We're square. And proud of it

Omahans are thrilled to see their town, no matter how bleakly it is portrayed, in the movie About Schmidt.

By CARRIE JOHNSON, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 27, 2002

If New York is the Big Apple and Paris the City of Light, then Omaha is the home of the easy punch line.

Although natives call it "the Big O" without a trace of irony or double entendre, the mere mention of the Nebraska cattle town provokes snickers from the more worldly residents of either coast.

And, as a native, I can tell you there is something comical about the place. Known for its meat-packing industry, the city dubbed its National Indoor Football League team the Omaha Beef. When stumped for a name for the local horse racing track (now closed), the city called it Ak-Sar-Ben, Nebraska spelled backward.

Omahans have always endured ribbing about their bland hometown with the same good-natured humor they approach most everything else. But now natives have a reason to lift up their chins and puff out their chests. Or so they think.

The new movie About Schmidt, which stars Jack Nicholson, was filmed in Omaha, and the city is featured prominently throughout. Nicholson plays a retired actuary who sets out on a quest for self-knowledge after the death of his wife.

The film was directed by a hometown-boy-made-good, Alexander Payne, who has now set three movies in Omaha (Citizen Ruth and Election were the first two). Several locals had bit parts in Schmidt, and most everyone has a story of a "Jack sighting."

For a town not known for excitement or glamor, this was a big deal.

In a news story about the film's premiere, a reporter from the Omaha World-Herald gushed that the movie granted the city a "cultural legitimacy" it had lacked.

"It's as if, at least for the duration of the film, life in Omaha is just as good, just as important, as life in L.A. or New York City," the reporter raved.

But despite the enthusiasm of the natives, the images of Omaha in Schmidt probably won't make the next Chamber of Commerce video.

Nicholson plays a shuffling loser, a man frustrated by the passage of time and his lack of accomplishment in the world. He subscribes to the weird Midwestern code of values that places the appearance of cheery optimism above all else.

Schmidt is so clouded by self-delusion that he can't even portray his life accurately to a 6-year-old Tanzanian boy he decides to sponsor after seeing a TV ad.

The city fares little better. In a profile of Payne in the New York Times Magazine, the director's vision of Omaha is described as "startlingly, painfully specific: an empty city of watery blues and grays, the blank spot at the center of the map."

Omahans didn't seem to notice. In a town where people wear hats shaped like corncobs on University of Nebraska game days, the standard for excitement is, well, lower.

It may be only a Dairy Queen up there on the silver screen. But it's Omaha's Dairy Queen.

"We're from a smaller city that doesn't get a lot of attention, and seeing scenes and places we recognize, it makes us feel like, 'Hey, everybody's looking at us,' " said Thomas Kuhlman, an English professor at Omaha's Creighton University.

I can relate. Although I've shed some of my Nebraska naivete since leaving, I'm still excited to see the movie and spot the landmarks of my youth.

The Midwestern lack of coolness is a hard thing to escape. The latest bands bypass us. Fashion? Forget it. When I visited a cousin in Miami when I was 9, I was awed by her cutoff Esprit sweat shirts and Guess jeans. I had never truly realized just how boring were my earth-tone corduroys and fuzzy pullovers.

Though Omaha has a population of more than 600,000, at heart it's still a farm town. My senior prom was held in a building next to the city's livestock yards. The event was forgettable; the smell was not.

As I grew older, I rolled my eyes at the earnest corniness of the citizens, the way they greet you with a blinding smile and a chipper, "Have a nice day!" I hated the prairie flatness of the landscape.

Josh, a high school buddy of mine, explained why he chose to remain in Omaha this way: "The reason I stay here is because it makes every place else seem so much more interesting. You can take a vacation anywhere and you'll be entertained."

Josh is easily amused. He is also one of the few friends who stayed. Most of us fled immediately after high school graduation.

But I still feel a little protective toward my hometown, the way you would about a dorky younger brother who still wears tape on his glasses.

The Reuben sandwich was invented at the Blackstone Hotel downtown, you know. Marlon Brando and Nick Nolte grew up there. Johnny Carson got his start at an Omaha television station, and former President Gerald Ford was born in a modest home on Woolworth Street.

How can you not feel affection for a town that considered using the slogan "Omaha: Rare. Well Done" as its motto?

Payne, being one of us, gets it. Schmidt, more than his other films, is an homage to the Midwestern ethos. The way Woody Allen pokes subtle fun at New Yorkers' neuroses or John Waters skewers the eccentricities of Baltimoreans, Payne prods at the buttoned-up Middle American, exposing a hint of the darkness beneath the unflaggingly sunny exterior.

If you didn't grow up among people who still consider being called "square" a compliment, you might not understand.

Schmidt was recently nominated for five Golden Globe awards, including best dramatic picture and best actor for Nicholson. The Oscar buzz is humming, and the national media has started to invade my hometown, putting the spotlight on old friends and neighbors.

I'm happy for them. I just hope they leave their corncob hats at home.

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