The American Midwest in Film and Literature: Nostalgia, Violence, and Regionalism

272 Pages·2020·6.03 MB·English

by  Adam R. Ochonicky

THE AMERICAN MIDWEST IN
FILM AND LITERATURE

THE AMERICAN
MIDWEST IN
FILM AND LITERATURE
Nostalgia, Violence, and Regionalism
ADAM R. OCHONICKY
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
© 2020 by Adam R. Ochonicky
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and
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Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-04596-6 (hardback)
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1 2 3 4 5 24 23 22 21 20 19
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Nostalgia and Regionalism 1
Part I: Twentieth-Century Narratives of Nostalgia and the Midwest
1. Nostalgic Spatiality 29
2. Spatial Constriction, Race, and Midwestern Stagnation 55
3. Nostalgic Violence, Nebulous Spaces, and Blank Identities 84
Part II: The Millennial Midwest on Film
4. Masculinity, Race, and Violence 123
5. Locating Sincerity, Disillusionment, and Paranoia 151
6. Nostalgic Atonement 178
Conclusion: Nostalgic Frontiers 203
Afterword: Regionalism and Politics 211
Bibliography 231
Index 245

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Simply writing the acknowledgments for this project has left me, indeed, in a
nostalgic state. I produced the first draft of this book during a portion of my
ten years living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Having moved north from St. Louis,
I quickly came to love the Cream City’s many charms. I’m grateful for the last-
ing friendships that developed with my colleagues, neighbors, and others from
the local film, music, literary, and art communities. There are many, many indi-
viduals to whom I owe a hearty “thanks.”
At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), I was fortunate to have
worked with an array of incredible faculty and staff members. First, I wish to
thank Patrice Petro, who has enriched my scholarly career in so many ways. Her
speedy and invaluable feedback helped to give shape to this book during the ini-
tial drafting process, particularly in terms of maintaining focus on big picture
issues. I’m also appreciative of the opportunity that she provided for me to work
at UWM’s Center for International Education (CIE), her inclusiveness in both
professional and social settings, and simply her ongoing kindness and support.
When I was first conceptualizing this project, Andrew Kincaid recommended—
and I paraphrase—“writing about what you know,” at least in terms of place: in
this case, the Midwest. Andrew continued to provide many helpful insights as the
project evolved. Jason Puskar’s rigorous critiques of my writing were immensely
useful for streamlining chapters and spotlighting my own arguments. Elena
Gorfinkel provided essential feedback as I prepared this manuscript for publi-
cation, and her work on temporality in cinema influenced my treatment of nos-
talgia in this project. I’m grateful to Andrew Martin for his steady presence and
generosity during my time at UWM.
Along with Patrice, Andrew, Jason, Elena, and Andy, I wish to thank sev-
eral additional people currently and formerly with UWM, especially those in
the Film Studies program. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to
Gilberto Blasini, Tami Williams, Ben Schneider, Tasha Oren, Peter Paik, Pete
Sands, and Jamie Poster. I’m indebted to the Film Studies program’s faculty com-
mittee for giving me the leeway to develop and regularly teach an undergraduate
course on the Midwest in film; my work on that course greatly influenced the or-
ganization and substance of this book. I also appreciate the faculty committee
enabling me to serve as archivist of the program’s collection of holdings for sev-
eral years and for their initial invitation to teach in the Film Studies program.
On that latter note, I’m thankful to Tasha, Ben, and Jamie for generously sharing
insights about film pedagogy. In UWM’s Department of English, Kristie Hamil-
ton has given continual support and guidance since I first arrived in Milwaukee.
There are numerous other professional colleagues and associates who deserve
recognition. Special thanks go to Victoria Johnson, whose friendship and advice
I’ve greatly valued over the past several years. It’s difficult to overstate the impor-
tance of Vicky’s work for my own project; her book, Heartland TV: Prime Time
Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity, is a milestone in linking Midwestern
studies with television and media studies. I’m grateful to Zoran Samardzija,
who has given constructive feedback on several chapters in my book. Zoran also
invited me to speak about my project as part of the Chicago Film Seminar lec-
ture series at DePaul University; that talk occurred just as I received my book
contract, and Zoran’s prepared response (and the comments of audience mem-
bers) informed my manuscript revisions. Susan Kerns provided many useful rec-
ommendations about films to address in this project and to include in the course
that I taught about the Midwest on film.
In my current position at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (UWO), I
have many wonderful colleagues in the Department of English. Extra thanks
go to Roberta Maguire, Don Dingledine, Pascale Manning, Stewart Cole, and
Stephen McCabe. Roberta served as department chair when I was hired, and I’ve
benefited from her sage guidance on a wide variety of matters.
As an undergraduate at Saint Louis University (SLU), Vince Casaregola intro-
duced me to the study of film at the college level; in recent years, I’ve enjoyed
a renewed friendship with Vince after crossing paths at conferences. From my
undergraduate years, I also wish to thank Fred Arroyo, who significantly influ-
enced my career and life. At SLU, I took two of Fred’s seminars; both courses
were highly formative for my ongoing interests in memory, nostalgia, and place.
The seeds of this very book can be traced to the undergraduate writing that I pro-
duced for Fred, and I remain grateful for his careful, detailed feedback and gen-
eral encouragement to make sense of the past through writing.
As an instructor at both UWM and UWO, I’ve had the opportunity to teach
Midwestern content in multiple contexts. It’s been a pleasure to work with,
respectively, Film Studies majors and English majors at those institutions, and
I’m grateful for their enthusiastic response to the materials that I’ve curated for
several different courses. Their lively and critical engagement with Midwestern
narratives and iconography—as depicted in films, literature, graphic novels,
and television series—has inspired new directions in my own thinking about
such materials. Encountering such passionate students has been one of the many
rewarding aspects of my work on regionalism.
I’ve been quite pleased to serve on the editorial board of Middle West Review
(MWR) since the journal first launched in 2014. Along with thanking Jon K.
Lauck and the other members of the board, I’d like to express my gratitude to
Paul Mokrzycki Renfro for his stewardship of MWR as editor-in-chief during
its first five volumes, for inviting me to join the board when the journal was in
its developmental stage, and for backing my efforts to further bring film, tele-
vision, and media scholarship into the interdisciplinary purview of MWR. It’s
viii Acknowledgments
been exciting to help establish MWR as a scholarly journal and to collaborate
on the renewal and expansion of the interdisciplinary study of the Midwest. On
a similar note, I’m especially appreciative of the other scholarly journals, pub-
lication venues, and conferences that have been receptive to my scholarship on
the Midwest in film, television, and other forms of media. While completing
this book, I curated a short piece on NewsRadio (NBC, 1995–1999) for a theme
week on “Flyover States and Representations of the U.S. Midwest” at In Media
Res; thanks to Emily Kofoed for organizing the theme week and accepting my
proposed piece, as well as to my fellow curators, particularly Tony Harkins. An
earlier, shorter version of chapter 4 of this book—which focused on A History
of Violence (2005) and Boys Don’t Cry (1999)—was published in the Quarterly
Review of Film and Video (QRFV), volume 32, issue 2. My thanks to the editors of
QRFV and to the Taylor & Francis Group for granting permission to reprint that
material. I previously published a review of Two American Families (PBS, 2013)
in Middle West Review, volume 1, issue 1. Thanks to the University of Nebraska
Press for granting permission to reproduce that piece in a revised and expanded
version as part of the Afterword of this book. Over the past several years, I’ve pre-
sented content from nearly every chapter of this book at numerous conferences.
The comments of my fellow panelists and the audience members helped this book
to reach its current state. Further, I’m grateful to the organizers who accepted
my proposals on Midwestern topics for the conferences of the following orga-
nizations and journals: the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), the
Modern Language Association (MLA), the Literature/Film Association (LFA),
Film & History, and the Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA). At
the MLA and MMLA conferences, I presented on several panels affiliated with
the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature (SSML); thanks to Marilyn
Atlas for organizing those panels and finding a place for my work on film along-
side the literary topics of the other presenters.
The editorial board and staff at Indiana University Press have been incredibly
supportive (and patient!) throughout the process of preparing my manuscript
for publication. In particular, I owe a great debt to both of the Acquisitions Edi-
tors with whom I’ve worked—Raina Polivka and Janice Frisch—as well as Gary
Dunham. After pitching my book to Raina at an SCMS conference, she sent it
out for review by anonymous readers and brought the project before the board
to secure a contract. As I was completing revisions, Raina took a position else-
where; Janice then became my primary contact at the press, and she skillfully
guided the book to publication while also responding to my steady stream of
questions. I’m thankful that Raina saw promise in my project and advised me
during the early stages of the publication process, and I’m exceptionally grate-
ful to Janice for all of her work to finalize this book. In addition, my two anony-
mous reviewers—who I was later informed were Wheeler Winston Dixon and
Douglas Reichert Powell—provided me with invaluable criticism and sugges-
tions for revision. I’m especially appreciative of the time and energy that Douglas
expended on my work, as he produced a second reader report on a revised draft of
the full manuscript. The combined contributions of Janice, Raina, Wheeler, and
Acknowledgments ix