Saying It Better Than I Could

From thegirlwhoateeverything (whose blog is full of lovely food photograph, and whose handle is a fab allusion), on this post:

I really like what you said here:

"I have no particular interest in movies about parenting, or about Doing Any Other Theoretically Momentous Thing in New York or Los Angeles at this point, if only because locating movies in those cities tends to either overdetermine the action to the extent that it becomes hugely predictable, or denude the movie of any sense of local detail."

There's a whole big country where people parent, fall in love, find career success, get their hearts broken, get sick and die...I'm so tired of stories that take place in the same three neighborhoods in New York or LA. I'm tired of young white people and their love problems. I'm tired of FBI agents. I'm tired of movies that are set in a New Yorker or LA person's stereotyped idea of what other parts of the country are like. And for the love of all that is holy, putting glasses on a pretty woman makes her a PRETTY WOMEN WITH EYEGLASSES, not a hopeless frump.

I saw Chuck D. speak at Columbia College last year, and something he said has stayed with me. The entertainment industry thinks that New York and LA are where things get created and the rest of the country are just markets for consuming. It's funny because it's true, and sad, and hopefully changing as people make local work and build local audiences and use the web to connect with their audiences all over the world. 

Preach!