Down on the Farm



"In 1912, a tumbleweed lazily blew across the dusty prairies of Oklahoma on a soft summer breeze, an event long remembered as the only thing ever to happen in the state."

- The Onion: Our Dumb World

To Hollywood writers, the midwestern United States consists mainly of farms and towns of fewer than 10,000 people. The only cities of note are Chicago and Detroit. Occasionally, you might see Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Milwaukee, or Indianapolis if the writer feels like being different. In the minds of most TV and film writers, the idyllic culture of Little House On the Prairie persists into the 21st century.

This comes from the pre-1950's idea of life in the Midwest as it actually used to be. Since then, however, much of the region has been urbanized or at least suburbanized (the famous Prairie mentioned above is probably a strip-mall now), but the image has persisted despite being a mostly idealized version of modern times. In old theatrical cartoons with farm settings, the soundtrack may include such standard snippets as "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", "Chicken Reel" or "Turkey in the Straw". And of course, Hilarity Ensues when the City Mouse tries to fit in.

It is a part of Flyover Country and you can expect it to cross into Wild Wilderness if its a remote part of the country or to dip into Sweet Home Alabama even if its set in the Midwestern region, can over lap with Everytown, America if its near or set around a town. Do not confuse it with it Deep South, that is a trope dealing with social structure and people not the region itself, or a 'countrified version' of Suburbia as this trope exemplifies the openness of an area and sparseness of population and lack of housing.

Anime and Manga

 * Hiromu Arakawa's new manga series Silver Spoon takes place in Hokkaido (considered the 'farming' prefecture in Japan), and is about farming.
 * Soft Tennis is set in Hokkaido, and Asuna the main protagonist lives in a farm. Her family cow Hanako wandering loose is a Running Gag.

Comic Books

 * In the DC Universe, pretty much any presentation of Superman (be it comics, movies, live-action tv, or in the DC Animated Universe) is bound to depict Clark Kent's (only rarely doomed) hometown of Smallville this way.

Film

 * Paige in The Prince And Me lives on a Wisconsin dairy farm. Where they race tractors they have for no reason. And still milk cows by hand.
 * Dorothy's Kansas farmyard from The Wizard of Oz is an iconic example.
 * At the time the original book was written, however, this was fairly accurate.
 * And has become permanently affiliated with Kansas ever since, whether they like it or not.
 * Hoosiers shows a good portrayal of life in the Midwest, Hoosiers being people from Indiana, where the movie is set.
 * Used fairly realistically and sympathetically in The Straight Story.
 * In the Lifetime movie 12 Men of Christmas, a New York City Mouse is transferred to Montana. Before she leaves, she only knows two things about it. 1) The only person who lives there is the guy who hangs up the sign. 2) It doesn't actually exist. "It's just a hole... Says "Montana"... That's it."

Literature

 * The Bridges Of Madison County
 * James Jones was born and raised in Robinson, Illinois (population 6,000) and wrote famously about World War II (see From Here To Eternity and The Thin Red Line), but he also wrote Some Came Running, in which his hometown is not portrayed very positively.

Live Action TV
"Dave: I think radio is a fascinating medium.
 * Little House On the Prairie, of course, which took place in a landscape that looked suspiciously like the perpetually sunny fields of California.
 * The portrayal of Lt. Col. Mitchell's family's Kansas home in Stargate SG-1.
 * An episode of John Doe involved this, but subverted this when it was revealed that it was a trick to convince the title character of a false history.
 * The Canadian equivalent is parodied relentlessly in Corner Gas whenever an out-of-towner visits, and with one recurring character from Toronto.
 * "Green Acres, we are there....!" Dun nuh, d-dun nuh, dun dun!
 * Deployed clumsily in Season 4 of 24 when six terrorists casually hijack a nuclear missile convoy in "the mountainous terrain" of eastern Iowa. Dialog indicates that the 24verse's Midwest lacks any and all of the communication technology, surveillance measures and rapid response capabilities that Los Angeles-based CTU take for granted.
 * Especially ironic as Cedar Rapids, Iowa is home to the company that basically created military radio, invented GPS, and provides a large portion of comm gear for commercial airlines the world over.
 * Certain interpretations of Smallville look like this.
 * Averted on The Drew Carey Show, where Cleveland is a city like any other.
 * Appears to be somewhat averted in the Amy Poehler comedy Parks and Recreation which takes place in a fictional Indiana town, though the characters all seem to act as quirky as the guys on The Office, the creators of which had a hand in this show as well, so don't know if that's a good or bad portrayal.
 * Dave of News Radio is often mocked on for coming from Wisconsin:

Bill: You're from Wisconsin. Artificial light is fascinating to you."

"Bill: You're not in Wisconsin, Dave. The big story isn't about a cow wandering into the town square.

Dave: Bill, I worked in Milwaukee, you know. It's a city with a population of a million people.

Bill: So that must have been quite a hub-bub when that cow got loose."


 * And then there's the episode where Dave and Bill get stuck in Lambert International Airport in St. Louis Missouri, and everyone is extremely nice and helpful. Dave, of course, is nice to them, but Bill treats them like jerks because he thinks they don't know how to be mean. Eventually, the St. Louisans give him a "Show-Me Hello", which is just a punch in face. Bill learns that Midwesterns can be just as jerky as people from the coasts when pushed far enough. He takes comfort in this, noting that "deep down, we're all the same". Dave rolls his eyes.
 * James of Spin City is a naive Wisconsin farmboy who often refers to cheese, cows, and milk when speaking. One time, after getting conned once again he asks rhetorically if he has a sign on his chest that says that he's a simpleton and to take advantage of him before opening his jacket to reveal an "I Love Wisconsin" T-Shirt.
 * The ABC comedy The Middle seems to take this concept and avert and subvert in one fell swoop, showcasing a family living in a suburban Indiana city where everyone, including themselves, is a tad off the mark.
 * Roz from Frasier comes from Wisconsin and in one episode describes going back for family reunions on her uncle's dairy farm where they put pants on the cows and speak in a special cheese language.
 * Another episode had a random Wisconsin woman call into the show, and it turns out that she and Roz know each other through distant relatives.
 * The idea of Roz's mother being the Attorney General of Wisconsin was initially played for laughs.
 * Woodrow Tiberius "Woody" Boyd from Cheers, native of Hanover, Indiana. He seems to take to the big city well enough. Though most references to his family paint them as stereotypical rubes, this is subverted in one episode when Woody reveals that they found the pretentious film Diane created about his life in Boston "derivative of Godard." (Fun fact: the character was named "Woody" before Woody Harrelson was cast.)
 * Sonny from Sonny With a Chance. She's from Wisconsin. Cue many jokes about Wisconsin farmland, including Sonny's ringtone being a cow mooing.
 * Linda Zwordling from Better Off Ted. Naturally, she jokes about staying in Wisconsin and majoring in Cheese sciences.
 * Bailey from The Suite Life On Deck is from the town Kettlecorn, Kansas.
 * Subverted all to heck (but charmingly!) in Lois and Clark. The hand-crocheted cover for the fax machine in the Kents' parlor says it all. "I was just thinking if you're expecting something then I'd better check the paper!" Of course, that was the nice Smallville, before the rural Gothic makeover.

Newspaper Comics

 * US Acres, which is far more known in its Animated Adaptation (see Western Animation, below).
 * Any time The Far Side used a farm setting for a gag, this trope was present in full force.

Theater

 * The musical Oklahoma is another iconic example.

Web Original

 * Lampooned repeatedly by The Onion, a satiric newspaper founded in Madison, WI. Examples of its self-referential mockery of the Midwest: "Rural Nebraskan Can't Handle Frantic Pace of Omaha." "Rural Illinois' Sexiest Moms." [with a picture of an overweight Soccer mom].

Western Animation
"Stewie: (sitting in a diner next to three men) Soooo...anyone seen any good movies lately?
 * US Acres, again, in Garfield and Friends. For that matter, the life of Jon's hayseed folks in Garfield. Jim Davis is a native son of Muncie, Indiana.
 * Which is a city of 70,000 or so people, (100,000+ when you include suburbs). A big city it ain't, but it isn't a small town Down On the Farm, either.
 * If it's not in the Northeast or on the West Coast, Family Guy will pretty much lambaste it without mercy. One example (a Cutaway Gag, typically for the show):

Nebraskans: No. Nah. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Stewie: Read any good books?

Nebraskans: No. Nah. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Stewie: Anything new with corn?

Nebraskans (excited): Corn?! Are you kidding me?! Oh yeah! Corn, corn, corn! Corn is great. Corn is always interesting!"


 * Another example is when Peter claimed the Sticks Downey character from Happy Days was "the only Negro in the state of Wisconsin." This, despite Milwaukee (where Happy Days took place) being over 40 percent African-American. Then again, this is probably more a shot at the lack of diversity on Happy Days than a shot at Wisconsin itself.
 * An episode of I Am Weasel had I.R. Baboon sing "There's no place like Nebraska/Except for Oklahoma!"
 * In Animaniacs, Rita and Runt hop a train for Chicago, and end up in Nebraska. Rita was hoping for the big city, but 'They ain't got/ What we got/ Corn.'
 * Animator Don Bluth grew up on a farm and several of his films involve them; Banjo the Woodpile Cat, The Secret of NIMH, Rock a Doodle and Thumbelina.
 * Apparently, Homer Simpson grew up here. His family's old farmhouse becomes important in the episodes "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" and "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy"