So after decades of ignoring the place, Hollywood has apparently set some sort of television show in “North Dakota”.
“Blood and Oil”, starring Don Johnson (who some of you may remember from, ahem, thirty years ago) airs on ABC – which is one of those “TV Networks” your parents used to talk about before even they switched to Netflix. It gives off the appearance of being a Dallas-style soaper.
How do you think it turned out?
That was the question no doubt going through the minds of many people in the state when ABC’s new drama “Blood & Oil” premiered last week to modest ratings. The show is ostensibly set in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, though it’s hard to tell, given the snowcapped peaks of the Rocky Mountains looming in the background of exterior shots.
The Rockies, in case you needed an update on your geography, reside hundreds of miles to the west of North Dakota.
There were other guffaw-worthy moments for North Dakotans in the show’s first episode. A character killed a white moose at one point — moose aren’t at all common on the prairies of North Dakota — and a scene depicting two characters wrestling in jet black oil was downright incongruous.
But it could have been changed – with the help of subsidies, naturally. North Dakota doesn’t offer them; Utah does:
Turns out it’s all about money. Utah offers filmmakers a 25 percent tax rebate. For filming “Blood & Oil” in that state, the Utah Film Commission gave the show’s creators an $8.34 million tax credit.
North Dakota, on the other hand, offers filmmakers exactly nothing. Which is why some in the state think subsidies could fix “Blood & Oil’s” scenery problem.
It’s the same reason Gran Torino, whose screenplay was set in Saint Paul, was filmed in Detroit; because Michigan has a program to transfer wealth from Detroit to Hollywood.
Which is something North Dakota’s legislature turned down by a 2-1 margin.
Which is roughly the ratio of Republicans to Democrats in the North Dakota legislature.
I was disappointed visit the Laura Engels Wilder home in southern Minnesota. I kept looking for The Mankato Divide, the mountains on the television show.
So Republican Utah gives corporate welfare to Big Wealthy Hollywood, who in return takes that profit and uses it to send to left wing causes? That’s almost as bad as the gov’t giving $450,000,000 to Planned Parenthood.
Joe….yeah, Walnut Grove is in a nice area, but I looked and looked but didn’t see the mountains either.
There are also no mountains anywhere near the other place Laura Ingalls Wilder lived for a good portion of her lif, De Smet, SD. She lived there long enough that the town has an annual LIW pageant over several weekends in the summer, a self-guided tour of well preserved LIW historic buildings, and the Ingalls Homestead tourist attraction. Hell, the closest they get to “mountains” is an elevation change of about 60′ over the course of a half mile coming into town from the west.
But of course, Hollywood feels no need to “fact check” anything dealing with flyover country. I still remember when Beverly Hills 90210 debuted in the 90s, and Dylan and Brenda hailed from Wayzata, MN. They pronounced it “WAY-zot-ah”. And they missed their summers spent at their “cottage” on the lake.
Seems to me the IRRRRRRRRRRB (and maybe the state I forget) paid a big chunk of cash to the producers of “North Country” about the horrible troglodites who live on the depressing and ugly Iron Range.
“Seems to me the IRRRRRRRRRRB (and maybe the state I forget) paid a big chunk of cash to the producers of “North Country” about the horrible troglodites who live on the depressing and ugly Iron Range.”
Because feminism!
Considering the past few political campaigns, it’s safe to say Minnesota specializes in Hollywood to Minneapolis wealth transfers.
Hill…correct. Remember St Wellstone? “I’m for the little feller, not the Rockefeller”. And then he went to Hollywood to fund raise at the Rockefeller mansion. And of course Crazy Al has major Hollywood donors. So yeah, those non-stop ads in election years are largely funded by Big Hollywood. The Hubbards thank you.
Kind of like some of the old westerns of the late 50s and 60s. On more than one episode of Daniel Boone, there were several wilderness shots, complete wit jet contrails.