Too many times have the eyes of new friends lit up every time I mentioned my upbringing in a small town. They ask the usual questions: “Did you grow up on a farm? Did you have a lot of friends because it was a small graduating class? Was it like living in an ’80s movie?”
“Wow, you’re so lucky,” they would all chant.
Sure, growing up in a town with a population of less than 2,000 offered me a sense of community, whereas city folk have to find their place among the many communities. The usual coffee shop gatherings and school-sanctioned sporting events were, in fact, there to connect with the small community. I don’t think I could walk 10 steps without being stopped by a peer’s mom here or an old elementary school teacher there.
My school’s physics professor was our head football coach. My great-grandfather’s name is on a plaque in my high school cafeteria, honoring him for helping to build our tiny, one-story school. My dad and I graduated from the same high school. My school was so small that half of my graduating class was related to me one way or another.
No, the dating life was not as glamorous as “Footloose” would have you think.
In other ways, though, it is kind of like “Footloose,” with the disproportion of schools and churches and the lack of dedication toward education.
Half of the adult population in Midwest towns say they’ve lived there their whole life. I can attest to the many weddings of high school sweethearts and my parents and grandparents’ many friends from high school who continue to reside there. My dad’s childhood peers had children at the same time he did, leaving me to experience a copy-and-paste upbringing with families my dad has known for decades.
This is what makes these rural communities so close. No one ever leaves.
The population in rural towns remains 76% white, according to the U.S. 2020 census. As a half-white, half-Indian girl interested in music and the arts instead of sports, the typical Midwest lifestyle felt limited. My school didn’t have a debate or speech team. There was no orchestra, no swim team, no chess club, no coding classes, no advanced placement classes and so much else missing.
I don’t think much of this comes through in movies.
“Gilmore Girls,” a show that aired in 2000, features a single mother raising her daughter in her small hometown in Connecticut. The show offers notes of autumn and academia as Lorelai and Rory Gilmore navigate small-town troubles. Although it isn’t explicitly mentioned, fans believe the town, Stars Hollow, has a population of just under 10,000, which is pretty big for a small town, in my opinion.
Film Flavor observed how “Gilmore Girls” portrays small towns as walkable places with upper-middle-class residents. Star Hollow also has successful and independent businesses, a fantasy that most Hallmark movies use in their main plotline.
Charles Kronengold, an assistant professor of cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, said many movies and novels from the 19th and 20th centuries depicted rural living.
“People who were growing up in the metropolitan areas like Paris, London, New York wanted to have a taste of what is outside of that,” Kronengold said. “And I think it goes in both directions, so I think a lot of the time urban people misunderstand rural people and rural people misunderstand urban people.”
Kronengold said movies, in particular, can get lazy when depicting small-town living. Filmmakers want to film in a setting that looks the part, so less time is dedicated to accuracy. This makes for a glamorized depiction of all geographic zones, not just the rural Midwest.
A common genre of movies featuring Midwestern towns is horror. “Children of the Corn” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” make use of the open, eerie space in the Midwestern countryside and small neighborhoods. The classic farm and lack of light pollution make for a perfect horror film setting that people often picture when they think of the Midwest.
I even find myself resonating with the old-fashioned folk, rusty pickup trucks and cowboy boots whenever I watch these films, reminding me of my 20th-century Midwestern gothic-looking town.
It’s movies like these where students agree that depictions of the Midwest are accurate. From the people to the religious overtones, many students find that these films authentically capture the rural, small and secluded world that is the Midwest.
Andrew Palik, a third-year student at the University, grew up in Grand Rapids, Minn., a town with a population of less than 12,000. Although he grew up in a tight-knit and safer community than that of the Twin Cities, there were many opportunities he didn’t receive as a student until coming to the University.
“Education in my high school was so much worse than here,” Palik said. “I noticed when I came to the U of M, I had classes with PSEO (post-secondary education options) students from around here, and they were so much farther ahead than I was.”
Like Palik, many of the students at my school took on trade schools after graduation. It was unheard of to want to go so far from home. My guidance counselor even instructed me to do my own research when it came to transfer credits, since she rarely dealt with Minnesota schools. PSEO was not an option for me.
The lack of education also created a divide. It limited those who had potential and desires to take on school at a more advanced level. Sadly, much of my early education felt like a joke.
To paint a brighter picture, I had to argue with an 18-year-old senior who thought satellites and gravity weren’t real. I was a freshman in high school and couldn’t believe people took such knowledge for granted.
These were the same people who asked me why I’d ever want to travel the world or go to a university 284 miles away. I do believe that the fear of leaving small-town communities behind makes for close-minded people in an ever-changing world of diversity and progress.
Coming to the cities and talking with people continues to open my mind and hits me with the realization of how obsolete my knowledge was.
Mason Bierbaum, a second-year student, grew up in Albany, Minn., a town with a population of less than 3,000. Bierbaum said diversity was absent at his school and the lack of experiences and cultures made for racist undertones within the town’s people.
“I think my school was 99% white with the only diversity being if you were protestant or catholic,” Bierbaum said. “I could probably count on one or two hands the number of people of color in my grade, let alone the whole school.”
Kronengold explained how Hollywood still gets away with a lot of stereotypical depictions of people, especially those from the Midwest and the South, who are commonly grouped as being uneducated and old-fashioned.
This acts as a barrier to small-town residents who fear progression, as much of modernized media and culture continues to make fun of the rural Midwest. These generalizations keep the Midwest in a cycle of constant standstill.
Kronengold said there are two ways the nation and Hollywood view the small-town Midwest: as a homogeneous society or a microcosm of the U.S. as a whole.
With all of this being said, the lack of funds in education and diversity makes the rural Midwest a restricted place to live.
Aric Moriak, a first-year student at Concordia College, grew up in Rice, Minn., a town of about 2,000. Moriak’s take on small towns is the perfect way to end this argument.
“Small towns, it’s hard for change. Change is very hard,” Moriak said. “I think that’s a stereotype that’s accurate in the sense that, whenever there’s a change, everyone freaks out, whereas in a bigger city, change happens all the time.”
Maybe someday we can remove the fear of change and move toward a future that’s inclusive and welcoming for all people.