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My Belated Love Affair with Pawnee, Indiana

My Belated Love Affair with Pawnee, Indiana

Last updated on: March 23, 2017 at 11:49 am by Erin Wathen

My Belated Love Affair with Pawnee, Indiana 2017-03-23T11:49:29-07:00 Erin Wathen

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I’m inexcusably late to the party. I’m the first to admit that. But now, I am in. I am so, so in. I am in love with Pawnee, and I don’t care who knows it. Leslie Knope is my spirit animal–as any Enneagram Type 7 will attest, a hilarious and sometimes painful window to my own soul. I can’t get enough of Ron Swanson’s off-beat brand of Libertarian feminism; and Chris Traeger is LIT-erally the best thing that ever happened to my Netflix queue.

Also, I’m pretty sure I talked to the real life April in my local Parks and Rec department last week. True story.

parks and rec

I hate being behind on anything, especially a pop culture kind of anything. And yet– I’m also kind of glad that I get to enjoy Parks and Recreation, in all 8 seasons of glory, at this precise moment. Because right about now, we all desperately need what this show has to offer. Namely: humor, heart and hope. Not necessarily in that order.

In a time when women are grossly under-represented in high level government positions; and in a time when a blatant p*$$y-grabbing misogynist has been elevated to the highest position of all; it is especially life-affirming to bear witness to the comedic prowess of women. Amy Poehler (and Tina Fey, and their cohorts) have long said that comedy is the last frontier of feminism; that funny ladies still have to fight the “women just aren’t funny” narrative at every turn. But watching an episode (or 5) of this show every day, it is clear that women are, in fact, funny as shit. And kicking it and taking names in a way that is deeply transformative. Way beyond just providing entertainment, Poehler and team are changing the story lines for women in a way that reaches way past the screen. And they are creating space for those who will come after. It’s an empowering thing to see.

Beyond that though, Parks and Recreation is a love letter to small town life. When so many of our tv families live against the super-urbran backdrop of L.A., D.C. or New York (think about it,) it is profoundly refreshing to watch a show that is so proudly rooted in fly-over country. For all their neuroses, there is something real and life-affirming about these characters and the lives they lead.

Like the town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, the community of Pawnee, Indiana becomes its own sort of character. Not just silent scenery, but a living and breathing body of people. It may be an overweight, diabetic body; but it is a loveable and highly relateable body as well.

After all, wherever life may have taken us, most of us have a Pawnee in our past somewhere. A place that shaped us, the narrative of which is still deeply intertwined with our identity, and our notion of how the world should work. On a good day, those places still exist within each of us, and in the communities we inhabit. In this season of darkness in our national discourse, there is abiding good news in the grace and goofy goodness of small town, middle America. That’s who we really are.

Like the people of Pawnee–or at least, like Leslie–we all know, deep down, that our best hope of life and livelihood is in the things that we share together. Like parks. Open spaces and green growing things and large, loud gatherings of people who inhabit the same little corner of earth.

So I’m glad to be just now coming around to this show. Late to the party or not, my spirit needs this story right now. I may have enjoyed it a few years ago when it first aired… But I don’t think it would speak such joy to the deeper part of me that needs it now, in this moment.

If you still haven’t shown up for this particular party, come on over. I will recommend you might want to skip Season 1. Not only was the show still finding it’s feet then, there’s also a storyline (the whole Ann and Andy thing) that always disturbed me… The ex who could not let go, the stalking behaviors that were supposed to seem harmless (because he’s so dumb) but never did (because he’s still a man)… I found it off-putting, and that’s why I gave up on it for awhile.

But now? Well, Andy has evolved and he’s something different now. In the way that we all do, he grew up and moved on. But he is still so very Pawnee, in the best possible way… as they all are. As we all are, on a good day.

What Pawnee has to offer us right now is an abiding sense of civic duty; the pride of place that makes us all who we are, and that, ultimately, will prevail over the present darkness of this administration. This is the story of who America is, at its core… and it’s a story we need to hear right now. Like gospel that we all know in our bones, but that sins of time and space let us forget.

Remember this story, and restore your soul.

progressive christianity

ron swanson

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