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Hillbilly Elegy
#1
Hillbilly Elegy
Who here has watched the Netflix film "Hillbilly Elegy"?  My wife and I watched it and loved it but I've noticed that just about every review I've seen has panned it for some reasons that I find difficult to pin down.  They seem to find it inaccurate and somewhat offensive to the people of Appalachia but my experiences just don't align with this conclusion.  Does anyone else have ideas about why this film is being panned?
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
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#2
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
Saw it's availability on Netflix, but it just looks stupid to me.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#3
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
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.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#4
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
Ironically, kind of like Trumptards stating, "So, you know what a conservative is, heh?"

I think we tend to miss our own idiosyncrasies that are unfortunately tied to a particular label.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#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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#6
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
The dish wanted to watch it.  We both lost interest within the first 30 minutes.  Too stereo typical and contrived.  I'm usually fine with nonlinear storytelling, but that also seemed forced.
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#7
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
The forks thing is a movie trope commonly used as a placeholder for class and class anxiety, and class inferiority - exactly as it was in this movie.

You didn't miss the authors politics, the director left them out - which is a blessing and a shame. A blessing because he's a nutball who wrote that caricature of imaginary hillbillys to explain why the right was going full on trumpet, and a shame because it just doesn't make any sense without it.

-and by sense, I only mean that it makes sense that the author wrote his characters a particular way, when you understand that it was a prologue morality play to his comments about a culture in decline.

There's nothing offensive about a persons desire for self improvement and vances story is most certainly not true as told.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Reply
#8
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
(December 1, 2020 at 10:59 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The forks thing is a movie trope commonly used as a placeholder for class and class anxiety, and class inferiority - exactly as it was in this movie.  

You didn't miss the authors politics, the director left them out - which is a blessing and a shame.   A blessing because he's a nutball who wrote that caricature of imaginary hillbillys to explain why the right was going full on trumpet, and a shame because it just doesn't make any sense without it.

-and by sense, I only mean that it makes sense that the author wrote his characters a particular way, when you understand that it was a prologue morality play to his comments about a culture in decline.  

There's nothing offensive about a persons desire for self improvement and vances story is most certainly not true as told.

You could certainly be correct about the fork incident, but as I said, I know people who have experienced this exact thing or something nearly identical, so it is not inaccurate.  Are you saying that its an over used cliché, because I can relate to that.  Perhaps it would be better to not use such shorthand and demonstrate his discomfort in a better way.

You may be referring more to the book than the film because I also didn't see the connection between the people/culture of the film and devotion to Trump.  But let's be clear, Trump does have this segment of the population eating out of his hand.  I just didn't see the film really explaining that; perhaps the book did attempt that.

What makes you say Vance's story is not true?  Are there other sources that conflict?
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
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#9
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
Anybody else notice the congruence of this one and "God Is NOT Dead"?
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#10
RE: Hillbilly Elegy
The story you watched was meant to be that explanation. By the examples of the characters in the narrative. The criticism it's getting (and has always gotten, before it being turned into a movie) is that the characters themselves are also examples of that kind of shorthand.

Now, as far as writing a story goes I get this. It's tough to write something decent. We simplify characters that are real and we invent imaginary characters where a real character (or the real character of a real person) doesn't suit the narrative purpose. That the authors characters are cutouts is a given.

- but since the narrative thrust of the entire work was to explain his discomfort (with a culture he believes to be in decline), perhaps it would have been better to do it a better way.

Vance was never shy about discrepancies between his own recollection of events and others - ton of good jokes about it on interviews when he was shopping the book around. This isn't a problem for his story - I only mentioned it because you suggested that the truth of the story was relevant to why it was offensive. Beyond any criticism of the book (or the movie) I can only suggest that the contents could very well be true and meaningfully enough based on his own real experiences. The extent to which his experience is representative of the culture which he sought to address, rather than the political ideology he'd used it to disseminate..is dubious.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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