feminist blogs

In "King Corn," directors Aaron Woolf, Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney move to Iowa to plant and harvest one acre of corn, in an attempt to learn more about this ubiquitous crop's role in the American food supply. It will air tonight on PBS on Independent Lens, 10 p.m. EST.

I saw the movie two weeks ago at a small screening in Boston. I had heard it was filmed in Greene, Iowa, 10 minutes from the town where I grew up. It's a rare movie that features Iowa, and no movies ever are made in "my" county. Not even low-budget documentaries. So naturally I was thrilled about this and had e-mailed the trailer to everyone I knew from my life pre-college. Add to this that it was a movie about two guys who move from Boston to Iowa -- cue audience laughter, ha! who would do such a thing! -- and I was doubly interested, having done that precise trip the other way around.

Ian Cheney (left) and Curt Ellis sample their crop in Greene, Iowa
Photo by Sam Cullman

I invited my friend Lynn along (because she's from Minnesota), and made my 14-year-old daughter go, too (because I think it's important that children learn about corn). She brought her friend Dan, who went along under the mistaken impression that it was a science fiction movie.

"She" -- and here he pointed an accusing finger at my daughter -- "told me it was a movie about people who find out they're made out of corn!" Which was technically accurate, that is what it was about -- it's just that it was true. It begins with two guys taking a hair test and realizing they're mostly corn products.

Impressions, in no particular order:

What do you mean by "corn"? One of the directors, Ian Cheney, was there to answer audience questions after the show, and Lynn and I were both surprised at how many people apparently believe that the "corn" raised in Iowa is sweet corn. Like corn you eat, on the cob, with your dinner. A woman in the film scoffed at the idea that she'd actually eat the corn her family grew, and afterwards someone in the audience tried to spin that as some kind of conspiracy theory, i.e. Iowa farmers KNOW they're raising BAD CORN and WHAT SHOULD THAT TELL US ABOUT OUR TAINTED FOOD SUPPLY.

Cheney patiently explained that Iowa farmers don't really think of the corn they grow as food, they think of it as product. Some of it goes into ethanol; the vast majority goes into corn syrup and other corn-based products, or becomes hog and cattle feed. Corn is everywhere, in everything -- that was the impetus for the film in the first place.

Refreshing portrayal of Iowa farmers. Ordinarily, the media use the Midwest in one of two ways: it's either a nostalgic, soft-focus country scene that represents an idyllic life untouched by the pressures of capitalism, or a "Deliverance"-style horror show warning viewers of the perils that await them should they venture too far from civilization.

Here there was none of that. We see the residents of Greene doing ordinary things like asking what kind of soil you have so they know what kind of fertilizer to sell you (Boston filmmakers: "I don't know. It's regular ground?"), showing you how to drive a combine, counting out fence rows to estimate the size of an acre, talking about the politics of agriculture, reminiscing about the family farm back when it was still a family farm, complaining about the weather, and otherwise engaging in everyday activities that are neither quaint and charming nor dumb and hillbilly. It was a little boring, but then growing up in rural Iowa is a little boring, too, so I can live with that.

Relatively low amount of fat-bashing, considering it's a film about food. The "obesity epidemic" and increasing diabetes rates were an essential part of the premise, but through it all the filmmakers were insistent that it's hard for the individual human to control for that, given the ubiquity of corn products and the average American's grocery options. They pointed out that one result of farm subsidies was to create low-cost food on a mass scale, and that any of the "con" arguments against the way the American diet has evolved have to be contrasted with this very important "pro."

During the Q&A, Cheney said he and his fellow filmmakers had tried to change their diet because of what they'd learned, but that it proved difficult to find healthy, unprocessed food, both when they were traveling and therefore dependent on convenience stores, and when they came home, because they were living in South Boston near a lot of 7-11's and Store 24's but few farmers' markets, organic grocery stores, or opportunities to raise backyard gardens.

Thank you. I've agreed in principle with so much of the "help, we're eating ourselves to death!" rhetoric in recent books and documentaries about Frankenfood, but at the same time I'm always wondering what the hell you're supposed to do when you live in an urban area with a no yard, no car, and no healthy food in your immediate neighborhood. It was nice to these structural issues addressed.

Due attention to the death of the family farm, and why that's non-trivial. One of their biggest surprises was how little time farmers spend actually farming. In those idyllic portrayals of small-town life, Jim-Bob always wakes up with the roosters, buckles up his overalls, and goes outside with his metal pail to feed the free-range chickens wandering around his lawn. In reality, Cheney said, most of the farmers' time was spent in three ways: working at their outside day jobs, fixing machinery, and sitting in front of a computer trying to keep up with shifts in agriculture policy and economics.

He discussed their frustration at being so dependent on farm subsidies, and yet their corresponding commitment to the land itself, and the lifestyle it represents, in the face of the increasing pressure of corporate farming.