Of Netflix and School Spirit

Just now on Netflix I discovered the "Local Favorites" feature, which gives you a list of the top twenty five titles in your area. For example, the number one title in Midlothian, Virginia right now is Seabiscuit, followed by some IMAX movie, and the documentary-style thriller Open Water. Which kind of makes sense to me. Midlothian is a Seabiscuit kind of a place.

Now forgive me for what seems like a non sequitur, but I don't like the University of Virginia. This will not shock those of you who know me; I don't keep it secret. Explaining why I don't like the University of Virginia is difficult, but it seems safe to say that the reason is rooted in a strange personal sense of school spirit, born out of a nagging communal inferiority complex.
I went to Mary Washington College (now University of Mary Washington, bless you William Anderson), safety school to many future Wahoos, and home to the bitter many whose transcripts didn't quite measure up to Mr. Jefferson's high standards. There, rejected and without a Greek system to comfort them, they wail and moan and gnash teeth, pissed to be in Fredericksburg and waiting for the weekend when they will leave. Few stay at Mary Washington on weekends, because, as they will tell you and their parents and the school paper, "Fredericksburg is such a NOTHING town. NOTHING happens here. JESUS."
There is such an excess of self-loathing at MWC, so much griping and talk of transfers, and such an absence of pride that I, who had always laughed at such things in high school, developed a strong sense of school spirit. And, because UVA seems so much at the center of Mary Wash's self-hatred, because it's taken for granted that everything in Charlottesville is so much more fun, more exciting, more academically rigorous (FUCK YOU IT ISN'T), it makes sense that as I developed feelings of Eagle love I simultaneously developed feelings of Cavalier hatred. The other side of the coin, as it were.

Back to Netflix. Amused by the idea that the character of a community (and thus that community's large public university around which its economy is centered) might be reflected in what its citizens watch, I checked the top movies in Charlottesville and Fredericksburg. Just for the hell of it.
The #1 rental in Charlottesville is Mostly Martha, "a tragicomic tale about an uptight professional chef who finds her world turned upside down when she takes in her newly orphaned niece, Lina (Maxime Foerste). Martina Gedeck stars as Martha, whose obsession with precision gourmet cooking extends to discussing recipes with her bewildered therapist (August Zirner) and verbally attacking anyone at the restaurant who attempts to send her food back."
In German with English subtitles.
The #1 rental in Fredericksburg is The Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Disc 3.