But sadly, Jenny will never be popular, because Jenny's a whore.

So, recently I was going back through many pages of posts at the insanely amazing Sociological Images, and I happened upon this little gem, featuring Caroline, who is apparently flawless in every way humanly possible, all the dudes that want a piece of her pristine ass, her frumptastic friend Ellie, who is stuck with a douchey boyfriend that leaves her stranded places, and a vaguely ethnic looking chick named Jenny who isn't allowed to mar their holy cafeteria table with her whorish ways and flamboyant headbands.

What they don't show you is the future, where Caroline marries Wally, settles down in the burbs where she has babies, hosts many a Junior League luncheon, and then eventually hangs herself in the closet because she just can't take being perfect anymore. Also, Wally is totally into wife swapping.

Ellie marries her douchey boyfriend because she thinks she doesn't have any other options, but eventually smothers him in his sleep, gets away with it and joins a radical feminist commune.

Jenny, however, stopped giving a shit about people named "Wally" liking her, and started an awesome girl group much like the Shangri-la's, rides a Vespa and lives in a fabulous bohemian loft in the Village where she takes many lovers and tosses them away at whim.

**Gah! This thing refuses to properly embed! So if you can't see it, click on the link for Sociological Images, which goes directly to the video. It's totally worth it.

She's just a small town girl...

(First off, can I just tell you that I just watched Biden's speech in Tampa, and have been giggling for an hour over the fact that he said something along the lines of "we need someone who can raise up his hand and say no! Not some angry man lurching from position to position" Because the imagery in that was just fantastic. He's right. McCain- cannot raise up his arms, was definitely lurching last night. Lurching is an amazing word)

Anyway... Sarah Vowell was on The Daily Show last night talking about the whole weird love/hate thing conservatives have with NYC- you know, they sure love talking about 9/11, but think the people who live there are evil elitist jerks or something. Which, you know, is not in fact true.

But I believe I know why they think this. See, when someone grows up in a small town, 9 times out of 10, they're dying to leave. That's what spurs this country on, the desire to get the fuck out of wherever your parents raised you. The people who don't get out and wish they could, are bitter. The people who don't want to get out, I assume, feel like the people who did thought they were "too good" for that life. Which, I think, is why people in those towns feel that NYC and other cities are elitist. I mean, it's not like people are clamoring to move to Wasilla, ya know? If they were, it would certainly be more populated.

But I don't think it's a matter of insult on so many levels. Some people are better suited to city life, and some are happy in smaller towns. Country Mouse, City Mouse and all that. I mean, it's possible that people grow up in cities and decide that they'd prefer small town life, but you don't hear about that so much. I mean, if someone here did that, I wouldn't take it as a direct insult to my way of life, so much as a personal decision on the part of the other person. Living in cities sort of forces you to deal with multitudes of people not living the same life as you are. Every day, I meet people who believe things that I do not, that do things that I do not- were I to take it as a personal insult to my being, or a rejection on some level, I'd be pretty unhappy with life.

The thing is, I sort of feel like a lot of these people just watched "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" a few too many times or something. And while the Capra films are lovely and heartwarming (and I do love love love "It Happened One Night"), they're not really, like, fact. Despite the fact that Hollywood is supposed to be another bastien of the elite, there are craploads of movies out there espousing the whole idealized vision of Wholesome Small Town America vs. Corrupt Big Cities. And if that's where you're getting your information from, yeah, it's gonna be a little skewed.

At the end of the day, I think that it has more to do with hierarchy than anything else. Our capitalist culture demands that in order to be worthy, you have to be better than someone else. I mean, that's pretty much the whole reason people are racist or homophobic- fear of not being better than someone else (look at the people who are, and try to tell me I'm not right about this). Small towns have little to offer in the way of "things to do"- so it probably makes them feel better to cling to the idea that they are morally superior to larger cities, despite all the meth use and teenage pregnancies. They have to have something, I guess.

Let's just talk about small town values for a sec here.

Every single time I hear some idiot republican start going on and on about "small town values"... I want to punch a wall. Seriously.

Republicans like to talk about small towns like they're these magical Capra-esque places, filled with only people who are magically decent-licious. Unlike big cities where we're all kniving assholes, out to get all we can- or something like that. I've seen Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. I know what they're thinking.

It's amazing to me that "small town people" are presented as being more trustworthy than people in cities, because if there was anything that taught me not to trust people, it was the time I spent living in a small town in Massachusetts. It taught me that if you are vulnerable for two seconds, it will bite you in the ass. When I moved to Rochester, finally, I thought at first that everyone who was friendly to me was doing it as a joke, and that as soon as I was friendly back, they'd laugh at me for falling for it. Which is exactly what happened to me myriad times in that trustworthy small town.

It's amazing to me that small town people are presented as being warmer and friendlier than city people. Because I have never had to eat lunch alone in a bathroom stall in a city because no one would sit with me. And sure, in a small town, everyone knows your name- but it doesn't mean they're going to talk to you- except, of course, in the case of screaming racial epithets at you on the bus because it upsets you (yes, it happens in Massachusetts).

It's amazing to me that they act as though people in small towns have better morals than people in cities. I can't think of a more important moral than being kind to people- and if anything, I think the main reason I was targeted was because I wasn't afraid to be stand up for other kids who were getting picked on. And let me tell you, I don't want to brag- but the one thing I am proud of is that they never, ever took that away from me- they never got to me on that one- I did it right up until my last breath in that small town, and I did it with every ounce of vitriol in my being. And I have a lot of vitriol when it comes to that shit.

Since then, I've lived in more "citified" places, and have never had that kind of trouble with anyone- and have found people to be much, much kinder and more decent, and more upstanding, etc. etc. And while I'm not saying that every small town on earth is filled with that sort of people- or even that everyone there was like that- it probably just seemed like it at the time because those people were the stronger personalities and other kids were afraid of them- I just think it's unfair to go and paint cities with the evil brush and small towns with the good brush, when that has most certainly not been everyone's experience.

With that said, I've never met anyone who wasn't dying to get the hell out of a small town, so what does that say?