Ah, Suburbia! Proof positive that people aren't the only entities out there subject to prejudice and profiling. In a world full of knee-jerk reactions from some of the biggest jerks in the business, if you mention Suburbia you're fairly well guaranteed to get a condescending chuckle or a haughty sneer out of your audience as visions of Levittown dance through their heads.
Or perhaps Levittown's a bit dated (and is still the undisputed turf of ever-so-hipper-than-thou-so-don't-even-try-outhipping-me folksingers, as well as Bill Griffith, the gent who continues to entertain me and other cognoscenti with his comic strip, Zippy). Suburbia with or without Levittown is still something to mock, though now more for being the realm of the McMansions instead of the tacky tract houses. The white picket fences are an anachronism, along with the DonnaReedShowLeaveItToBeaverFatherKnowsBest housewife, wearing pearls, a crinolined dress, a lace-trimmed apron and high heels while dealing with domestic crises ("Oh my gosh, Madge, all the fruit in my Jell-O Brand Gelatin salad keeps falling to the bottom and we're out of gin!").
Good thing people are continually inventive about finding new things to patronize about the suburbs. (I mean, weren't the Stepford Wives just awful? Well, isn't that Suburbia for you? It's not bad enough that all the houses look alike, the people there think nothing's acceptable unless everyone acts and dresses alike too! I'd complain about the suburbs more, but I've got to go to a gallery opening in ten minutes, all of my black clothes are still in the dryer, I haven't had the chance to read the reviews so I know what to say about the pieces, and we're out of absinthe!)
Though Suburbia is far from perfect, I'd like someone to show me one major category of human habitation that isn't in the same boat, with or without benefit of yacht club membership. Or better yet, don't try. It's easier to fudge over the shortcomings of your own environs and bolster your self-image by scorning the place where someone else lives. Bring on the cheap shots at Soccer Moms for starters. (It's okay, you'll be safe from retaliation. They're usually too tired doing silly things like taking care of their kids to fight back.) Take a potshot at SUVs while you're at it, because now you've got the added Moral High Ground of how much high-priced gas they're guzzling. (What if some families actually need all that passenger and cargo space? Tchah! How dare their necessity not bow before the only acceptable automotive choice, namely your own? 53 miles to the gallon of self-righteousness, baby!) And don't forget the mall.
Yes indeed, the mall: What could shriek "Suburbia!" louder than that fine example of commercial kudzu, strangling the life out of all other retail venues? Forget the fact that many of the most innovative, unique, creative small businesses die the death daily in our great metropolitan centers. Ignore the fact that malls exist in urban settings, too. Urban malls are hip, stylish, cutting-edge, so you can browse through their utterly glam stores without losing a pinch of your coolness street cred.
Oops. Wait a minute. I just noticed: Most of those are exactly the same stores you find in the suburban malls. Oh dear. How did that happen? Ciao, coolness cred. Ciao.
Well, at least there's one ultracool and super-chic thing that cities have which Suburbia can never hope to get its macchiato-stained paws on: The denizens of our darker fantasies. Just because we call it fantasy doesn't mean we're not keeping it real, man. What self-respecting witch, vampire, or werewolf would be caught dead—or undead—anywhere but the Big City? Never mind that these are the same beings whose original stomping grounds were the deep forests, the mountain passes, the blasted heaths, and the rest of the non-urban landscape.
Look, let's give the uncanny crew a little credit for intelligence: If they had the smarts to see the advantage in packing up and moving into the cities, why wouldn't they have the smarts to move out of said cities if it looked like they could get a better quality-of-life/death elsewhere? (Tough enough going about your otherworldly business and evading the occasional mob wielding halogen torches and designer pitchforks, but have you ever seen city real estate prices?)
So join me now in welcoming our first group of supernatural suburbanites, the witches. Their powers are awesome, their methods of coping with the lumps, bumps, and idiosyncrasies of Suburbia are ingenious, and they always bring the loveliest gingerbread to the PTA bake sale.
But whatever you do, don't try telling them that life in a non-city setting is bland, banal and boring, or else . . .
ribbit!