I had arrived at 4070 Vilas Hall early and was squirming only slightly in a seat that, while newer than the ones I sat in during the early 90’s when I was a Comm Arts major taking mulitple classes in 4070, was just as cramped and uncomfortable. Patiently waiting for the film to begin, I surveyed my fellow moviegoers who were filing in and I spied some of the usual suspects one sees at Cinematheque. For instance, JoAnne Pow!ers - saxophonist, DJ, and busker extraordinaire - took her customary spot in the front row about 6-8 seats from a fellow who was either former Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative manager/social activist Allen Ruff or his doppelgänger. No doubt the ivy capped Grant Phipps would arrive soon.
The crowd was the expected mix of young & grey-haired cinephiles with a smattering of curious students taking advantage of the opportunity to expand their horizons along with some international ones eager for a little piece of home. All was as it should be.
Then an older woman approached an older man sitting just back and to the right of me. They knew one another and began chatting as people do.
The gentleman admitted to being worried about the election. Nothing out of the ordinary here. I suspect a lot of people are anxious about the election. An admission of anxiety, however, very quickly became an MSNBC program with the woman assuming the role of a geriatric Rachael Maddow.
“Madison will go for Kamala,” Madison’s own Nostradamus reassured her interlocutor who replied that he wasn’t worried about Dane or the counties that surround us nor Milwaukee but rather elsewhere. He offered Grant County as an example of a land populated by heathens before mentioning the bogeymen of many a Madison liberal, people who live “up north”. It was as if the greater Madison area was surrounded by barbarians and war was about to begin in the Teutoburg Forest. The contempt that filled the air was so thick, you could cut it with the wrong side of a knife.
As if on cue, the woman then transformed into the living embodiment of pomposity and arrogance.
“They don’t know how the government works!” she cried in despair. “If you asked any of them, they wouldn’t be able to explain how the Electoral College worked!” Was she in favor of having to pass a literacy test in order to vote like in the Jim Crow South? Or maybe she would just prefer to be ruled over by philospher-kings.
Just as too much emotional distress turns the mild-mannered Bruce Banner into The Hulk, an overabundance of condescension caused this woman to metamorphose into a modern-day Marie Antoinette, completely bereft of any self-awareness or empathy; unable to comprehend how a farmer up north would not bow down to her preeminent understanding of the Electoral College and submit to her superior judgements on all matters political. All that was missing was her uttering, “Let them eat locally-sourced organic vegan cake!”
The man picked up where she left off and blurted out in frustration, “Pointing out his character flaws and what an awful person Trump is doesn’t work.” He then said of up north, “It’s just like Alabama up there.” He noted that he hailed from Fairchild and so his proclamation that folks up north are just a bunch of uneducated, racist, inbred hicks comes on good authority. Deliverance is basically a documentary about rural Eau Claire County, apparently. He proceeded to tell of how he saw some footage online of a black man saying that he liked Trump because the guy told it like it is. In relating this dreadful tale, the man altered his voice to sound like the guy in the video. I didn’t take this as being racist, but rather as simple denigration of a perceived inferior.
Listen to how the uneducated talk!
"Welcome to Hurley!"
Not to be outdone, the woman continued her rant by saying that there are oodles of insecure men who just can’t stand the thought of a woman being president. In addition, there are sexists who just don’t think Harris is up to the task of taking on Vladimir Putin and ending the war in Ukraine.
A second older gentleman entered the fray and soon enough he revealed himself to be, like his two interlocutors, a living embodiment of liberal urban elitism. It was as if this unholy trinity of progressives had watched Tucker Carlson and thought his sterotypes of liberals were actually how-to manuals.
In referring to what I think was people who voted for Obama and then Trump, this second fellow asked exasperatedly, “How fucked up do you have to be?!”
The smugness in this part of the room was getting strong enough to fell a horse. If it was possible to die from self-righteousness, I suspect these people would have spontaneously combusted in their expensive, well-appointed homes or behind the wheels of their electric cars years ago.
Putting on airs of superiority and being a patronizing asshole must be mentally taxing because these self-proclaimed progressives seemed unable to even use a teensy tiny bit of their massive brain power to imagine that someone who doesn’t live in the greater Madison area or Milwaukee (or, as one admitted, smaller cities up north such as Eau Claire or Superior) could look beyond Trump’s character and vote for him because he can get policies they favor enacted. No doubt many religious people were offended by the philandering, the pussy grabbing, the hubris, etc. yet held their noses and voted for the guy anyway thinking he was the best choice to get Roe v. Wade overturned. And Trump delivered.
Not everyone who lives up north is a person of great virtue. Being salt of the earth doesn’t make you a saint. But nor does living far from Madison make you Simon Legree with an 80 IQ. If you go up north, you will find a variety of people including Latinos who make many a dairy farm go, south Asians running hotels, Hmong folks, and, of course, lots of white people. The denizens of up north are generally very nice and many of them are refugees from urban areas. (How many left the cities to get away from arrogant jagoffs like the ones I encountered at the cinema is unknown.)
I have found that rural folks generally like the trees and fresh air, the calm, and the slower pace of life. And they deal with even the worst of us city folk with a pantagruelian cheer. But, if you want to know how the likes of Scott Walker and Glenn Grothman get elected, look no further than the “progressives” I had the misfortune of sitting near last night.
Thankfully none of these people chatting by me got hurt attempting to put themselves in someone else's shoes or by patting themselves on their backs so hard.
Oh, the movie, Only the River Flows, was excellent. Cinematheque is a gem.
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