So I hear you think you know something about Iowa?

January 2, 2012 11:20 AM

Iowa Nice (Clean version inside)

Clean Version

posted by cjorgensen (48 comments total)

I don't know where peo get these ideas about Iowa. If you asked me to describe Iowa I'd probibly settle on some combination of lovely sunsets, quiet fields, and gay stoners with thier swinger friends.
posted by The Whelk at 11:24 AM on January 2, 2012 [3 favorites]

The premise is a reference to The Music Man.
posted by hermitosis at 11:32 AM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

www.google.com: 
Iowa is_
Iowa is known for
Iowa is famous for
Iowa is the what state
Iowa is boring

posted by The White Hat at 11:32 AM on January 2, 2012

So, I was shaking my head thinking the world was doomed when I heard Rick Santorum was polling #2 in the state.

Well, he's polling number 2 (or 3, depending on the poll) among likely Republican caucus-goers, which is not exactly the same thing.

I dunno. I do, in fact, know quite a bit about Iowa, and I think defensive shit like this just reinforces the idea that Iowa is a backwater. You think anyone has ever felt the need to make a video like this about California or New York?
posted by craichead at 11:35 AM on January 2, 2012

make a video like this about...New York?

That is basically all we ever do, except for periodic breaks to eat bagels.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:41 AM on January 2, 2012 [10 favorites]

I think defensive shit like this just reinforces the idea that Iowa is a backwater. You think anyone has ever felt the need to make a video like this about California or New York?

The people in California and New York are the very ones dismissively calling 70% of the US 'flyover country'. So this statement is the equivalent of "I punched you, and the fact that you're fighting back means that you deserved to be punched."
posted by naju at 11:45 AM on January 2, 2012 [16 favorites]

So, I was shaking my head thinking the world was doomed when I heard Rick Santorum was polling #2 in the state.

among the most conservative members of the most conservative national party....

But you know... angry on.
posted by edgeways at 11:46 AM on January 2, 2012

Republican caucus goers in Iowa comprise about .4-5% of the state. It's stupid. 118,000 in 2008, I believe.

Many of the rural people I know are pretty liberal.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:54 AM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

The people in California and New York are the very ones dismissively calling 70% of the US 'flyover country'. So this statement is the equivalent of "I punched you, and the fact that you're fighting back means that you deserved to be punched."

Ok, but seriously, who cares? Iowa is, in fact, a pretty great place to live. People on the coasts are not actually punching us. And I think other strategies, like for instance humor or gentle mocking, are better ways to combat that kind of condescension, because angry defensiveness tends to reinforce rather than challenge stupid perceptions about Iowa.
posted by craichead at 11:57 AM on January 2, 2012

Yeah, before this I didn't really have any ideas at all about Iowa. I'm literally not sure I've ever had a thought about Iowa, but now I think Iowa is unnecessarily defensive.
posted by cmoj at 11:57 AM on January 2, 2012

People who've never been to the Midwest tend to get things confused, the nasty comments about Iowa are actually about Nebraska.
posted by The Whelk at 12:00 PM on January 2, 2012 [10 favorites]

cmoj, if you'd read the really weird Stephen Bloom article it'd probably make more sense.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 12:06 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

There are plenty of places in Iowa I would not want to live, anywhere remotely near a hog or turkey farm, but that's true of many states, and many many cities. i would not want to live in NYC or LA for example.

But I fully understand the impetus behind the video. I too live in (a different part of) "flyover country", and while I love living where I do I wish to god people would stop being dismissive and condescending of it, that attitude does nothing but think a whole lot less of you. Love living where you do? Fantastic! Now leave me the hell alone and stop acting like where you live is where everyone should live. Because if I lived on one of those huge American cities after a few years I would either flip out and kill someone or kill myself. Some of the most provincial people I have ever met have been from large American cities. Some of the more world traveled, most inclusive, most wise people I have ever met live in the middle of nowhere. I am sure the exact opposite is true as well.
posted by edgeways at 12:15 PM on January 2, 2012 [6 favorites]

lovely sunsets, quiet fields, and gay stoners with thier swinger friends.

From Iowa City, are we?

There's also the other Iowa.


And don't even try to say he's a bad-apple outlier. King is wildly popular in the western half of the state.
posted by clarknova at 1:00 PM on January 2, 2012

>The people in California and New York are the very ones dismissively calling 70% of the US 'flyover country’<

I lived in Los Angeles for a long time and I don’t remember this. In my experience, it seems like a large percentage of people in L.A. and NYC are from the midwest. The rest of the state, I don’t know. I just don’t think they’e thinking about Iowa all that much either way.
posted by bongo_x at 1:13 PM on January 2, 2012

I live in New York, and in my experience people don't talk shit about the Midwest, or "flyover states" — they usually don't talk about them at all. Unless they're from there and someone's all like, "What's it like where you're from?"

This video presupposes I have a strong opinion about Iowa and other states I've never been too. I don't because that doesn't make sense.

Also, I was born and raised in New Jersey. Shit-talking NJ is practically a national pastime. The correct response is self-deprecation and knowing within your heart that the outsiders just don't get it.

But I guess snarky, Lonely Sandwich inspired videos that are based on the assumption that I make assumptions are cool too.
posted by defenestration at 1:32 PM on January 2, 2012

You think anyone has ever felt the need to make a video like this about California or New York?

Yeah, there's kind of a whole multibillion dollar industry that does that.
posted by charlie don't surf at 1:37 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

So, I was shaking my head thinking the world was doomed when I heard Rick Santorum was polling #2 in the state.

Wouldn't you be more surprised if Rick Santorum wasn't a #2?
posted by indubitable at 1:54 PM on January 2, 2012 [4 favorites]

Also, I am intensely jealous of anybody who gets into the Iowa Writer's Program, so there's that.

Well you can sign up for this and have access to most of the same professors without going through the exclusive admissions process.
posted by clarknova at 2:27 PM on January 2, 2012 [2 favorites]

angrycat, like clarknova said you can apply for the summer writing program easily with a manuscript (a few chapters or 10-12 poems was what it was when I did it)

It was fun. It showed me what grad school in writing would've been like. It wasn't for me. I work with two people who went through it in the other areas (fiction and non-fiction) way before my time and they shrug about it.

So, really, you're not missing that much.

Woo, city of literature, bitches! *finger guns*
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:31 PM on January 2, 2012

The Writing Festival is different than what I'm talking about, btw. The Festival is open to anyone, the summer grad program requires you be chosen. We had a guy in his early 30s who hadn't graduated high school, a Harvard PhD student in some arcane discipline and everyone in between.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:34 PM on January 2, 2012

Woo, city of literature, bitches!

And amazingly beautiful women!
posted by clarknova at 2:35 PM on January 2, 2012

Rick Santorum

tee hee, Santorum
posted by mattoxic at 2:58 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

He lost me when he started stuffing his face with sponge cake.
posted by roger ackroyd at 3:14 PM on January 2, 2012

So, really, you're not missing that much.

Yeah, you didn't really want a Pulitzer or Hollywood franchise.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:18 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

I know it's blasphemy to the people in the program, but you can actually write without going to the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 3:22 PM on January 2, 2012

And the grapes were sour anyway.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:39 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, there's kind of a whole multibillion dollar industry that does that.

Katy Perry is certainly an abomination, but I'm missing the angry, humorless edge in that song. She thinks California is awesome. She's not starting her song with "fuck you" or calling people bitches or implying that they're fat or whatever. She is exceptionally annoying, but she's not defensive.
posted by craichead at 3:41 PM on January 2, 2012

Iowa, home of the modern computer. Project Vincent REP-RE-SENT.

pvincent.iastate.edu in the house.
posted by graftole at 6:25 PM on January 2, 2012 [2 favorites]

Wait what do you mean minus?
posted by The Whelk at 6:31 PM on January 2, 2012

Can we just say that the media vomits up all kinda of insane narratives like " flyover country" when I have literally never heard anyone say that ever not once and that is dealing with literal cross country travelling people for like years and living in NyC and LA and Chicago and no one says that ever and no one has ever said that ever, it is fiction. It is Made Up.
posted by The Whelk at 7:41 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

And if you want to talk smack about the Midwest Ohio is like RIGHT THERE and being gross all the time, just sayin. No need to bring Senisble Iowa into your mess.
posted by The Whelk at 7:43 PM on January 2, 2012 [2 favorites]

Also, Nebraska, cause it is Gross.
posted by The Whelk at 7:44 PM on January 2, 2012

So, I was shaking my head thinking the world was doomed when I heard Rick Santorum was polling #2 in the state.

Among, you know, the other republicans who are running. Were you hoping for Mitt Romney, or maybe Newt Gingrich or Michel Bachman?

I dunno. I do, in fact, know quite a bit about Iowa, and I think defensive shit like this just reinforces the idea that Iowa is a backwater. You think anyone has ever felt the need to make a video like this about California or New York?

There are tons and tons of movies set in those places, songs about them, etc.

Also, I was born and raised in New Jersey. Shit-talking NJ is practically a national pastime. The correct response is self-deprecation and knowing within your heart that the outsiders just don't get it.

See, that's again because of the huge influence of NYC on the national discourse. New Jersey is to NYC as Nebraska is to Iowa. Except you have no idea how people in Iowa view Nebraska, while I know exactly what New Yorkers think about New Jersey.
posted by delmoi at 7:58 PM on January 2, 2012 [3 favorites]

(Actually, people in Iowa don't really spend a lot of time thinking about Nebraska -- it's just that all the stereotypes we think people might have about Iowa apply even more so to Nebraska. Only problem is, Nebraska has such a low profile, that most people probably don't even hear very much about it.)

(Also, the computer wasn't really invented in Iowa. The first electronic digital computer was built at Iowa State University, but it didn't store it's program in memory they way a modern, and it wasn't Turing complete)
posted by delmoi at 8:07 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

New jersey has some werido far out credentials.you might not see it, but it is the strangest state in the union.


Nebraska is just gross and boring. We are right to make fun of it.
posted by The Whelk at 8:08 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

To expand on my comment above: I am from New York, and as much as I love navel gazing (not gonna lie), I am also immensely curious about what life is like everywhere else—what people love about their communities and the world around them. So please, brag at me!

I have only been to (and really, through) Iowa once, when I was driving cross-country. We spent a day in Iowa City. I came away with the impression that Iowa is full of really cute young women with piercings, good bookstores, and trucks with delightfully redundant municipal branding ("The City of Iowa City, Iowa"). I would not mind learning more about any of the above.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:41 PM on January 2, 2012

Bukowski - (booze + pussy) = [fill in your local postman]
posted by carping demon at 11:30 PM on January 2, 2012

People who've never been to the Midwest tend to get things confused, the nasty comments about Iowa are actually about Nebraska.

And Missouri, The Whelk. The northern half, where they farm corn, soybeans, pigs, and cattle; not the southern half, that is mistaken for Arkansas with liquor stores.

Missouri reprusent... reproscen... I'm here!
posted by IAmBroom at 12:01 PM on January 3, 2012

The premise is a reference to The Music Man.

Only provided you are contrary.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:09 PM on January 3, 2012

Only provided you are contrary.

Oh no. A Disney production of The Music Man??!!?! I never heard of this. I wish I never heard of this. I will have to hunt this down and watch it. I may have to hunt this down and drive a stake through its heart.

There is one thing that became glaringly obvious the moment I saw this clip: the colors are wrong. There is no bright Technicolor of the 1962 version, now everyone is dressed in pale earth tones, the only bright colors are the bright red, white and blue bunting.

But more than that, the glaringly obvious color problem: this movie has the typical modern Disney diversity. Turning a movie about the insular Iowa community that rejects outsiders, into a politically correct, racially diverse movie, it does not ring true. They should have recast him as Prof. Harold Washington, and ridden him out of town on a rail.

I was particularly astonished by the woman shaking a rug out the window. She has a nasal accent that does not sound like Iowans at all. Oddly, she is shaking the exact same rug I have at my front door.
posted by charlie don't surf at 1:14 PM on January 3, 2012

The clean version totally left "shit-ton" unbleeped, even when they covered up "bitches".
posted by Mister Moofoo at 3:37 PM on January 3, 2012

Let’s say I was going to Iowa, where would you suggest?
posted by bongo_x at 9:46 PM on January 3, 2012

Ames, Iowa City, the town with all the windmills and tupils...Paella? Something like that.
posted by The Whelk at 10:01 PM on January 3, 2012

If you're visiting the Iowa City / Cedar Rapids region:

• The historic Amana Colonies.
• The Kalona cheese factory (Protip: buy a bag of the fresh curds and eat them that day).
• The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and historic birthplace. While you're there grill your own thick slab of steak at L B's Steakhouse and Lounge.

On the western side of the state:

• The Neal Smith wildlife Refuge: the largest pre-columbian prairie in the state and home to a wild buffalo herd.
• Driving west on I-80, exit onto any farm road and look at a power windmill up close.
• The Loess Hills.

Yeah, Iowa's pretty boring.
posted by clarknova at 1:15 AM on January 4, 2012

Let’s say I was going to Iowa, where would you suggest?

If you like riding a bike and are willing to devote some time to training, I would recommend signing up for RAGBRAI, which is kind of like what the Tour de France would be like if it were non-competitive, and filled with old people and families with small children, and in Iowa. I think that would be a great way to see Iowa and meet Iowans.
posted by craichead at 7:08 AM on January 4, 2012

Ames, Iowa City, the town with all the windmills and tupils...Paella? Something like that.


Pella.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:35 PM on January 4, 2012

BTW, I did watch the Disney production of the Music Man. I withdraw my objection (mostly). It would have been a huge flop if Matthew Broderick had to carry it all. But Kristen Chenowith was absolutely wonderful.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:09 PM on January 4, 2012 [1 favorite]