Imagine Entertainment has partnered with dairy and food giant Land O’Lakes in an effort to modernize the depiction of rural America in movies and television shows.
The deal calls for Imagine to work with Hollywood’s creative community and other producers to encourage more nuanced depictions of how people live and work in small-town America.
This partnership reflects the growing relationship between consumer brands and top film and television producers. It also comes as the country has become increasingly polarized along political and ideological lines, which many see as defined by the great divide between urban and rural America.
“Authentic representation is important. Rural communities are not monolithic. They are dynamic, innovative, and essential to our common future,” said Heather Malenshek, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Land O’Lakes, a collection of agricultural and food companies headquartered in Arden Hills, Minn., that operates in all 50 states. This initiative is more than just an image, it aims to foster understanding and connection across cultural divides. ”
Land O’Lakes founded the Modern Rural Collective initiative to address typical and outdated examples of rural life portrayed in film and television. The MRC Initiative has created a toolkit for producers that provides facts, figures and anecdotes about modern rural life. The MRC emphasizes that rural America is rarely featured in major films or television programs, and when it does, its depictions are often two-dimensional and outdated.
The toolkit avoids any direct discussion of the cultural conflict that erupted during the MAGA era between Republican-leaning red states and Democratic-leaning blue states. But the MRC emphasizes that its goal is to foster deeper understanding between Americans living in disparate regions of the country. “When stories are rooted in authentic rural experiences, they expand representation, break down stereotypes, and provide viewers with an interesting and rich understanding of the country as a whole,” the toolkit states.
The 25-page reference guide features statistics that challenge city residents’ perceptions that small towns are dominated by white conservatives and people with minimal education. The MRC proposal claims that nearly 25 percent of local residents are people of color. It also details the advanced techniques and skills needed to run modern agriculture and agribusiness.
Imagine partner Ron Howard brings a unique perspective to this effort, drawing on his personal background and experience as a child actor who rose to fame co-starring comedian Andy Griffith on the 1960s CBS wholesome sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show.” The story is set in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, which serves as a stand-in for Griffith’s real-life hometown of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Howard most recently directed 2020’s Hillbilly Elegy, which is based on the 2016 memoir of J.D. Vance, current Vice President and leader of the MAGA movement under President Donald Trump.
“As a child in the ’60s, visiting the small towns and farms in Oklahoma and Kansas where my parents grew up, I had early impressions of how welcoming, interesting and layered rural life was,” Howard said in a statement. “For too long, there has been a tendency to oversimplify rural America. We look forward to storytellers using the context and practical guidance of this new resource to portray these communities with the depth, energy, and authenticity they deserve.”
The MRC Toolkit cites the NBC/DirecTV drama series “Friday Night Lights” and HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere” as rare examples of shows that successfully capture the complexities of small-town life.
Imagine executives Amanda Farrand, Marenshek, Bridge Entertainment Lab’s Steven Olikara, and UTA’s Nick Burns will discuss MRC’s work in a session on “Reimagining Rural America Through Storytelling” scheduled for January 23 at Sundance.
