Hip to be hick

Old MacDonald is a hottie. And suddenly, it seems, so are all of his cow-milking, manure-shoveling, wheat-harvesting pals.

Shout-outs to the farming life are everywhere. On the reality show "Farmer Wants a Wife," city women compete for the hand of a buff bachelor farmer. The green movement beckons urban drones to trade high-rise hell for organic-veggie-raising heaven. High-fashion labels are selling red plaid coats like the one Gramps wore to the barn, for five times more than they cost at Mills Fleet Farm. Not since Jane Russell took her sultry repose in a pile of hay has the barn been such a hotspot.

Just when I thought we'd run out of archetypes to commodify, pop culture has crowned rural Americans as cool. Russell Simmons was right -- farms really are phat. Is the "I'm in a band" pickup line about to be replaced by "I'm in 4-H"?

Possibly, if the guy or girl on the make is wearing an outfit from Farm Boy Co-op & Feed Co. This St. Paul apparel company (www.farmboybrand.com) makes hip T-shirts, pants, sweats and caps for men and women with vintage-style graphics and quips such as "Life is short ... shuck it," "Manure happens" and "Old school tatts" under the image of a branded (tattooed) pig.

"Farmers are finally getting the recognition that the Western lifestyle has been afforded all these years," said Dan Adamson, co-founder of Farm Boy. "Cowboys have been an American icon forever. The truth is that the larger icon is the American farmer."

Now, this guy has a vested interest in selling the idea of country cool, but he and partner Brian Goldenman are doing it right: Instead of Abercrombie & Fitch-style models, they use real rural teenagers in their catalogs.

So far, "Farmer Wants a Wife" has been only a slightly classier version of "The Simple Life," on which Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie played helpless little rich girls in the country. In both shows, stereotypes overflow like a slop trough. The bachelor farmer observes his harem preparing a meal in the kitchen to see "who's doin' the cookin' and who's doin' the mouthin'." In designer sunglasses and makeup that could spook a bull, the women pronounce pigs "cute" and city boys "shady." It's just another reality-TV gimmick that snags viewers by creating extreme contrasts -- rural hicks vs. shallow city slickers.

Unlike these shows, many classic films and books idealize farm life, from "Little House on the Prairie" to "Witness." Even hardscrabble stories such as "Places in the Heart," with its scenes of Sally Field picking cotton until her fingers bleed in between fending off the Klan and taking in cultural outcasts, are essentially fairy tales of triumphant goodness. The characters all embody simplicity, nobility, strength -- the opposite of qualities associated with urban life. Country equals pure, city equals corrupt. Country equals freedom, city equals prison.

Well, dang it, why aren't we all making our livings in the dirt? Farm Boy's Adamson reminded me: "Farming is romanticized, but it's a ton of hard work."

Oh, yeah. That it is. Hard work, and hard life lessons. Farm kids learn them early. A few years back at the Steele County Free Fair in Owatonna, Minn., I was walking an awestruck friend from New York City through his first pig barn. It was the last day of the fair, and a girl of about 8 or 9 was sweeping out one of the many empty stalls.

Where were her pigs? we asked. "Oh, they've been taken off to slaughter," she said matter-of-factly.

My friend, born and raised on the mean streets of Flatbush, was quite impressed with her outlook, which he saw as brave and mature. We Midwesterners know that's just life on the farm. But it's a safe bet that girl will be better prepared for adulthood than a city child who has just watched the movie "Babe" for the fifth time and suddenly refuses to eat her Oscar Mayer. A kid who has watched lambs being born and chickens on the chopping block while he's still in diapers is getting a jump start on understanding the life cycle. A tweener who helps pull in crops during drought one year, flood the next will get a sense of her place -- and purpose -- a lot sooner than the girls talking about Britney and Lindsay at the megaplex.

Kristin Tillotson • 612-673-7046