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Movie Takes
What’s the Matter with Kansas?
Nothing that a return to the golden age of Kansan radicalism around the turn of the last century wouldn’t fix.
Angel Dillard is one of the principal characters in What’s the Matter with Kansas? a straight-to-DVD movie documentary which has had a brief run in cinemas in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. Based on the liberal polemic of the same name by Thomas Frank, who appears on screen here, it presumably shares his view that Republican-leaning Kansans are blind to their own economic self-interest because they have been distracted by such “social issues” as abortion and gay marriage. Yet the film does not say this in so many words. Instead, it allows its portraits of the Dillards and another conservative family, the Bardens, to speak for themselves — as they do, though perhaps not to the same effect as the authors intend.
Mrs. Dillard is now the respectable wife of an ER doctor who, with her, farms on the side when he is not zooming off to the hospital on his motorcycle. She is now the mother of two daughters, one of whom is named Reagan, after the late president, but we learn that she has had a rough time of it in her earlier life. After a wild and (I infer) promiscuous youth, she was briefly married to an abusive husband with whom she had a seriously handicapped son, Deacon, who has since died. At one point in the movie, Angel is reminiscing with her mother about her teenage years. “You pretty much threw me out of the house,” she says to her. “I can’t believe you don’t remember that.”
Mom replies: “As far as I can remember, you were perfect.”
I remember my own mother saying frankly incredible things like that about me too, and I have no reason to suppose she was lying. We remember what we want to remember, what makes us feel good, and Thomas Frank and the film-maker of this documentary, Joe Winston, are themselves doing the same thing by harking back to what they see as the golden age of Kansan radicalism around the turn of the last century. Then, we are told, Julius Augustus Wayland’s socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, published in Girard, Kansas, had a larger circulation than the New York Times — over half a million nationwide. Pamphlets of a socialist-populist (and, though he does not mention it, atheist) tendency were products of the same presses and issued in carloads.
Today, as the movie tiresomely demonstrates, Kansas is full of religious nuts, creationists, pro-lifers, Republicans, and other primitives who, to these progressives, would almost seem to deny the very idea of progress as they understand it. How could the Kansans of a hundred years ago have been so advanced while those of today are so retrograde or even — in another bit of socialist jargon that the film self-consciously eschews — “reactionary”? That is the real meaning of the question, “What’s the matter with Kansas?” The socialist model of “history”-making progress — lately so much beloved by our President and his fellow Democrats in pitching their health-care insurance “reform” — has been seemingly thrown into reverse in Kansas.
In the movie, Mr. Frank offers no explanation as to why this might be, but we sense the unmistakable presence of Marxist “false consciousness” in its portrait of the Dillards and the Bardens, fellow conservatives who have home-schooled their daughter, Brittany, who is just beginning her freshman year at Patrick Henry College in Virginia. That institution was founded specifically for the home-schooled who are, of course, mostly conservative. The Barden family is followed on a trip to the Creation Museum in Kentucky, and both the Bardens and the Dillards are part of a conservative Southern Baptist congregation which splits in two for political reasons. Both families follow the conservative pastor, Rev. Terry Fox, to found a new church that holds its worship service in the auditorium of a theme-park, Wild West World.
Insofar as there is any narrative, it has mainly to with Brittany’s transition from home to college, an ultimately unsuccessful campaign, in which the Bardens are involved, by one Phill Kline to be the Republican attorney general of Kansas in 2006 and the church’s move to the theme park, courtesy of the park’s entrepreneur, Thomas Etheredge, who is a member of the congregation. But when Wild West World goes belly-up, Mr. Etheredge is suddenly not to be found. Has he taken it on the lam? It’s rather touching that the families, who have both lost a lot of money — the figure of $300,000 is mentioned at one point — are unwilling to condemn him out of hand. The “Summer of Mercy” in 1991 and the continuing pro-life campaign against the Wichita “abortion-provider” Dr. George Tiller are mentioned, but the murder of Dr. Tiller by a pro-life fanatic took place after the film was completed and only gets a written mention on a screen card at the end.
There is another family, that of Donn Teske, the head of the Kansas Farmer’s Union, but they get nothing like the screen time of the Dillards and the Bardens. We are introduced to Donn in his pickup truck as he talks of his loathing for George W. Bush — oh, that again — and his quaint belief that the country under President Bush’s administration was becoming a society of aristocrats and peasants like that of Germany, from which his ancestors had fled thither. It might have been interesting if the film had added a postscript about his presumptive relief and joy at the election of President Obama, but for some reason it doesn’t. Likewise, though the Teskes appear to be as happy a family as the conservative ones, they are not given speaking parts. Instead, we follow Donn to Washington where he testifies about the plight of the farmer.
Mr. Frank’s rhapsodic account of Kansan radicalism a century ago is only a small part of the film and sits very oddly with the rest of it until you realize that the point must be merely to protest that, in the swirls and eddies of the mighty flux of Marxist “history,” Kansas has become a backwater. It’s a rather touchingly nostalgic essay in regret by a Kansas patriot mourning that his fellow Kansans have been left behind by that same wonderful “history” which has lately brought us (sort of) universal health care — and that there are so few of them to share his regret. Meanwhile, Angel Dillard describes for the camera the moment when she hit bottom, which was also when her life turned around. She was sitting on a railroad bridge, she says, presumably contemplating suicide, when she cried out to the heavens: “God, this is my last chance; if you can’t do something, I’m done.” After a pause she adds, simply, “And He did.”
That’s all she says about it, but it is the kind of moment of what the Greeks would call peripeteia or reversal that many believers describe as having brought them to believe and that some describe in the words of scripture as being “born again.” Next to her simple testimony about this once-and-for-all reversal in her life, you wonder if even Thomas Frank can avoid the feeling that the magnificent progress of “history” towards an inevitable utopian future seems but a pretty poor thing in comparison. Still, there will doubtless be some who see this movie who remain unimpressed, and who see Angel Dillard’s religious faith as nothing but the delusion preventing her from seeing those progressive truths whose compelling nature inspired this film in the first place. Everybody else won’t bother with it.
About the Author
James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (53) | Leave a comment
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Robert| 4.7.10 @ 9:06AM
A theme I have heard for years from radical Democrats is that the average person does not act in their own best interest and therefore must be of low intelligence. Perhaps in Kansas the people saw the results of extreme socialist policy and did not want any part of it.
PolishKnight| 4.7.10 @ 1:51PM
Modern leftists love to pompously dismiss concerns by conservatives as "ignorant fools who don't know what's good for them" in order to justify... social policies that attack them because, hey, they had it coming for being infidels.
It's like someone breaking into a house to kill the residents because... the residents are so distrusting. If only they would open the door, then they would "help" them rather than do harm. Of course, they harmed all the residents of the homes they previously "liberated" but that's only in the opinion of those "ignorants" who refuse to open the doors.
It's a wonderfully arrogant, gallish orwellian philosophy. If you are unhappy with me, it's your fault because I'm caring and you're not.
Alan Brooks| 4.7.10 @ 5:37PM
I live near Kansas, and it is successful economically, but that is because no one goes broke underestimating taste. The Midwest is even more tasteless than the South, as the South maintains its Southern charm.
When are you going to admit that America as a whole is also successful economically, but is a failure in every other respect? As ancient Rome, America has everything...
save for virtue. And it is probably that way in every nation.
We will always know bad schools, bad taste, etc. You can live longer and wealthier, but there is nothing to live for-- only exist.
Alan Brooks| 4.7.10 @ 5:51PM
Mr. Bowman,
Of all the contributors at AS, you ought to know that the Midwest is the wasteland. I've lived in the Midwest for 24 years, and it is vulgar to its core.
Interested Conservative| 4.7.10 @ 7:56PM
Whew - put down the computer, go outside, walk around and make some friends. You'll be surprised at what's all around you!
Alan Brooks| 4.7.10 @ 8:13PM
If you are so chirpy, intetested conservative, then you don't need a rightwing blog. Put down the computer, go outside, and join an Optimists' Club. You'll be surprised at what's all around you!
Alan Brooks| 4.7.10 @ 8:17PM
That is, interested conservative; not intetested conservative. But, again, if you are so optimistic about the great yonder, then oughtn't you think about becoming, say, a Gingrich chirpy?
Why, you might even becme a progressive someday.
You'll be surprised at what's all around you!
marc lichti| 4.7.10 @ 8:49PM
SUCH A JUDGEMENTAL STATEMENT!!! "VULGAR." When a lib makes a judgemental statement you can be sure that it tends to be made against an anti statist entity. I grew up in the midwest (Iowa) sir, exactly which part of that state is VULGAR? The fact that it caucased for the worst President beyond James Carter? How about this? YOU SIR ARE A SNOB. That is a fairly accurate and precise statement. Your's, that an entire region is "VULGAR" is so wide open to wonder that it makes me question why I waste my time responding to what apparently is a typical socialist.
arlo price| 4.7.10 @ 9:23PM
And of course you're the expert..........to paraphrase an oft used expression, "opinions are like aholes, everyone has one"
Jack Olson| 4.7.10 @ 9:12AM
Michael Moore made millions and got an Academy Award for pinko propaganda movies, so it's understandable if Joe Winston hopes the same suckers have some money left to buy tickets to his movie, too.
Campy| 4.7.10 @ 10:07AM
If I ever make it through the grueling, insulting, pompous tome of same name, HIGHLY recommended by a lib, they'll be asking, "What's the matter with Campy?" I'll pass on the movie.
Jack-A** monument for Tommy| 4.7.10 @ 10:50AM
Don't wait fore the Oscars Kansas---give Tommy Frankie his award now.
Erect a statue with only the hind end of a jack-*** and dedicate it to him. Isn't six years of this nonsense enough?
Kansas---take it to him.
Stuart Koehl| 4.7.10 @ 11:59AM
Just "deem" him to have won it.
Ark Ashamed of Bill| 4.7.10 @ 10:53AM
Kansas radicalism began when New England abolitionists began establishing forward bases for the purpose of killing Southerners before the War Between the States. Their capital was Lawrence, a town so depraved that the preachers would go on to steal from churches once the war broke out and where the American Osama, John Brown, felt right at home. The American Left has always seen their fellow Americans as the enemy, and one suspects that Frank secretly yearns to replicate Brown’s murderous war on constitutional America, as Bill Ayers did in the Vietnam era (Ayers saw himself as a John Brown, see Ronald Radosh’s “Commies”).
Frank’s fundamental problem is that he thinks socialism will produce a society that is more prosperous, just, and free than one based on the principles of liberty of the American Founders. This is the basic delusion of Progressivism. His claim that opposition to the Left’s cultural revolution is based on this belief, but the purpose of the cultural revolution is to destroy traditional society to make way for socialism. He is obviously frustrated because the people in Kansas see through this scam except for maybe Lawrence.
Seek| 4.7.10 @ 1:11PM
What about the events of August 21, 1863, the day when depraved cavalry under the command of Col. Henry Quantrill, CSA, murdered about 200 unarmed men, women and children in Lawrence, Kansas? I guess that doesn't qualify as a war crime. After all, the targets were transplanted Yankees.
GW| 4.7.10 @ 6:59PM
Thank you. As a resident of Lawrence (yes, it is the one liberal spot in Kansas), I can say this is a much more signficant moment in the history of the state, a town being burned to the ground and the mass slaughter of innocents.
However, Kansas has a proud history of being free-staters. Why the so-called "states rights" neo-confederates here can't understand states rights also meant the right for a state to be a free state is beyond me. When MISSOURIAN Quantrill tried to impose his pro-slavery views on the free-state of Kansas, Kansans rose up and stopped his sh*t...
Alan Brooks| 4.7.10 @ 8:24PM
Neoconfederates are blinded by their hatred; they can't see that the Confederacy deserved what it got. And that is ancient history-- not one person from the Civil War era is alive. There isn't even one survivor of the Gilded Age. There might be a person or two alive now who was born in 1900 or 1902-- but that's it.
Sardonikus| 4.8.10 @ 2:52PM
I don't usually post here, but the latter post by Seek is so unbelievably inaccurate that I have been compelled to do so now.
First of all, his name was William Clarke Quantrill, not Henry. He was born in Canal Dover, Ohio (not a native Southerner) in 1837, came to Kansas in the late 1850's, and sided initially with the Free Soil (abolitionist) faction. Later on, due more to cynical opportunism than partisan fervor, he betrayed a Free Soil raiding party (which had ventured into Missouri to liberate slaves) and defected to the Missourians.
As a leader of the 'bushwhackers' (pro-Confederate guerrillas) during the Civil War, Quantrill did indeed attack Lawrence, justifying this action by citing the collapse of a prison compound in Kansas City, in which several female relatives of the guerrillas were killed (the bushwhackers felt this was a deliberate act of sabotage, though this cannot be verified).
The actual attack on Lawrence was indeed brutal, but NO WOMEN AND CHILDREN were killed during the attack. As for the assertion that the men were unarmed, that is pure unadulterated bunkum. Having been attacked and ravaged before during the 'Bleeding Kansas' years, the citizens of Lawrence had arms aplenty, but were so shocked by the appearance of the guerrillas that the men mostly hid, fled, or simply failed to fight back. Quantrill stated later on that "the ladies of Lawrence were brave and plucky, but the men of Lawrence were a pack of cowards". The key human target of the raid, Senator James H. Lane (a brutal and deranged individual responible for orchestrating many atrocities by Jayhawk marauders in Missouri, along with the equally vicious Charles Jennison) lit out for the hills in his nightshirt while many a Lawrence citizen was slaughtered by Quantrill. Ironically, in searching for Lane, the guerrillas treated his wife with 'utmost courtesy'.
There is a lot of understandable ignorance regarding this largely forgotten event among Americans today, but GW- as a resident of Lawrence - your statements of tacit acceptance regarding Seek's inaccurate post are unforgivably stupid and/or dishonest.
Key source: Leslie, Edward (1996). 'The Devil Knows How To Ride'. New York, NY: Random House.
Sardonikus| 4.8.10 @ 4:04PM
Postscript: One thing that Seek got right was that Quantrill did style himself as a Colonel of Cavalry in the Confederate Army, and was frequently seen to sport a Confederate uniform, which was not typical for the bushwhackers. However, the CSA was only willing to grant Quantrill a captaincy, and when Quantrill travelled to Richmond in 1862 and elucidated his brutal ideas of guerrilla warfare to CSA Secretary of War J.A. Seddon, he was completely rebuffed.
Finally, to GW - I am sorry for using such harsh language to describe your statements. Having read some of your other posts, I can see you are neither stupid nor dishonest. But I am still disappointed that you didn't step up to the plate and correct Seek's mistakes re: the Lawrence Massacre. Once again, though, I apologize for my choice of words.
GW| 4.8.10 @ 8:50PM
no biggie...and I didn't research the specifics before adding my comment, so if his facts are wrong I am in no way supporting them.
Petronius| 4.7.10 @ 11:14AM
My opposition to their "progressive " agenda is based on experience. The Demoncrats and blue blood RINO's are in concert when it comes to keeping "Bubba" in his place.
And there hasn't been a film worth crossing the street to see since Shakespeare in Love.
Mr. Irons| 4.7.10 @ 11:26AM
This sure isn't the Kansas I live in, that is for sure. That film sounds like a more of an angry childish rant in disguise because hardcore leftist ideals do not soak into people who must make a (sometimes hard) living in cities and villias surrounded by unforging elements and wilderness.
Alan Brooks| 4.7.10 @ 8:28PM
No thanks, I'll take the Mountain States, you can have Kansas;
stay away from me and I'll stay away from you. save your "forging" for church.
2 Ignert| 4.7.10 @ 11:36AM
We'uns jes to stoopid 2 unnersten them thar smurt folks, I rekin. Pleese splain it agin. Jes won mor time. OK? Purty pleese.
Bo Darville| 4.7.10 @ 12:05PM
I love these types of movies. It's like an anthropological ethnographic film made by urban leftist hippies about the common man. Shows how they are truly tourists in the real world.
Brian B| 4.7.10 @ 12:19PM
--Frank’s fundamental problem is that he thinks socialism will produce a society that is more prosperous, just, and free than one based on the principles of liberty of the American Founders.--
Actually I think his fundamental problem is he is quite stupid. His secondary problem is he is profoundly boring.
CBKC| 4.7.10 @ 1:35PM
There's nothing the matter with Kansas, aside from some of the nuts in Lawrence. We are the essence of American values and Frank is the opposite. Don't mourn for us. We like it here!
GW| 4.7.10 @ 7:02PM
It's mainly just the university-driven culture that is the problem.
Hell, many KU students I meet here in Lawrence are fairly conservative/libertarian. Its just the professor/Liberal Arts majors that can't make it in the real world w/ their...ahem...political theories...so they stay at the university town for years.
GW| 4.7.10 @ 7:17PM
Being a native of Kansas my whole life (22 years), I not only fail to understand the movie's premises, but also fail to understand the analysis the writer comes up with.
If the template is liberal economic policies will benefit the state, then Thomas Frank is clinically retarded. Kansas had the misfortune of electing "moderate" Kathleen Sebelius to governor after the Repubs failed to nominate a good candidate. She proceeded to do nothing but disallow a coal-fired power plant from being built in Western Kansas (which HATES Topeka by the way) after the recommendation of one unelected Environmental official. The new power plant would have provided hundreds of new permanent jobs to economically depressed W. Kansas, not to mention the thousands of construction jobs and wealth-generation from the sale of power (or cheaper electrical rates for Kansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma natives)...
Thankfully, Sebelius was selected by O to head HHS, so now the power company has agreed to a compromise with the curret Democrat governor who actually is a moderate.
But I wonder why lib Dems like Frank don't understand the absolute schitzophrenia of their positions. If the only reason Kansans vote conservative is due to moral issus, then why would a logical political scientist see it fit to try and assault this socially-conservative political class with constant "pro-choice", pro-amnesty, pro-"gay marriage", anti-Christian rubbish? Why don't Dems focus on economic issues if Kansans would really be better off w/ socialistic policies?
I don't hear much from the liberal crowd about work programs or other FDR-like economic policies here. But what I do hear is that all Christians are xenophobic, racist, homophobic.....etc idiots. And the left wonders why they can't win this state? Come on man.
Iris| 6.18.10 @ 10:46PM
I'd love to see FDR-like and other programs to get us through these hard economic times. But as Franks points out, Clinton Democrats betrayed our financial best interest by swerving waaaaayyy to the right on economic issues and we've never recovered. Contrary to popular conservative belief, Obama is nowhere near being a socialist.
About the movie: You might want to check out the reviews. I understand that all who were filmed (on both sides) were pleased with the movie. They were allowed to tell their stories, with no filtering. Apparently, the book draws more conclusions.
Alan Brooks| 4.7.10 @ 8:32PM
Well, Kansas is not a bad place, but why live there when you can live in the Mountain states or Oregon, Washington?
But by all means live in Kansas.
Alan| 4.7.10 @ 9:39PM
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arlo price| 4.7.10 @ 10:10PM
michelle signature gardening series approved
arlo price| 4.7.10 @ 10:09PM
This film is nothing more than one of the first salvos of the spll / jihadists attempt at 'turning' Kansas in the mid-terms and in '12. Utah is also high on their priority list (both states for obvious reasons).
One of the 'advantages' of living in Ks is its location, its less than 7% unemployment rate (as opposed to Colorado's 8.3%) and, being that it is a 'right to work' state, its good wages.
In 8 hours or less a kanzoid can take advantage of the low waged Colorado workers and enjoy a weekend ski trip or a summer get-away to enjoy the scenery at a very reasonable cost; or in just a couple of hours drive time, a multitude of professional sports can be enjoyed.
Kanzoids (for that matter, the entire center core of States from Texas to N Dakota) have always been 5 years behind the 'coasts' in fads. It seems that as 'fads' pop up on either coast, if they last long enough to make it to the center, then possibly there is something to them, although that is a rarity. The bs, hype and boogie woogie of 'fads' seems to get filtered rather well before it gets to Kansas; the wheat gets separated from the chaff is the local parlance. And it seems as though a lot of the 'chaff' sticks to the eastern slope of the Rocky's and bunches of it can't cross the mighty Mississippi.
As a result of this natural filtering process the center of the country has learned to prefer SUBSTANCE over STYLE.
Duh| 4.8.10 @ 1:14AM
Wow, the review entirely missed the point. Frank does not impose his own definition of progress to measure Kansasns' failings. They themselves believe they are voting for policies that will improve their economic welfare. The last forty years demonstrates that they are wrong. Frank tries to show the thought process behind their self-imposed misery.
Arnold Sens| 4.8.10 @ 2:33AM
"self-imposed misery"?- Low cost of living, low income and property taxes with a per capita income similar to Oregon. If you want a job you can find one. Low crime. Fresh air, beautiful sunsets and four seasons with exhilarating weather. Friendly people- who still know what "neighbor" means and contrary to popular left coast assumptions minorities and gays would have a tough time finding anyone in Kansas that would marginalize them the way Kansans are characterized by those around the country who don't agree with their political opinions, religious beliefs or the lack of encouragement for women to make a second mistake. The only miserable Kansans I know are ones that moved elsewhere.
GW| 4.8.10 @ 8:59PM
Well said. Kansas's economy is fine...not great...but then again its main resources are agriculture and natural gas. It isn't like Alaska (oil-rich) or Florida (great climate, tourism-haven).
If anything disproves liberal economic policies for the state of Kansas, just look at the insane environmental policies of so-called moderate Dem Kathleen Sebelius which delayed the addition of thousands of jobs for Western Kansans. Great economic policy, liberals.
The beef Frank and others have w/ Kansas is its social conservatism.
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Shyster| 4.8.10 @ 3:47AM
Hmmm...
It occurs to me that the reason the "Mountain States" are great places to live is precisely because they don't harbor many "Alan Brooks" residents.
Oregon and Washington, on the other hand, are fast becoming undesirable locales precisely because the "Alan Brooks" and "Doh" types from California have been taking up residence there.
Talk about a couple of clueless people...
Perishing on the plains| 10.9.10 @ 11:43AM
Alan Brooks, you may be a liberal/progressive -- I have no respect for that whatsoever -- you may be a snob. I don't know. But if you are put off by Kansas, I can agree that Kansans are xenophobic, ungracious and poorly educated.