TNT's "Leverage" Infiltrated by Oklahoma Fans?
One of the shows I like to watch with my wife and teenage kids is Leverage which stars (as TNT is constantly reminding us in promos) "Oscar winning Timothy Hutton". Actually the rest of the cast is pretty good too. This escapist drama is about a team of skilled criminals who have turned into white knights - taking down fat cats and power bosses on behalf of the little guy. The show reminds me of the slick British drama Hustle.
Normally I like Leverage. It is a fun and quirky romp that doesn't take itself too seriously. There is always a "gotcha" moment where you finally figure out how they make the big score. Unfortunately, Last night's episode "The Tap Out Job" was a huge disappointment in what has been an otherwise entertaining group of episodes. Why you ask? Well it became painfully obvious to me (and anyone else who has visited, driven through, read about, seen pictures of, flown over, or watched "The Tonight Show" before 1992) that the writers of Leverage are either too lazy to do any actual research or they are ignorant, prejudice, and snobbish with little experience outside of a the cocoon of Hollywood. If you want my no holds barred reasons why - read on.
Lincoln as a One Horse Town
First, the setting was supposed to be Lincoln Nebraska. Lincoln is a bustling college town of more than 250,000 people. It rises up off the prairie like an urban oasis. It boasts a huge, world class college campus, copious restaurants, plenty of shopping, and the state capital. Leverage however, chose to show it as sleepy, rural, economically depressed town with little activity - largely populated by out of work meat packing employees. When the villain's henchman turned to him and said "They are staying at the Gurdy Hotel", the villain said something like "Ethel works the front desk there - find out what you can". Apparently we have no upscale hotel chains and everyone in the city is on a first name basis.
Omaha and Lincoln are closely linked and a mere 45 minute drive from each other. Omaha is the home of the "Oracle of Omaha", Warren Buffet - the world's richest man. It is a place reputed to have more millionaires per capita than any other city in the US. While this is unsubstantiated, seeing as how I can't walk 2 blocks without almost being run over by a Lexus or a BMW, I tend to believe it. Yet all the folks in the show were down on their luck farmers or laborers. Elliot (one of the characters) says at one point that fight clubs are popular here. What? I have never even heard of an fight club here. He goes on to say that the fighters are just looking for a way out because the "plants are closing and the corn is burning up" (or something like that). It's true that Nebraska is Corn country - but it is hardly a dust bowl. Ag producers are having a bumper year on top of 2 or 3 bumper years. Unemployment is lower than the rest of the country and folks here are far more likely to be working in finance or technology than they are in manufacturing. In the words of Shrek, "What a load of tripe!"
What's with the Accents?
For some unexplained reason (like perhaps the producer was from Antarctica) All of the characters spoke with a slow drawl. Now I have nothing against a slow drawl. I went to school in the Ozarks and some of my best friends liked to examine every side of a word before getting it out. But Omaha and Lincoln folks speak with clear Midwestern English. Omaha is the telemarketing capital of the US because of the fact that folks here speak without regional distinctiveness. The villain at one point was described as "Barney Fife" and he sounded like him too - as if a slick high finance villain (like the ones they fight in New York and LA) couldn't possibly be found in back water Nebraska.
Chicken Fried Steak?
One of the characters laments the fact that "all the food on her plate is brown" and she is told it is "chicken fried steak" - to which she responds that "meat should never be used as an adjective". A quick survey of all the restaurants in the 2 mile area around my office indicates that none of them serve chicken fried steak. Fish Tacos, smoked salmon, chop salad and shrimp scampi yes – but no chicken fried steak. I know that they serve it at Cracker Barrel (a Midwest chain found near Interstate exits), but it is mostly a southern dish - not a Midwestern dish.
Nebraska is beef country and Nebraska beef is some of the best quality in the world. She couldn't find a filet? Or a salad? Later in the show she is eating at the country club and what are they serving - again, chicken fried steak. Where did these writers get the idea that Chicken fried steak is a Nebraska dish? It's like everything they know about Nebraska they seemed to have learned from "In the Heat of the Night". Frankly I was surprised they didn't throw in power mad tin-pot sheriff.
The Final Straw
The final straw came when they chose to poke all Nebraskans in the eye with a dig at our college football team. One of the characters is a good looking, athletic, black actor who plays the technology guru (which they lamely call a hacker). At some point in the show he finds himself at a public event and he is approached by a group of screaming girls looking for his autograph. He says (and I'm quoting here), "For the last time I am not the tailback for the Cornhuskers". After they left I believe I heard him say under his breath, "I don't even know what a Cornhusker is".
Where to begin? First of all, Nebraska people do not automatically assume than any athletic looking black man plays for the Cornhuskers - and the idea is offensive to me as well as to most Nebraskans. Secondly, we actually know what our football players look like - we see them in the paper and on TV and on the field just like everywhere else in the US. Finally, how can any college football fan not know the legendary Cornhuskers? Even if you are not from the Big 12 you still know who they are. They have 4 Heisman Winners, the best winning percentage in the last 50 years, a mind boggling string of sell outs at memorial stadium and 5 championships - 3 of them in the 90s. It is really asinine to suggest they are some backwater team he's never heard of - particularly since we saw this same actor in season one absorbing 5 football games simultaneously on his array of fancy-pants plasma screens.
My Best Guess
I've thought long and hard about how these folks got it so unforgivably wrong. My best guess is that either the writers are Oklahoma fans or they are jaded, evil, shallow, worthless, soulless shells of human beings with a pathological inability to see value in anything between California and the New York..... I sure hope they are not Oklahoma fans (shudder).
13 Comments
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I'm from Nebraska and live in Nebraska... Y'all better listen to what he say'n :) -
Yeah, i'm going to go with the latter. I remember my first trip to San Diego and someone asking if we had running water where I lived. It's sad, but true. -
I was fortunate enough to live in Oklahoma from 1976 until 2004. While I appreciate the rivalry between Nebraska and Oklahoma, your comments don't make sense. Why would we need to infiltrate and mess with this show? Now, if the show were set in Texas -- that would be another story. :)
Seriously, I now live in Tampa Florida, but I'll always be a Big 12 fan! Nebraska is has a storied and strong history of gridiron greatness, not to mention being a great university. I'll always pull for the Sooners, and enjoy the games between Nebraska and Oklahoma: win, lose, or draw! -
Haha
I read your blog for the CF posts but found this post very funny.
I currently live in Tulsa, OK and can assure you no one in Oklahoma gives much thought to Nebraska football (other than the occasional reminiscence of traditions-gone-by). As alluded to in the previous comment, if it truly were "Oklahoma fans" in charge of the show, then yes, Texas would be the whipping boy, bar none.
Cheers! -
Wow... Easily offended are we? Not that I'm saying the writers are right, or that they shouldn't take the time to do a little more research, but honestly, this is kinda the standard for any cinema. Personally, I'm from Tucson; our population tripped over a million not too long ago, We have the U of A (Huge and ancient) and .. well, I'm not gonna write an article in your comment. but suffice to say we're big. How are we normally portrayed in anything that bothers to remember we exist? A place where cowboys and rodeos still rule all, looking more like an old ghost town than a real city, and an
'airport' consisting of a single dirt strip. Seriously... this is the way of things. Not just in Hollywood, but pretty much anywhere that produces entertainment. If someone knows nothing about a setting, they make it up based on stereotypes. if one location gets more accurate treatment than another, then you can place a damn safe bet that it's because someone on the crew has Physically been there, not because anyone actually went out and did homework. so.. yeah, Have a little appreciation for Pathetic parodys, rather than letting them offend you. Seriously, it's healthier in the long run. -
@ayila,
Obviously you missed the attempts at humor in my post (although the racial overtones definitely offended me). I'm well aware of the propensity for media types on either coast to rely on hackneyed stereotypes. But if no one ever speaks out about it then they'll never know (not that they are flocking to read the muse but... you never know :) -
Dude!! Chill, out, man!
Leverage isn't picking on your city any more than it's picking on Boston when it get the accents and locations weird there -- they're filming in Portland, OR, so of course there's not gonna be a herd of Nebraskans around to play extras. The only reason they do get stuff right about Boston is that Timothy Hutton and (I think) John Rogers are from there.
As for 'they should've done more/better research' -- they learned 2-3 months ahead of time that they we renewed FOR THE SUMMER, not the fall as they'd been expecting. So in that 2-3 months, they had to scout a brand new city to film in, build sets, write at least the first 6-8 scripts, film the episodes, and all the other sundry behind-the-scenes stuff only people in the industry know about. With that kind of time-crunch, you're lucky that the city they used is really in Nebraska, instead of some other state. Maybe in future they should make up all place names. At least that would, hopefully, keep the whiners quiet. -
@sjrSpike,
Thanks for the comments and the additional information on the production schedule. I am perhaps too hard on them. I probably would have let it slide if it weren't for the dig at the huskers (ha).
While I'm on the subject I wonder about the last 2 comments - perhaps not from regular readers? I'm definitly a tongue in cheek guy who doesn't take himself too seriously. So please don't think I need chillin'. I'm actually quite content and ready to see tomorrows episode :) -
the episodes are on wednesday Dad =) and I can appreciate the humor of stereotype everyone, but they did get many things wrong. Maybe they should have done a disclaimer at the end of the episode to let us poor hicks know they meant no harm. Leverage is one of my favorite shows- but we do have have steaks, running water, strangers- the whole shabang. Maybe they will give a shout out to us on wednesday =) -
@Jazz,
Hey... I don't barge into your facebook page and leave flares do I :)
Nice to know you read my blog occassionally though. How's you day? Apparently not much to do at the office today eh? (ha). -
Ha =)
My day's not too slow, not too fast- and I liked the post by the way.
And no one said you couldn't facebook me- I've got nothing to hide =) ( or at least very little to hide) -
I just recently started watching this show and just got done watching this episode. I was curious if any of this was shot in Nebraska.
Comments about the blog:
I have friends all over the US, all of them know WHO the Cornhuskers are but have no clue what a Cornhusker is. :)
Lots of places sell chicken fried steak in Nebraska. I agree that its primarily a southern food though.
Great blog and comments :)
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