Country Mouse

They're not from around here.^note They're not from another dimension either; that's a different Disney show.

A character from a peaceful, slow-paced rural location finds themself as a Fish out of Water in the noise and hurly-burly of The City.

Often quiet and humble, or, alternatively, loud and eager to prove themselves that they too can learn the ways of the urban life. Those characters are sometimes depicted as having an inherent superiority in morality, ethics or common sense compared to the "city-tainted" people around them. Can be an authorial voice to deliver An Aesop, or to provide a contrast to the "sophisticated" city-dwellers with whom they live and/or work with now.

Small Town Boredom is sometimes what motivates these characters to travel to the city. On their first arrival there, they will be dazzled by the tall buildings, luxury and cosmopolitan glamor of city life. Welcome to the Big City or discovering the shallowness (and wretchedness) of the Life of the Party will soon cure them; from this point on, they will either wisely head back to the countryside, or become corrupted by all the metropolitan consumerism, corruption, disease, violence, etc., going on.

The female Country Mouse often becomes the target of the Rich Bitch. Frequently overlaps with Naïve Newcomer.

No relation to the Nice Mice, although Dogs Hate Squirrels can be invoked if both Country Mouse and Rich Bitch are portrayed as both Nice Mouse and Psycho Poodle respectively.

Compare with City Mouse, Country Cousin and The City vs. the Country when this is an actual plot. Contrast Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense. Compare and contrast the Half-Witted Hillbilly, the more negative version of this trope.

This term and City Mouse derive from Aesop's Fables, making it Older Than Feudalism.

Not necessarily experienced in Country Matters.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Asta from Black Clover grew up as an orphan in a village in the boonies. As a result, he's unknowledgeable about many aspects of society in the Clover Kingdom, such as proper table manners and who the current Wizard King is, when he becomes a Magic Knight.
• Claudine: Maura's parents worked as retainers for the de Montesse family, and she was even born in the main house. Then they moved back to a nearby village, and Maura came to work to the main home.
• Son Goku from Dragon Ball grew up in the mountains, and after the early death of his grandfather, never had anybody to interact with outside of wild animals (most of which he ate). Bulma, a highly-intelligent city girl, is the very second human being he meets, and she proceeds to introduce him (and the audience) to everything the outside world has to offer. He has two Welcome to the Big City moments: the first, when Roshi and Krillin take him to the World Martial Arts Tournament grounds, and again when he tries to find Bulma in the bustling West City. In both cases, he's highly underestimated by the city folks who attempt to take advantage of his ignorance.
• Aurelia Hartwick from Emma: A Victorian Romance. She falls for the good-looking city boy, marries him, and relocates to London, where high society enjoys gossip at her expense.
• Mashiro from Engaged to the Unidentified, who's constantly awed by the things she finds in the city when she and her brother move in with her prospective sister-in-law Kobeni. Case in point, how she brightens up at the sight of a stoplight at a crosswalk, because while it's not the first time she's seen one, the one she did see was located in the next town from her hometown, which takes a few hours to get to.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, main character Tanjiro grew up in a small village in the rural countryside during the Taisho Era (1912-1926), so when he gets to a big city like Tokyo, he's a bit blown away by the huge size of the city and all the modern technology. He doesn't even know what a train is, since when he sees one for the first time he assumes it must be a guardian spirit.
• In Freezing, Rana Linchen hails from a small village in Tibet, and has been so isolated from the rest of the world that she thinks that her "Tears of Kunlun" are some divinely-bestowed gift until she reaches West Genetics.
• Houki from Fushigi Yuugi, born to a very poor family from the country. Her gorgeous looks get her a place in Emperor Hotohori's harem, and then she becomes Hotohori's wife.
• In Higurashi: When They Cry, Natsumi Kimiyoshi moves to the city from Okinomiya, which, while larger than the story's main setting of the village of Hinamizawa, still isn't a particularly big town. She winds up taking this role with her friends, though she's very eager to have all her new friends forget about the fact that she's from the country, particularly after the Hinamizawa Gas Disaster occurs.
• Sandybell Christie of Hello! Sandybell grew up in rural Scotland and is shocked upon travelling to London where life is drastically different. She's often homesick and misses her old friends, but luckily they keep in touch through letters.
• Jeudi and Lundi of Honoo no Alpen Rose grew up in the Alps and have never stepped foot outside of rural Switzerland. When Jeudi arrives to Austria and finds herself in Leonhardt Aschenbach's Big Fancy House, everything, from the family portraits on the walls, to the vases, to the cutlery and furniture, fascinate her. Likewise, Lundi is also shocked at seeing how lavishly the Count lives.
• Hagumi of Honey and Clover is actually nicknamed "Nezumi" (mouse) by one of the other characters. While it is mostly a reflection of her artist's character that she cannot properly socialize in the university environs, her deficiency is made greater by her back-country origins, and despite prodigious talent and constant encouragement towards fame, she wants nothing more than to return to the countryside.
• Igano Kabamaru: Kabamaru is a country bumpkin to the core, being raised by his grandfather Saizo in the moutains, and struggles to assmiliate to urban life. Munch of the show's comedy is derived from how modern-day life is so culture-shocking to him.
• Flare from Jigoku No Gouka De Yakare Tsuzuketa Shounen never knew anything outside of his village before walking into Hell. Part of his reason for volunteering to become Primavera's bodyguard is the promise of seeing new things, and he's quickly awestruck when they first arrive in a city and is excited to learn what an ocean is. He also has no idea what money is and has to have gold and platinum explained to him.
• Kaze no Shōjo Emily: Perry is from rural Canada and Never Learned to Read because of his smothering aunt. He finds Emily's tales of school fascinating, and Emily asks the teacher to let Perry join their extracurricular activities. Perry eventually works hard and earns a scholarship to a good school in spite of starting his education at a much later rate than his peers.
• The Story of Pollyanna, Girl of Love: Pollyanna spent most of her life in a rural American small town, and assmilating into the big city brings quite a lot of challenges to her. An example of this is when hearing people speak Italian makes her distressed, because she doesn't understand it.
• Ikuma Momochi, from the Tokyo Ghoul light novels. A Ghoul from the countryside, he moved to Tokyo to pursue a career in music and his upbringing is starkly contrasted with that of his city kin. He's a humble, kind-hearted young man with an optimistic outlook and a certain folksy wisdom.
• Komasan from Yo-kai Watch is a country Yōkai who is completely ignorant to urban life. His younger brother Komajiro is also a country mouse but is less of an exaggerated stereotype and adapts better to the city. For example Komasan doesn't understand cellphones and thinks they're some sort of weird ear-warmers and that people are talking to themselves, while Komajiro understands what a "cellphone" is.
• Koyuki from Sgt. Frog. Especially in the English dub.
• In Magic of Stella, Tamaki hails from the country, and even has an accent to go with her background. Yumine is slightly milder in this; they live in the same place but since she went to the city for school a few years earlier than Tamaki does, she speaks more regular Japanese.
• So, I Can't Play H!: According to Lisara, Ilia comes from the most backwater region of Grimwald. Her natural accent is thick and slurs her speech so badly, hardly anyone can understand what she's saying. Despite this, Ilia has become a successful teen idol and a spokesperson for the Merlot Life Insurance company. All thanks to using an illusion spell that makes her speech sound normal and her breasts appear bigger.
• Most of the main characters of Love Live! Sunshine!! (aside from Riko, who's from Tokyo) are technically this since they're from the rural neighborhood of Uchiura in Numazu. However, Hanamaru stands out the most, since she isn't used to modern technology because she doesn't have any at her house (she lives in a Buddhist temple). She calls anything she sees that she isn't used to "from the future", from street lights to even a blowdryer in a public bathroom.
• In Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Akira was born in the sleepy and secluded farming village of Gunma in the Kanto prefecture. Because of this, he's used to working on a farm and doing manual labor, but left for Tokyo to attend college and find a job to have a taste of the bustling metropolis. He's long since grown out of this and is actually glad to leave Tokyo and visit home, having experienced the best and the worst the city had to offer.

Comic Books

• Husk from Generation X had this as her nickname. Despite her best attempts at shedding the preconception of a Kentucky hillbilly (she suppressed her accent and was The Smart Girl of the team), her naivety was clear whenever the kids had an adventure in a big city.
• Superman: Clark Kent, when he first arrives in Metropolis from Smallville.
• In Runaways, Klara is a country mouse twice over - first she was dragged off a farm in Switzerland and taken away to New York City in the early 20th century, and then, after being abused and exploited by her "husband" in the Big Apple, she was offered a chance to run away to the 21st century, which she took. She adjusts surprisingly well to the 21st century, but still gets uncomfortable in cities.
• In Seven Soldiers, Klarion Bleak runs away from his home in the Puritan-styled Limbo Town, and ends up in the middle of Manhattan, where he finds that the world has changed considerably in the centuries since his ancestors sought refuge underground. Mr. Melmoth tries to exploit his naivety in hopes that the boy will lead him back to Limbo Town, but Klarion proves to be much more clever than Melmoth anticipated.
• Vampire: The Masquerade (Vault): Winter's Teeth is set in the Twin Cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. While it is a fully urban environment, a lot of the characters are from the surrounding rural area and have shades of this. This includes Goth Action Girl Cecily Bain, at least during her teenage years.

Fairy Tales

• Aesop's Fables: Aesop recounted the story of a city mouse visiting a country mouse and scorning his life as simple, but when the country mouse went to the city, he found the rich dining his city friend bragged of was guarded by cats, and concluded that safety and simplicity in the country were best.
• Beatrix Potter retold Aesop's fable as The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse. A country mouse is accidentally brought to the city, finds it too dangerous, and returns home; a city mouse visits him there, is frightened by the weather and prospect of a cow stepping on him, and returns home. Potter draws the Aesop that people like different things (and ignore different disadvantages).

Fan Works

• Prima in Dear Diary grew up in the wild and would much prefer to stay in her simple life on Route 1, even if she admits that life there could be dangerous too. She reacts with wonder at seeing human cities and towns that human-raised Pokémon like Opal are nonchalant about.
• While Violet Evergarden in Gestation has lived in Leiden for some time, part of the fic focuses on the ways that her current life lies in (often negative) contrast to her deeply rural upbringing, with Violet often enjoying the experiences and opportunities living in the city gives her.
• In Incarnation of Legends, Bell has only known the farm nestled in the mountains with his grandpa. So he reacts with surprise and delight whenever setting foot in another place, marveling at the sights while being woefully naïve until things are explained to him. Kojiro pointedly avoids mentioning that Rakia likely gained its riches from pillaging other nations, if only to avoid souring Bell's journey and their visit.
• Izuku Midoriya is one in My Huntsman Academia. In this story, he was born and raised in the rural and rocky Mountain Glenn, which Yang refers to as "the boonies". Because of this, he's in complete awe when he first comes to Beacon and has some imaginative expectations of what the facilities are like (i.e. thinking of the school forge as a smoky medieval-era workshop when it is far more modern in reality). When Yang takes him to Vale to hang out, she ends up dragging him eveywhere simply because he isn't familiar with the city and doesn't know where to go. Weiss also chastises him for his relaxed mannerisms and Valite accent, which she says are detrimental to his desired image as the future Symbol of Peace.
  • His seclusion has also made him oblivious to Weiss's and Pyrrha's identities at first, which both of them find refreshing and endearing because most people they meet are trying to hit on them or use them.
  • Pyrrha's former manager, Arata, outright calls him a country bumpkin while insisting that Pyrrha return to the tournament circuit. Izuku then flips this on his head while hanging up on him.
    Izuku: I'd say that it was a pleasure speaking with you but, like you said: I'm a country bumpkin and we're raised to be honest.
• In Remnant's Bizarre Adventure, Morioh exists far in the frontier of Remnant, and much of its architecture and culture is more focused on practicality in defense against the Grimm. When Josuke, Okuyasu, and Koichi arrive in Vale, they are baffled by the sight of skyscrapers and impressed with mundane features like warm showers that would have been seen as a luxury in their hometown.

Films — Animated

• A Bug's Life: Flik is noticeably out of his element during his visit to the city, as he constantly bumps into other bugs and almost gets run over after walking onto a busy road.
• Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World: Pocahontas, native from Virginia is amazed at the magnificence of London. Most defined in her verse of the Crowd Song "What a Day in London."
  My heart is pounding like a drum
  I can't believe my eyes
  In London people seem to come in every shape and size
  So many paths I wonder how they find their way
  So many signs I wonder what they really say
  London is everything I've heard and more
  London is nothing like I've seen before
  Music and feathered hats and roofs that shine
  With flags flying higher than a pine
• The whole plot of Shaun the Sheep Movie.
• Zootopia: Judy grew up in rural Bunnyburrow and is in awe (and a little overwhelmed) of life in the big city once she moves to Zootopia.

Films — Live-Action

• Many Frank Capra protagonists, most notably Longfellow Deeds from Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Jefferson Smith from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
• In A Girl Named Sooner, a mountain child is taken in by a couple living in a nearby town. The child is amazed by things like soap flakes, hot water from the tap, and electric lights.
• The Aviator: At one point in the film, Howard Hughes and Katharine Hepburn address each other as 'City Mouse' and 'Country Mouse'; a detail lifted from telegrams exchanged between the two that were auctioned off after Hepburn's death. The difference in their backgrounds is explored in another scene in which Hughes travels to meet Hepburn's family.
• Big Business (1988): Roone is a dim, good-natured, small-town West Virginian who is prone to Fish out of Water moments in New York.
• "Crocodile" Dundee. The first half has the City Mouse reporter in the wilds of Australia, while the second half has Country Mouse Dundee in the wilds of New York.
• The many film versions of Heidi. See below for more details.
• The Jerk: Steve Martin's character was "born a poor black child" in the country, but moves to the city when he discovers white people music.
• In Nothing Sacred, Hazel Flagg is flown from Warsaw, Vermont into New York City and becomes an overnight celebrity for suffering patiently with a rare terminal disease. But she knows she's not really dying, and she's perfectly healthy until she gets a bad hangover from overindulging in the city's nightlife.
• In Tillie's Punctured Romance, Tillie is an ignorant farmgirl who falls for the advances of a predatory city slicker. When she's in the city, she's such a bumpkin that she can't figure out crossing the street, and almost gets run over by some streetcars.
• Old Polish silent movie Antos pierwszy raz w Warszawie ("Tony's first time in Warsaw") from 1908 has a small town man who visits Warsaw for the first time and ends up robbed by two prostitutes he meets.
• In Way Down East, country mouse Anna is vulnerable in the city, leaving her open to the machinations of an evil Casanova who wants to get her into bed.
• 1966 Spanish film La ciudad no es para mí ("The city isn't for me") has Paco Martínez Soria in the role of an old widower from a small town in Zaragoza visiting Madrid for the first time to catch up with his son, a renowned doctor.
• In Colette, Sidonie-Gabrielle is this when she first moves to Paris, and is completely out of place at her first soiree. She adapts quickly, and loses the country mouse completely when she adopts the Colette persona.^note In Real Life, it wasn't quite that easy; she realized she'd made a terrible mistake but was determined not to admit it to her mother or ask her help. She wasted away emotionally and physically for several years before her mother intervened.
• Shoot to Kill: Knox and Sarah are both avid mountain guides, and Knox shows a sense of disdain for the idea of living in an urban area.
• Umrika: Ramakant is a naive village boy thrust into the big city (Mumbai in this case).
• Through Black Spruce: Annie comes from Moosonee, a rural town in the north of Ontario living with mostly other Cree people. On visiting Toronto, the provincial capital, with her friend, both of them are pretty overawed by the city at first. Annie is clearly a Fish out of Water there at first. She's quite unused to the spotlight, acting stricken in the wake of an interview she does with Jesse for instance.

Literature

• In The Anderssons by Solveig Olsson-Hultgren, Elin lived in the city of Stockholm for quite some years, but she only was glad to return to rural Småland. She lived on her homestead until she was 100 years old. Ironically enough, her daughter Rebecka had grown up in Stockholm and became a City Mouse.
• The Angelina Ballerina book Angelina's Big City Ballet has this as a point of conflict for Angelina, who is visiting "The Big Cheese" to be part of a dance show and feels overwhelmed at the size and sophistication of the city compared to her small town of Chipping Cheddar.
• Stone Telling from Always Coming Home describes feeling off to the point of sickness in the Condor city. The Dayao people themselves are, according to her, also an example. They used to be nomadic people, and are still happiest when outside their city.
• Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar centres around suburban dweller Esther Greenwood and her failure to cope with New York City. Esther points out that she has avoided spending summers in suburbia for many years and feels stifled in her home neighborhood.
• Demon Copperhead: Little Damon, who has been growing up in a trailer in the sticks, is thoroughly ill at ease when he's taken to visit some Peggot relations in Knoxville. He is shocked by the very idea of an apartment building, of the endless rows of doors that all open onto the same hallway, and how no one has a yard.
  Where would these people grow their tomatoes?
  • Later, Damon is shocked to find out that some places have garbage trucks, rather than everyone hauling their garbage to a landfill.
• Discworld: An element of Carrot's personality in Guards! Guards!, before he starts fitting into the city as if he was born to it, and also Imp in the first few scenes of Soul Music. Noticably absent on Granny Weatherwax's visits to the Great Wahoonie, since she assumes it's the city's job to fit round her, not the other way round.
• A Hole in the Fence: Twelve-year-old Grisón and Prune leave Courquetaines and travel to Metropolis to meet their biological mother, quickly finding themselves out of place when they arrive in the big city. They initially have headaches because they are used to breathe cleaner air, and they are overwhelmed by the giant buildings, giant parkings, elevators (they had never seen one until then), weird synthetic food, similar words with different meanings, unfamiliar appliances, strangely-shaped furniture... After two weeks they are surprised to be able to make their way to a stadium to watch a sports event and go back home without getting lost.
• Inkmistress: Asra had lived in a mountain cave with only a village nearby all her life until she at last enters a city. The sights, smells and masses of city dwellers are hard for her to take at first, as she feels like her senses are assaulted by it all.
• Louisa May Alcott's novel An Old-Fashioned Girl has this as its basic premise. Poor country girl Polly Milton befriended wealthy city girl Fanny Shaw when the latter was visiting a mutual friend, and after several months of correspondence, goes to visit her friend in the city. During the two months of her visit, she Pollyannas the entire household.
• In Skin Hunger Sadima is this when she comes to the big city to live with Franklin (on whom she has had a crush ever since she met him at her father's farm) and Somiss, with whom Franklin is in an (non-romantic, non-sexual) abusive relationship. She tries to free Franklin from Somiss' clutches, but the parallel story of Hahp reveals that she isn't going to succeed. Sadima has the good luck to find a job as a cheesemaker, where her country-knowledge is useful.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, Eddard "Ned" Stark is this compared to the other Lords of Westeros. He's a grim and stoic guy who hails from the Westeros equivalent of Alaska. One of the reasons he didn't claim the Iron Throne at the end of Robert's Rebellion was because he didn't think he could handle the Decadent Court. Years later Robert made Ned his Hand of the King. Sure enough, Ned couldn't handle the corrupt court and paid dearly for it.
• Trueman Bradley grew up in his grandfather's house in the small town of Heartville, Illinois. He finds New York City very confusing and overwhelming.
• In The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, Rufus Fry and his little brother Cody, the new students at Kenny's school, are hicks from the Deep South who wear ragged clothes, speak with obvious southern accents, and shot squirrels for dinner where they used to live. This gets them teased a lot, but Kenny becomes friends with Rufus regardless.

Live-Action TV

• 30 Rock: Kenneth used to live on a farm and moved to NYC to work in television. He's a naive, religious, innocent, and cheerful. He's certainly better than the rest of the cast.
• Fred on Angel might actually be an Aversion. She teases her parents about visiting the decadence of the big city, but doesn't really seem too naive about it. By the time she joins the gang, she's reasonably acclimated to city life, especially to appreciate being able to get tacos at any given point in the day. When her parents later visit, they are a Subversion -they're from the country but don't seem especially wowed by the big city, especially as they've watched plenty of movies and television.
• Linda Zwordling from Better Off Ted. Naturally, she jokes about staying in Wisconsin and majoring in Cheese sciences.
• On The Big Bang Theory, Penny's Nebraskan origins are a frequent source of jokes at her expense in which all the stereotypes about mid-Western people are mercilessly aired. When Sheldon is meticulously researching a new part of the USA to move to, he looks at Penny, confirms she is from Nebraska, then draws a great big cross through the entire state.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Lampshaded by Riley Finn when he describes to Buffy the farm he grew up on and admits he's making it sound like a Grant Wood painting. Later when Buffy finds out Riley is a secret agent, she naturally assumes this is all a front. Riley says that no, he really did grow up on a small farm in Iowa.
• Woodrow Tiberius "Woody" Boyd from Cheers, native of Hanover, Indiana. He seems to take to the big city well enough. Though most references to his family paint them as stereotypical rubes, this is subverted in one episode when Woody reveals that they found the pretentious film Diane created about his life in Boston "derivative of Godard." (Fun fact: the character was named "Woody" before Woody Harrelson was cast.)
• Dallas:
  • Cally Harper is this when J.R. first meets her in Season 12. She quickly learns social graces.
  • Debra Lynn, James Beaumont’s first wife, is disparangly referred to as this by Michelle Stevens (whom James married in Season 14 when he thought he’d divorced Debra Lynn). However, James — in telling Michelle in not so many words that Debra Lynn is no country mouse — said that while he appreciates the rich life (which he experienced while under J.R.’s influence, his real happiness is with Debra Lynn and their son.
• Degrassi's suicidal teenage semipro hockey player Cam Saunders came from Kapuskasing, ON (pop. 8196) to Toronto to get on the fast track to the NHL.
• Firefly:
  • Although being the engineer of a spaceship has broadened her quite a bit, there's still a fair amount of Country Mouse in Kaylee.
    • In "Shindig" she attends a formal ball. At first, she's completely out of place. Eventually, she finds a crowd of engineers (or, at least, elite socialites with tinkering hobbies) and spends the rest of the ball talking engines with them.
  • Saffron appears to be this at first, but it's actually a front for her status as a conwoman.
• Roz from Frasier comes from Wisconsin and in one episode describes going back for family reunions on her uncle's dairy farm where they put pants on the cows and speak in a special cheese language. Another episode had a random Wisconsin woman call into the show, and it turns out that she and Roz know each other through distant relatives. The idea of Roz's mother being the Attorney General of Wisconsin was initially played for laughs.
• Jon Snow from Game of Thrones is established as this when he arrives in King's Landing for the first time in season 7. He asks Tyrion why anyone would want to live in a city infamous for its intrigues and evil smells. Tyrion says that there is more work here, and the brothels are better too.
• Rose from The Golden Girls was one of these, coming from the fictional St. Olaf, a rural town in Minnesota that is...more than a little bizarre, based on Rose's stories from her hometown. Blanche, despite being a Southern Belle, is not this trope, as she spent most of her life in suburban Atlanta and adapted well to Miami.
• Mimpi Metropolitan starts with the arrival of Bambang Soedarmo, a young man from a village in Wonosari, in the city of Jakarta. In the early episodes, Bambang is moral-but-judgmental, clueless to the norm of the city and only has experience on using an outdated phone before adjusting to the city and growing out of the negative traits.
• NCIS: New Orleans: Percy calls LaSalle this because he's from Mobile, Alabama.^note  Mobile is not a tiny rural community, but it's definitely not an urban center like New Orleans is. It also becomes the pet name that fellow agent Percy bestows on him, and she even manages to turn it into a Quiet Cry for Help by calling him "City Mouse", his nickname for her.
• Dave of NewsRadio is often mocked on for coming from Wisconsin:
  Dave: I think radio is a fascinating medium.
  Bill: You're from Wisconsin. Artificial light is fascinating to you.
  Bill: You're not in Wisconsin, Dave. The big story isn't about a cow wandering into the town square.
  Dave: Bill, I worked in Milwaukee, you know. It's a city with a population of a million people.
  Bill: So that must have been quite a hub-bub when that cow got loose.
• Rupauls Drag Race: Every season includes at least one queen who hails from a tiny middle-of-nowhere town, often in the Deep South, and is intimidated by the big city queens from New York City or Los Angeles, but still manages to hold her own. There are actually degrees to which this trope is represented on the show:
  • Queens that truly come from the middle of nowhere and represent their town on the show, such as Season 3's Stacy Layne Matthews (Back Swamp, North Carolina) and Season 12's Aiden Zayne (Acworth, Georgia).
  • Queens whose hometown isn't small by itself, but it's still not known for its drag scene and the queen quickly has to adapt after realizing what worked back home might not sway RuPaul. Examples include Season 8's Chi-Chi DeVayne (Shreveport, Louisiana), and Season 10's Kalorie Karbdashian-Williams (Albuquerque).
  • Queens who escaped their small town for the big city, and while they represent their new home on the show, they're still affected by experiences from growing up gay in a rural town, such as Season 4's Sharon Needles (originally from Newton, Iowa, moved to Pittsburgh), and roughly half of the New York City queens weren't born in The Big Apple but moved there to further their drag careers (such as Season 5's Ivy Winters, originally from Greenville, Michigan).
• Sonny from Sonny with a Chance. She's from Wisconsin. Cue many jokes about Wisconsin farmland, including Sonny's ringtone being a cow mooing.
• James of Spin City is a naive Wisconsin farmboy who often refers to cheese, cows, and milk when speaking. One time, after getting conned once again he asks rhetorically if he has a sign on his chest that says that he's a simpleton and to take advantage of him before opening his jacket to reveal an "I Love Wisconsin" T-Shirt.
• Bailey from The Suite Life on Deck is from the town Kettlecorn, Kansas.
• Vanderpump Rules: Brittany Cartwright, Jax's girlfriend, is a Kentucky girl with a thick southern twang. She stands out quite a bit among the SUR staff.
• Due South: Constable Fraser of the Mounties is a complicated subversion; in the pilot episode it was noted that he was so used to being out in the open countryside, solving crimes through "traditional" methods like following animal tracks, using dogsleds, and giving everyone a "thank you, kindly" that he could not even handle the bustling life in Moosejaw (a relatively small town of only 30 thousand people) due to it being too hectic and crowded. However when he is transferred to Chicago, Fraser somehow manages to fit in pretty well, mainly due to his insistence on treating it as just one large village and refusing to give up on his politeness and endless good humour. Admittedly he is helped by City Mouse, Detective Vecchio who is able to balance Fraser out when it comes to the more cynical part of the job.

Manhwa

• Soah from The Bride of the Water God, literally a country girl forced to live with the palace intrigues of both Habaek the Water God, and the Emperor's Court.

Music

• Elton John's "Honky Cat" finds the singer warned by his relatives that "living in the city, boy, is gonna break your heart".
  • "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" finds the singer at the "disillusioned by all the empty shallowness" part of one of these stories, and consequently more than a little bit bitter.

Professional Wrestling

• The many hillbilly/farmer wrestlers that have been around for ages. Most are usually faces, sometimes portrayed as very naïve and being used as a tool by a heel.

Theatre

• In Wonderful Town, Ruth and Eileen arrive in New York City from Columbus, Ohio, thinking that they can easily make a name for themselves as a writer and actress, respectively. They are quickly revealed to be country mice when they end up handing over most of their money for a barely-livable apartment.

Video Games

• Quina in Final Fantasy IX forms a definite contrast to the sophisticated princess Dagger, though s/he is played mostly for laughs
• Mami in Breath of Fire IV. An innocent farm girl who momentarily took care of Fou-lu and promptly fell for him (and it's implied Fou-lu feels the same, although it's kinda hard to tell). Then things go horribly wrong. And how.
• Nephenee from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is a shy country girl who rarely speaks, mostly to hide her country accent.
  • Also the Dragon Riders Cormag and Glen from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. As children, they're taken in by the Grado military after they throw stones at the dogs surrounding Emperor Vigarde's carriage during a trip to the countryside.
• We have two in Fire Emblem: Awakening: Donnel (who even is in the Villager class!) and Kellam.
• And in Fire Emblem Fates we have another two: Mozu (an Gender Flip Expy of Donnel, also Villager class) and Keaton (though he denies it very much).
• Suikoden II has Kinnison, an archer, who lives in the forest surrounding Ryukei Village, with his "dog", Shiro. After recruiting him and establishing your base, he writes about trying to adjust to life in the castle, and not being used to having so many others around. Following the game's ending, he and Shiro return to their forest.
• In Roommates, Anne is from a small town and is quite shy and sheltered at first. Part of the reason she wanted to go to college in the big city is to learn to be more independent and assertive and to make new friends.
• Sakura Shinguji and Texas gal Gemini Sunrise in Sakura Wars.
• Shining Song Starnova has Natsuki, an energetic farm girl from Kansai who came to Tokyo to make it big as an Idol Singer. While she’s somewhat ignorant of the subtler aspects of city life and the seedier elements of the idol industry, her humble upbringing ensures that Starnova never gets mired in scandals during her route.
• Twisted Wonderland: Epel Felmier comes from a Ruritanian farming village and starts out brash and reckless, speaking in an impenetrable rural accent, and having a regressive view on gender roles. He's being shaped up by Vil to behave in a more refined manner.

Webcomics

• In Fate/type Redline, Kanata, a Kid from the Future, is mistaken for one by Tsukumo because of his wide-eyed amazement at seeing Tokyo in 1945, 75 years before his time.
• In Thistil Mistil Kistil, both Coal and Hedda marvel over their first town. You can check out its size here, to see unused to towns they are.
• Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid:
  • Su-a grew up in a seaside town and is a bit out of sorts upon first arriving in the bustling Gyeungseong.
  • Geon is a scholarship student from the country and describes being amazed when he first arrived in Gyeongseong.
• Jolee from Woo Hoo is a Canadian country girl who's just moved to the big city at the start of the comic. She quickly finds herself wrapped up in strange urban adventures.

Web Originals

• ATTACK on MIKA: Keisuke Uemura is a college student who hails from a countryside town. However, he is bullied by his classmate Akiko for it until she's revealed to hail from the same countryside town as well.
• Some of the talents at hololive have shared to their fans that they come from the countryside. They might be a few hours outside of the Greater Tokyo Area, like Miko and Aqua were before they moved, or coming from as far away as Tsushima, as Izuru shared. Gura from the EN branch is also this, having revealed during a cooking stream that she was an honest-to-goodness Farm Girl.

Western Animation

• Big City Greens stars the Greens, a family of farmers living in the middle of a busy modern city. A lot of the show's humor and plots come from the interactions between the rural-raised Greens and their urban neighbors, but the Greens are consistently depicted as decent people more versed in city life than one might expect from them.
• The Country Mouse And City Mouse Adventures, a late '90s Edutainment Show focusing on geography and world cultures, featured a literal country mouse named Emily and her cousin, the city mouse Alexander, going around the world having adventures in what looks to be either the late Victorian or The Edwardian Era.
• Lila from Hey Arnold!. Compare her to Rhonda, and you'll know she fits.
  • Stinky lacks the closer to Earth qualities but plays the country stereotypes much harder. He even lives in a simply little shack incongruously placed amidst tall brick buildings.
• Hilda is forced to move from her home in the wilderness to Trolberg. As a lover of adventure and the supernatural, she is initially disappointed, and struggles to adapt.
• Korra of The Legend of Korra has this trait highlighted in "Welcome to Republic City," when she travels from her remote home at the South Pole to Republic City, she marvels at the modern urban center while stumbling on to its less savory aspects, like homelessness and organized crime, and also learns that local police don't take kindly to vigilante justice when there's no such thing as Hero Insurance.
• The "city and country mouse" were played by a pair of wolf cousins in Tex Avery's "Little Rural Riding Hood", both of whom were Abhorrent Admirers in the others' Red, but reversed for their own.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In Applejack's cutie mark origin segment, Applejack recalls the time that she left the Apple farm to stay with her aunt and uncle in the big city. Although her aunt and uncle were nice enough people, she soon found herself depressed and constrained by the city lifestyle, and quickly decided to return to farm life.
• Pig City: Mikey Hoggins is a country pig who's parents sent him to live with his cousins in the city, thinking he could benefit far more from a city education.
• Princess Sissi is a plucky farm girl who is chosen to be the bride of Prince Franz, bringing her down-to-earth upbringing to the palace and their politics.
• The Silly Symphonies short The Country Cousin, features a literal country mouse who comes to visit his city mouse cousin and experiences city life for the first time.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: "Deal No Deal" demonstrates that Trace Martez, who ironically enough comes from Coruscant, the most populated City Planet in the galaxy, is one of these when she has to deal with life outside of her corner of Level 1313. She is naïve, trusting, and almost completely ignorant of how things stand in the wider galaxy, down to even the traffic laws on Coruscant's surface.
• From Tom and Jerry, Jerry becomes a literal Country Mouse in the big city in the short "Mouse in Manhattan".

Real Life

• Kondo Isami, Commander of The Shinsengumi. While far from uncultured, Kondo is reported to often find himself out of his depth in political matters and the bureaucracy that heading up the capital's police force entailed. He is also described as having a great sense of honor and an inherent and very humble moral superiority.

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