For those of us that knew it was coming, yesterday it came: Netflix released their trailer for Hillbilly Elegy. And, it looks a bit more atrocious than I expected.
For those not in the know, you’re probably seeing this all over your social media feed and wondering what the hell for. Hillbilly Elegy came to life first as a memoir by one J.D. Vance, where it spent an absurd amount of time on the New York Times Top Ten list. The book hit shelves at a crucial time: after the election of Donald Trump as president.
Perhaps that was by design. For if this book had just been a memoir about one guy’s experience growing up poor and white, with some honestly entertaining anecdotes about his grandmother—Mawmaw—then perhaps it would have done just fine, and most likely we wouldn’t be having these ongoing conversations about it four years later. There likely wouldn’t be a film directed by Oscar winning filmmaker, Ron Howard, and starring Oscar darlings, Glenn Close and Amy Adams.
Yet here we are still talking about it, four years later. We’re talking about it so much so that folks are damn near making a living by doing so. Many books and essays have been written in response. And there’s an incredibly fun and insightful podcast, The Trillbilly Worker’s Party, that got its start by critically responding to the book.
So, what is it about Hillbilly Elegy that’s got us all in a stir?
There’s a lot wrong with this book. I’ll start with: instead of being one man’s memoir about one man’s experience, Vance positions his book as “A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.” Instead of his experience and his family’s struggles and reasons for their beliefs and their handlings of their goings-on, he makes wide assertions about the whole of Appalachia. It’s not J.D. Vance’s experience, it’s the Appalachian experience.
And it’s that assertion as fact that has led to this book becoming the “answer” to the question so many people were—and still are—asking; how the fuck did Donald Trump get elected as president?
The real problem is: J.D. Vance’s singular experience is absolutely not the shared experience of Appalachia. No one’s singular experience is ever that.
Furthermore is the assumption that Appalachia is composed entirely of poor white working-class folk. It’s not. Appalachia is exceptionally well-diversified.
And then there’s the question: what, and where,is Appalachia?
This is where I diverge from much of the critical commentary. Yes, absolutely, the Appalachian Mountains are a vast range that extends north to south across many states and even into Canada. But, let’s be honest here, no one in New York state refers to themselves as Appalachian. We all know what region we are speaking of. And, even in parceling out that area for discourse, those hills and hollers of Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Virginia, the whole of West Virginia, and pieces of Pennsylvania, even then we still maintain a cornucopia of diversity. The hemming and hawing over how much ground and how many people the Appalachian Mountains encompass in the general discourse of what’s ultimately wrong about these generalized and white-washed perspectives on this region is a bit tired and lazy.
Within this region, Vance makes sweeping assertions about family, faith, politics, desires, motivations, and so much more. Be it by design or by ignorance, Vance furthers the negatives of White appropriation by disassociating the collective culture and voice of the many for that of his own.
Perhaps most disturbing is that Vance essentially victim-blames the region for their plight. It’s their fault for not seeking higher education. It’s their fault for not seeking to better themselves. It’s their fault that meth and opioids have swept the hills and hollers in staggering numbers in comparison to other parts of this country. Certainly crony Capitalism, in its avarice and machinanations, sweeping those hilltops for decades, stripping the land of resource, poisoning the waters and earth with its detritus, working its men and women to the bone, and when the resources are all gone, gathering up their companies and jobs, and up and leaving the people behind, tired, unemployed, and in pain with little to hold in their hands but the fucking bill had absolutely nothing to do with the plight of Appalachia.
But mostly, it’s their fault for not leaving.
But, then again, Vance is now a Yale graduate and Venture Capitalist who’s left his home behind in his attempts to further Capitalism, while seemingly doing little beyond shake a finger at his home and call it out for being lazy and backwards. So, why would we expect his opinion to be any different? He’s living Ayn Rand’s dream.
The problem with the book is that people read the book and they think, “ah, ok, this is how poor white trash think and operate,” and they build or bolster prejudice toward an entire region based upon that. People look at Appalachia and think it’s beyond help. Its people are stubborn and stupid and reaping what they’ve sown. And while certainly people like Vance’s family exist in that region—they exist in all regions—those people don’t compose that region. And thusly the entire region suffers further.
The people of Appalachia deserve better. They’re not a people to be gawked at via poverty porn vehicles like Hillbilly Elegy, or to be judged from the perspectives of one man. No person or regian deserves that.
Certainly there is crisis in Appalachia, but it’s not the crisis of lazy indignation. It’s the crisis of Industry having raped and pillaged the land and people to the point of exhaustion. The plight of Appalachia isn’t the byproduct of ignorant, lazy, drug-addicted and well-fare trickstery denizens. The plight of Appalachia is Capitalism. And in that regard Appalachia is no different than Detroit.
If you want to know more about the realities of Appalachia, there’s far better options than Hillbilly Elegy. Here’s a few:
- Trilbilly Worker’s Party Podcast
- What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia
- Appalachian Reckoning
- The Bitter Southerner
- Harlan County, USA
Or, and this may be a stretch, but go visit this region. Go hike its mountains. Visit its towns. Talk to its people. Spend a few dollars there. We can learn a lot about things online, but I’m still a sucker for good ol’ life experience.
As for Hillbilly Elegy, the film, while its trailer smacks of poverty porn, I’m hoping that it takes a more singular view. I’m hoping the notion of one man speaking for many is removed from the film and we just get the story of a family and their trials and triumphs as they may be. But, we’ll just have to wait and see on that.
Meanwhile, if you’re going to support something Appalachian, let it be anything but Hillbilly Elegy, please.