J.D. Vance is P.Oed that the 'Hillbilly Elegy' film wasn't as well received as the book

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

When J.D. Vance burst onto the national scene in the summer of 2016, his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," was seen by many as a compelling story of Appalachian values and the sorts of white working-class voters who later would go on to fuel former President Donald Trump's electoral victory that fall.

Rod Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative, praised the book in a 2016 review, remarking at how Vance reflects on "how he escaped the miserable fate" of broken homes and drugs that afflicted so many of the people in his immediate ecosystem "with authority that has been extremely hard won."

The writer Jennifer Senior, who in 2016 reviewed the book for The New York Times, characterized the memoir as "a civilized reference guide for an uncivilized election," with Vance having written his family's story "in a vocabulary intelligible to both Democrats and Republicans."

However, there was a notable shift in the reception to the 2020 film adaptation of J.D. Vance's memoir, which was directed by Ron Howard and starred acting heavyweights including Glenn Close — who played his grandmother, Mamaw — and Amy Adams — who portrayed his mother, Beverly Vance.

The reviews for the Netflix film were scathing, with a low 25% rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics — while the audience reaction sat at a much more positive 83% audience score.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/best-friend-j-d-vance-193150267.html

[ret5hd]

1. You took all that life experience...

and learned all the wrong lessons.

[Celerity]

2. The movie was shit, and Vance can go fuck off anyway.

[enough]

3. That film was an embarrassment to everyone who participated.

I’ve never seen acting that patronized the characters to the point of cringe. But that movie did it. Glad to see most people hated it.

[bamagal62]

4. I couldn't watch it.

Trailer looked really bad. Glad I didn’t waste those couple of hours.

[bullwinkle428]

5. Didn't that movie get some "Razzie" nominations?

[FakeNoose]

6. Well I thought the actors really tried

I mean, come on ... Amy Adams and Glenn Close? They are usually a joy to watch in anything. But the movie sure seemed like it was belittling anyone with a country/southern accent. Since I hadn't read the book, the only contact I had with the material was through the movie. After seeing it, I had no desire the read the book.

[Solly Mack]

7. I know white families like Vance's.

I've known many over the years. They've been shaped by persistent poverty and entrenched ignorance. By ignorance I mean the actual meaning of the word and not as a synonym for idiot.

Poverty of means comes with a poverty of information. This arises from the lack of opportunity that comes with poverty. A lack of choice limits how a person views what is possible. It shapes how they see the world around them.

A lack of information can also arise from a propagated hostility to change. Couple that with the deficits of knowledge that comes with generational poverty, and you get people who not only don't know things they need to know but who don't want to know them.

Especially if those ideas or facts run contrary to who they think they are or how they see themselves.

And it is that hostility to change that sets many of the poor white families I know apart from the poor black families I know. When you're the victim of racism, you want change. You might become skeptical of change ever happening, but you want change.

As we all know, a person doesn't have to come from poverty to engage in or be the product of a propagated hostility to change.

An example of that being:

Think of it in terms of Trump, who is change adverse, versus many of his followers. Trump had all the advantages many of them never had and never will. Yet because he promotes the same thinking they embrace - about themselves and the world - he seems like one of them.

But since he doesn't want to change them, nor does he ask them to challenge what they think they know; he isn't a threat to how they see themselves or what they believe.

Which brings me back to Vance. He has had success, but he hasn't really escaped the poverty of thought that marked his childhood.

[bahboo]

8. this is a great post....maybe an OP?

[Solly Mack]

9. Thank you.

Doubtful on the OP, but I do appreciate your reply.

It would take time to flesh out the ins and outs and right now I'm not that motivated. (Yes, I'm lazy)

[Baltimike]

13. This is so poignant, it should be an OP for sure. nt

[Solly Mack]

14. Thank you.

Mind you, I am not sympathetic to Vance or the white families living in, and from, similar conditions I have known over the years.

As a child I was completely taken aback by some of my schoolmates proclaiming, "I was born here. Going to raise my children here. Then I'll die here."

They were referring to a part of town made up of (at the time) of descendants who came down from the mountain and exchanged a life of coal for the life in the mill.

Name a consequence of poverty and I could show you a living, breathing example of it in the mill village.

Many people get out of such circumstances and not all mill villages were the same. This particular mill village had itself gone through some changes for the worse over time.

It has now gone through gentrification and labeled a "historical district". Cheap homes start at 250,000 and continue up and over 1 million.

But well before that it went from a fully functioning mill (and mill village) to spot work and with those changes came a loss of jobs, a loss of income.

And like some in coal country, people stood still, waiting for the mill to come back instead of taking advantage of other opportunities.

As the homes deteriorated, and conditions at home and in the neighborhood worsened, they still believed it was the place to live and raise their kids. Nothing better. They were as comfortable in their poverty as they were in their defiance to change.

Nothing wrong with being poor but there is something alarming in thinking that poverty and all that comes with it is just life, so embrace it.

They felt a sense of community based on mutual struggles, struggles they seemed to embrace as proof of their goodness instead of something to remedy, and blamed black people and "outsiders" for all their problems. This was during a period of change - Civil Rights - during the 60's and 70's. These folks had a firm belief in their white skin.

I was an outsider.

But I was an outsider that observed and listened.

Most of Trump voters aren't poor. They are solidly middle class. But his supporters, his champions, share the same belief in their white skin as those descendants come down from the mountain.

The residents of the mill town had managed to insulate themselves while still being part of a large, metropolitan city. You have to work at ignoring the world around you when you are part of a major city, especially a major city that was pivotal to the changes happening at the time.

It wasn't just years of poverty that came down the mountain, it was the attitude that said outsiders weren't to be trusted; nor was anything else different from what you know.

This, of course, didn't hold true for all of the people in that mill village.

The wealthy (some) insulate themselves as well - even with the opportunities and the choices that money can bring - they still cloister themselves away from the larger world they live in and they, too, can harbor negative, discriminatory ideas about those they view as outsiders.

The thing is, you can escape the negative trappings of your childhood - whether advantaged or disadvantaged - but it has to be a choice made each day to not revert back to what feels comfortable. What you know feels comfortable, even if what you know is wrong or harms others.

If you got this far, Thank you.

I'm done now.

[Nevilledog]

10. Well, I'm pissed off this POS is running for Congress

[Mz Pip]

11. Listened to a Vance interview

back in 2016. It was a long interview on the radio, maybe NPR. He had nothing good to say about Trump. Not a thing.

Now he’s gone full MAGA because he’s running for office. I can’t believe the person who felt like he did about Trump in 2016 has done a full 180 unless he’s just another opportunistic suck up who’s pandering to people just to get elected.

[smb]

12. Hey J.D.: If You Write Another Book Sell The Film Rights To People Who Don't Suck At Making Films nt