for-cable series such as those on HBO, that finally kick-started any innovation. And now even those outlets are getting a bit lazy, I think...

Here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I don't know... I've lived all my life in LA and I don't think TV or movies reflects my So. Cal. experience at all. It's Hollywood-ized. It could be taking place anywhere, to me. Or nowhere, I guess, because I don't think anywhere is really like that.

Re: Here via metafandom

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

How on earth did I end up on Metafandom? I was just remarking on the big scuffle, in kind of a peripheral way... huh. Go figure!

I've lived all my life in LA and I don't think TV or movies reflects my So. Cal. experience at all. It's Hollywood-ized.

That's fair. The whole TV experience is about idealized situations - I always find myself laughing the luxury apartments even poor characters are supposed to be able to afford in TV and films - but I guess what's striking me lately is the simultenous emphasis on "realism," as if all this stuff can be taken totally seriously, and an increasingly narrow focus on what rates as "normal." We kind of got a discussion going earlier in this thread about how odd it is that idealized LA teens have become the accepted norm lately, while middle America is seen as backwoods and/or "quirky," so I guess that's what's been making me scratch my head lately. For all the rest of the country knows, LA really IS like that. I remember meeting this guy once who came to LA for film school from Europe, and he was shocked that it wasn't all palm trees and swimming pools, like it always looks in the movies...

Re: Here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

he was shocked that it wasn't all palm trees and swimming pools, like it always looks in the movies...

Or earthquakes! My husband (who's from Illinois/Indiana) is still very disappointed that in the 7 years he's now lived here, there's only been one very small quake. He was also surprised at the hilliness (there is no flat land omg! >_< Terrible for riding bikes. I hate it) and yeah, that not everything was palm trees.

I don't really watch TV anymore, so I can't really comment on whether it's really more realistic or not these days, but certainly the comment about class warfare made me go bzuh?

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Northern Virginia, and although I liked Donnie Darko I had to laugh, because it was so obviously filmed in California. The landscape around here looks nothing like what was portrayed in the film.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

God knows we've also seen a lot of Canada passing as everywhere from Japan to New York as well.

I think the funniest case of this-is-not-the-actual-landscape I think of was in The Fugitive, in which flat-as-a-pancake Illinois suddenly looked like Old Growth mountain forest for the exciting "train" sequence.