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etflix’s adaptation of the novel Hillbilly Elegy garnered criticism from critics for allegedly portraying rural Americans negatively and glorifying author J. D. Vance’s escape from poverty. The controversy began before the film’s release, as critics’ overwhelmingly negative reviews contrasted with audiences’ positive responses. Hillbilly Elegy follows Vance as he overcomes cycles of poverty in rural Ohio to attend Yale Law School. In describing his family’s intergenerational trauma, Vance successfully analyzes the plights of rural, White, working-class Americans. The movie begins with Vance in law school, attending interviews for summer associate jobs. While Vance dines with his top-choice firm, his sister Lindsay calls him to reveal that their mother Bev relapsed in her opiate addiction. The film follows Vance through his interviews and his return home to help his mother. Numerous flashbacks depict how his family ended up in Ohio from Kentucky, from his grandmother Mamaw getting pregnant at thirteen to his mother’s abusive acts to the beginning of her addiction to Vance joining the Marines to escape poverty. Hillbilly Elegy shows that people must make better choices to overcome poverty, namely
generational poverty. But it also acknowledges that people need positive support systems to help them overcome vicious cycles. That’s why Bev and Vance’s stories turn out differently despite their similar origins. Bev was the salutatorian of her high school and put herself through nursing school as a single mother, but she still could not pull herself out of poverty because she had no one to support her. She slips further into her addiction and struggles to raise her children. She turns to men for support, hoping to find someone who can give her family a better life. Vance could have become like Bev; he was hanging out with the wrong crowd, drinking, and getting into legal trouble—all because he had no one to guide him. His behavior changes only when Mamaw intervenes, as she takes custody of him and forces him to change. Vance would not have the work ethic that got him accepted to Yale Law—or college or the Marines—without Mamaw’s guidance and sacrifices. Mamaw prioritizes Vance’s education over her
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own needs, even purchasing him an $85 calculator instead of her necessary medication. Vance’s story shows that having some kind of support system—regardless of circumstance— is critical to overcoming systemic poverty. Despite the movie’s seemingly irrefutable message and the book’s glowing initial reception, critics rejected the film and its themes. Notable reviews called Hillbilly Elegy “one of the worst movies of the year” and “not the fun kind of bad,” accusing the film of seeing its characters as selective evidence that poverty is the fault of the poor.
Hillbilly Elegy humanizes low-income rural Americans, which is critical to achieving a civil, culturally unified America. The critics’ dismissive response mirrors the US’ ignorance toward poverty in Middle America.
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