[imagesource: Netflix]
Rural America, to use a single term that embodies millions of people spread across a huge expanse of land, often gets a pretty rough deal when it comes to on-screen portrayals.
Just say the word Deliverance and people instantly think of inbred rednecks out to kill, for example.
Last week, the trailer for Netflix’s Hillbilly Elegy was released, and it wasn’t long before critics began to tear into the depiction of working-class struggles in the Appalachia region of the United States.
Before we get to that, here’s the basic plot via Netflix:
J.D. Vance (Gabriel Basso), a former Marine from southern Ohio and current Yale Law student, is on the verge of landing his dream job when a family crisis forces him to return to the home he’s tried to forget.
J.D. must navigate the complex dynamics of his Appalachian family, including his volatile relationship with his mother Bev (Amy Adams), who’s struggling with addiction.
Fueled by memories of his grandmother Mamaw (Glenn Close), the resilient and whip-smart woman who raised him, J.D. comes to embrace his family’s indelible imprint on his own personal journey.
With Oscar-winning director Ron Howard at the helm, there is already some Oscar buzz around the performance of Amy Adams.
To the trailer we go:
The film is based on the New York Times best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, written by J.D. Vance in 2016.
That memoir may have sold copies, but it was widely criticised, too. Here’s Consequence of Sound:
Vance, a venture capitalist and proud Republican, was heavily criticized by readers and critics alike for his inaccurate depiction of rural residents in the Appalachians, particularly for applying his personal experience to everyone around him, failing to acknowledge the region’s cultural diversity, and applying ruthless tropes and negative stereotypes with reckless abandon.
In essence, the book pushes the idea that these residents are poor due to their bad choices, and are to blame for their own poverty.
Some of the reactions on Twitter:
Hillbilly Elegy is Right Wing propaganda that actively promotes Reaganomics, the poor as deserving of their suffering, and intentionally obscures racism and white supremacy as major factors in America’s decline. https://t.co/dGYsC7DScH
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) October 14, 2020
If you didn’t read Hillbilly Elegy like I did in 2016 it’s a book about a guy who grows up poor in the Rust Belt and becomes successful but chooses to learn nothing in the process
— Julia Claire (@ohJuliatweets) October 14, 2020
Hillbilly Elegy is poverty porn for venture capitalists.https://t.co/QkbF0ygyKT
— Haymarket Books (@haymarketbooks) October 14, 2020
There’s also this cracking dig at Netflix to enjoy:
Very encouraging to see that Hillbilly Elegy has That Netflix Look, a cinematic style that effortlessly delivers the experience of wandering aimlessly through the set on a weekday morning and catching the cast standing around eating baby carrots from craft services.
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) October 14, 2020
Following the book’s success, a number of writers with ties to the area published Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to ‘Hillbilly Elegy’, sharing stories that they believe better reflect their lived experiences.
Still, Glenn Close and Amy Adams are pretty good at what they do, so at the very least we can expect some solid performances.
