"Hillbilly Elegy" is a 2016 memoir by J.D. Vance in which he describes the difficulties of growing up in a family whose values were informed by their upbringing in Appalachia (a region of the United States which includes Kentucky, West Virginia, and a handful of other states characterized by rural isolation not only from the rest of the country but between its own residents). As of a few days ago, Director Ron Howard adapted the book into a film of the same name, starring Amy Adams, Glenn Close, and Gabriel Basso as Vance himself. Watching the film, I was struck by the differences between it and the book, namely in how it presented Vance's ideas in regards to poverty and systemic wealth inequality and social ailments that spring from it.
To begin, consider the book's subheading: "A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis." One of the claims that Vance makes throughout the book is that his family's suffering, which is to say their struggles with addiction and poverty, are the result of social rot found in the culture of Appalachia (although Vance grows up in Ohio). He does not feel that the poverty that white rural folks experience is brought on by economic conditions, or at least not nearly as much as he sees "poor culture" as the root issue. There's a reason that conservatives latch onto this book, and it is because this is a common false narrative applied to the poverty of Black Americans in the US. Conservative and reactionary commentators like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson perpetuate this narrative frequently: it is not a failing of racialized capitalism or the legacy of slavery that has caused wealth disparities between Black and white communities, but a failing of Black moral character. It's an almost absurdly ignorant view of history that places the blame of the oppressed on the oppressed themselves, rather than the oppressor or its forces in society.
The film seemingly eschews a lot of this messaging, though. While still highlighting the ails of Vance's family and its surrounding community, the film does not take a stance for or against Vance's claims about its root cause. It presents itself more as a simple narrative of a family struggling to hold itself together. To be clear, the film is not particularly good; its technical aspects are mediocre which is to be expected with Howard, and although the cast includes both Amy Adams and Glenn Close, their performances leave a lot to be desired. The primary concern of the film's existence really is just that it will direct its viewers to the book, offering simplistic explanations for the concerns of capitalism that can then take on a racial lens. The film is unassuming and not good, but not dangerous either.
