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Hillbilly Elegy
#5
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
(December 1, 2020 at 9:54 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Perhaps it's down to the fact that people who've lived out something like the myth vance constructed to excuse his insane politics, hilariously removed from the film so as to ease their way into awards, can't find any connection to their lived experience in it.  

It's a stereotype of a hillbilly, the worst kind.  Intimidated by forks and his urban peers, riddled with unresolved mommy issues and shame for place of origin.  No hillbilly I know.  Certainly not me.

Well, that's interesting.  I must have missed Vance's "insane politics".  Don't remember him expressing his politics at all.

I didn't grow up in Appalachia, but I did grow up in the rural deep south, which isn't much different.  My family wasn't wealthy but we didn't experience any hardship, but our level of comfort was directly tied to my father's factory job.  Minus that and we would have been quite poor because there weren't many other well paying jobs to be had.  Both of my parents were raised in even more rural settings with even less comfort and I did have many relatives that lived near the poverty line, though they all worked full time.  Our little town was lucky in that its limited industry never dried up and left the inhabitants jobless, but even so I could see plenty to relate to in the film.  I don't understand the claims of it being inaccurate.  Perhaps it focused too much on the recklessness of his mother, but there was also his proud, determined grandmother there to balance that.  Despite her limited means, she clearly knew what JD needed to be successful in life.  Didn't that demonstrate intelligence and a drive for personal improvement?  His sister wasn't ambitious but she managed to live a stable life and raise a family.  It seems that the source of JD's drive to improve himself is what is getting criticized here.  If his story is true, why is it also offensive?

And for the record, I certainly don't condone the act of lampooning poor people for the sake of entertainment, but I just don't think that is what's going on in this film.

Now let's discuss the scene with the forks.  OK, I know real (several) people who have experienced this sort of thing (not always with forks).  Of course this wouldn't send most people into a near panic attack but I expect that was exaggerated for the film.  More often its a source of humor among the working class who laugh at the wealthy for their uppity ways.  But this is interesting because this sort of cultural divide exists even in small towns.  The "rich" folks drink tea in expensive china while the working class drink their coffee in Walmart cups.  I had a classmate who was from one of the most wealthy families in town who bragged about wearing a his socks only once, then throwing them away.  Yeah, he got beaten up on a regular basis.  But his behavior was a contradiction.  His grandfather was an uneducated farmer who built a scrap metal business that served to make his descendants wealthy.  So who was lampooning who?  It's obvious that no one really wants to be poor, but its equally obvious that when viewing poor communities, we often see lost potential and I think that is what the film was trying to convey.
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
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Messages In This Thread
Hillbilly Elegy - by Spongebob - December 1, 2020 at 9:34 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Silver - December 1, 2020 at 9:37 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 1, 2020 at 9:54 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Spongebob - December 1, 2020 at 10:51 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Silver - December 1, 2020 at 9:57 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Ranjr - December 1, 2020 at 10:51 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 1, 2020 at 10:59 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Spongebob - December 1, 2020 at 11:16 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Gawdzilla Sama - December 1, 2020 at 11:57 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 1, 2020 at 12:00 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Spongebob - December 1, 2020 at 2:34 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by arewethereyet - December 1, 2020 at 2:05 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 1, 2020 at 2:50 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Spongebob - December 1, 2020 at 3:24 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Ranjr - December 1, 2020 at 3:13 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 1, 2020 at 3:53 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Ranjr - December 1, 2020 at 4:34 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 1, 2020 at 4:42 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Ranjr - December 1, 2020 at 5:00 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 1, 2020 at 5:50 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Ranjr - December 1, 2020 at 7:14 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 1, 2020 at 7:38 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Ranjr - December 1, 2020 at 8:29 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 2, 2020 at 9:45 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Silver - December 2, 2020 at 9:52 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 2, 2020 at 9:56 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Spongebob - December 6, 2020 at 11:03 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Silver - December 6, 2020 at 11:12 am
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Spongebob - December 6, 2020 at 1:27 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by Ranjr - December 6, 2020 at 2:06 pm
RE: Hillbilly Elegy - by The Grand Nudger - December 6, 2020 at 3:03 pm



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