Posted by It’s been some time since I sang karaoke, and I’m quite sure the world is a far better place as a result. But the last song I sang in a towny bar was “Bright Lights” by Matchbox 20. For anyone not familiar with the song, it’s from the point of view of a small town man who’s partner has left for a life in New York City. He refers to her as “another alien on Broadway,” and part of the chorus reads as follows:
“Maybe, maybe, maybe
You’ll find something that’s enough to keep you
But if the bright lights don’t receive you
You should turn yourself around and come on home”
Later in the song, the lyrics become a bit more desperate:
“Let that city take you in (Come on home)
Let that city spit you out (Come on home)
Let that city take you down, yeah”
The entire narrative of the song, albeit obviously from the perspective of a guy who is butt-hurt that his girl left him to follow her dreams or reach for a better life, implies that New York City is a vicious place that one can only survive for a short time. And when that time comes, the woman should come “home,” also implying that there is no way she could call the Big Apple home.
This is a subtle but relentless narrative throughout American popular media that insinuates that cities are glitzy and bright but ultimately bad, while country and small towns are good places to actually call “home.”
Hallmark movies are probably the most consistent perpetuators of this narrative. The high-powered executive in “the big city” who works 14 hours per day reluctantly goes home to see her family that lives in a small town, only to awkwardly meet the handsome cattle ranch owner who is somehow the perfect man but “just never got around” to looking for a partner. He laughs condescendingly, watching the squeaky clean city girl make a horrid face while milking a cow with her Gucci purse still hanging from her shoulder. Eventually, he shows her how to ride a horse for the first time and talks about how “life is slower here,” and thus more satisfying. Eventually, the woman is sold on the idea that her life of corporate success has been a sham, and she should absolutely move back ”home” where she has fewer options and less opportunity to maximize her path to smashing the glass ceiling (sense the sarcasm?).
Shows like Seinfeld, Friends, and How I Met Your Mother were some of the first shows in my lifetime to challenge this narrative in the 1990s and mid-2000s. Many pundits have citied these popular TV shows as catalysts for a renewed interest in city life. But prior to these, nearly every TV movie and sitcom romanticized small town and suburban life.
The shows that did and still do feature an urban setting? Crime dramas like Law and Order, LA Law, NYPD Blue and countless others.
With few exceptions, the pop media message is clear: suburbs and small towns are where people fall in love or whimsically have a laugh, while the city is where the cops battle relentless crime on a daily basis. This continues to be the incredibly one-dimensional depiction of cities in American poplar media. And let’s not even talk about country music, where Jason Aldean’s “Small Town Small” was a chart topper.
How many song lyrics lament the fact that a partner leaves their city “home” for the “alien” land of the country? How many TV shows before 1990 glorified the spontaneous and exciting city life over the slow, uninteresting, uninspiring and homogeneous suburban landscape? How many reality shows took country farm kids with no concept of diversity, tolerance and inclusion and introduced them on camera to places where these values are championed?
It all comes down to how we see different environments. Some people look at the city and think crime, garbage, loud noises, cramped conditions and a sea of people to wade through. In the suburbs and the country, they see land, open space, the freedom to drive fast, and live life unseen and unmonitored.
I have the opposite vision. I see cities as engines of potential equity and opportunity. I see cities as the drivers of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Conversely, I drive to the country and see the male ego in full force, with massive lifted pickup trucks and muscle cars. I see front yards with multiple rusted-out trucks up on blocks in foot-tall grass. I see a message of “proud to stagnate,” which is directly opposed to my desire to be better whenever I can.
And here’s the thing… neither of these one-dimensional narratives shared in the last two paragraphs is correct. Cities, suburbs, small town and rural life are all fraught with nuances that transcend my own my bias, and as someone who grew up in a small town, I admit where my base for this argument is tenuous at best. But there is absolutely no question which narrative has been depicted almost exclusively in popular American popular media.
More than ever, our personal realities and identifications are being constructed and perpetuated by what we see on social media. But even before these interactive platforms existed, we consumed decades of the unidirectional TV, radio and movie narrative that cities are bad and small town life is good.