Why Does Hollywood Hate the Suburbs?

online.wsj.com ^ | 122708 | By LEE SIEGEL

[AnAmericanMother]

Artists are often too inwardly focussed and spend their time making fact-free judgments based on their aesthetic prejudices. It can be more of a stumbling block than a qualification.

You may have wandered through Cobb County a couple of times, but you weren't paying attention, or at least seeing only what you wanted to see. You apparently went looking for ugly to ratify your prejudgment of the suburbs, and amazingly enough you found it.

You were so busy looking for what you wanted to find, you missed our cliffs and rivers, our hardwood forests, our old family businesses and homes, our honest horses and good dogs, and most of all our neighborly hospitable people.

Your loss.

[Mr. Silverback]

I am a professional artist, and I know beauty when I see it. In terms of aesthetics, your beloved suburbia has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

"Now is the time on Sprockets vhen ve condemn the banality of Cobb County. Touch my monkey!"

[B-Chan]

Actually, I've been all over Cobb County. It does have many beautiful natural features. I particularly enjoyed bumming around on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, south of Deliverance country. It would be even better without the Steak 'n' Shakes, dry cleaners, and tire shops that came along with the zillions of people who moved there to get away from the Negroes to escape the bustle of city life in the 1970s.

In short: don't be so defensive. Your faceless, soulless suburb is no worse than any other faceless, soulless suburb in America, and it's better than a lot of them. (If someone put a gun to my head and said "Move to Plano, Texas, or I'll kill you", I'd calmly reach over, flip the safety off, and help him pull the trigger.) Some people like living in Dullsville; others don't. Enjoy your freeway travel and God bless you.

[B-Chan]

LOL Touché

Actually, I am a lot like Dieter...

[AnAmericanMother]

OK, having essentially admitted the truth of what I'm saying, you now play the race card.

And also play the standard liberal gambit of accusing someone who disagrees with you of being "defensive".

Pretty poor arguments for someone who claims to be aesthetically and intellectually superior.

[B-Chan]

[Mr. Silverback]

:-)

[Mr. Silverback]

and tire shops that came along with the zillions of people who moved there to get away from the Negroes

Let me know when you've got an explanation for the influx of whites who moved from Portland, Maine (the largest city in one of the whitest states if not THE whitest state in the entire Union) into my suburb in the late 80s. These folks were moving toward something and/or away from something, but it wasn't away from black folks, because there were hardly any to speak of. By the end of the first week of Basic Training, I knew more black folks on a first name basis than I had known my entire life up to that point.

[B-Chan]

Don’t be so defensive, big fellah. White flight isn’t a dirty word to me. I don’t care if white people move away from black folks. I wouldn’t care to be the lone honky in the neighborhood myself. I just wish my fellow Whiteys would be honest about why they’re moving to the burbs instead of pretending it’s because they want “good schools” or whatever.

Note: I live in an old neighborhood, 1.5 miles from City Hall.

[NinoFan]

Question for any Californians. I remember taking a university shuttle when I was in college to some shops in neighboring Palo Alto. (Usually everything could be done at the mall/markets nearby, but sometimes a trip for non-amusement reasons was required.) I took a walk one day from those shops and found a large neighborhood that was full of very expensive houses. I don’t remember what street I was on. Anyway, coming from a state where everything in such a community would look the same , what amazed me about this neighborhood was that although every home was squished right next to toe very other house and there were no yards, every home was unique and individual. Is this common for all of Palo Alto or did I just happen to find a beautiful part of it? If it weren’t for the absurdity of the locals there (they recently ousted a police chief for the dumbest of reasons), it seems like it would be the perfect place to live.

[muawiyah]

Try harder.

[muawiyah]

I'm in the distant suburbs and we have 5 halal butcher shops. I don't think the nearby "city" has even one.

They do, on the other hand, have a whale of lot more murders there than here.

[Alia]

Your point is true to a point, IME. In the suburbs near a city, one yet finds the individuality. However, elsewhere, yes, what you say can be quite true. And yes, I’d ride my bike to work, but that might get me killed on these rural roads. Where I used to live had marvelous bike paths. However, I find that my views on life are always considered a bit “off” no matter where I live, so I let it bother me not at all.

[Alia]

I grew up on a cul-de-sac. It wasn't about "isolation". It meant that our cul-de-sac was where we kids played football, staged our childhood dramas and could do so without getting run over, or our parents having to DRIVE us to a taxpayer funded public park or location. The cul-de-sac area was a "commons" for all of us, including those not living in the cul-de-sac. And the referees or "park monitors" were parents. It was just a better way to grow children. It was our little village raising children and other people's children.

Still makes me laugh to see liberals get all hissy over suburbs and cul-de-sacs, when it is they who love "it takes a village to raise a child".

Holding two thoughts at the same time in their brain pans can be very difficult, clearly.

[TypeZoNegative]

Actually, I live next door to a person with an Art Car and they’re not seen as pariahs amongst my neighbors. Granted, I probably wouldn’t drive one to a funeral or if I’m about to close an important business deal with a customer, but they’re still fun to drive and a good way to show that you’re just not satisfied driving a black or white colored car.

And I don’t live in the suburbs. However, I’ve dated 3 women who are from the suburbs, including the one I’m currently dating right now. Her complaints about the burbs are shared with mine. In fact, her exact words were “Being an individual in a suburb is like being a Conservative in the city.”

As for me not being around the suburbs too often, I’m actually currently posting from a suburb. Eagan, Minnesota. A southern suburb of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota.