Having lived in Washington for five years, I can say the time I get most homesick for Utah is the end of January: during the Sundance Film Festival.

News articles about the festival, friend’s Facebook status updates about which stars they’ve met, and scenes of snowcapped mountains behind entertainment reporters remind me of the 10 days out of the year where Utah is the coolest place in the world. 

See Utah, much as we love it, doesn’t command much attention nationwide. There aren’t very many of us, and the state doesn’t have the financial prominence or history of other small states (like Connecticut or Massachusetts). While virtually every TV series is set in New York or California, the best Utahns can hope for is a show set in Las Vegas or Colorado. (And even then those are pretty rare.)

Ultimately the reason Robert Redford chose Park City for his film festival is precisely because Utah is overlooked by many on the outside – he wanted Sundance to be independent from mainstream cinema and culture. Of course, he’s been so successful that he’s become the mainstream in many ways.

The oddity of Sundance is that while you have so many outsiders focused so intently on Utah, you have so few people in Utah actually paying attention to Sundance. (That would probably describe me too, were it not for the two years I worked for the Park City newspaper.) This is probably because so little about Sundance actually has to do with Utah. Sure, there will be the occasional bash-fest (such as last year’s Prop 8 movie), and Sundance also gave birth to “Napoleon Dynamite” – but such films are rare.

Even when a lot of people are looking toward Utah, they’re not really looking at it. This is perhaps the reason that so many Utahns get enthusiastic for political movements like the Reagan Revolution or the Tea Party – they see a wave washing across the fruited plain that echoes their own long-held values. Throw in Reagan’s line about the Mormon Tabernacle being “America’s choir” or Glenn Beck’s frequent references to his religion, and many Utahns are hooked.

See even if Utah don’t command a lot of attention nationwide, it’s fun to see people nationwide voting like Utahns.