Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #hillbillyelegy
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After I watched @HillbillyElegy, I was puzzled why movie reviewers hate it so much. (It has a 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a level usually reserved for mailed-in sequels). Usually I'm a picky movie-viewer and I tend to agree with the reviewers.
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rottentomatoes.com/m/hillbilly_el…
I even re-read the book - which I first read in 2016 (smartly, before I read any of the 3,000 book reviews). So #inthisessay I'll have some comments about the book as well. Here are a few theses:
(1) The book was better than the movie. To some extent, reviewers might have dunned the movie for failing to capture the tone & feel of the book which is...elegiac.
Okay! Two pies in oven & here's first take on #HillbillyElegy:
1) It's worth remembering that the director, Ron Howard spent his childhood on a Hollywood soundstage portraying rural NC. Exterior shots were filmed in Culver City, CA. Mayberry was a work of fiction.
1) It's worth remembering that the director, Ron Howard spent his childhood on a Hollywood soundstage portraying rural NC. Exterior shots were filmed in Culver City, CA. Mayberry was a work of fiction.
2) Is Hillbilly Elegy just Dark Mayberry? This might explain the limited characterization, reliance on tropes, & "American Dream" framing.
3) Mayberry is idealized version of places America left behind. Middletown is same only in photonegative. But neither tells the full or faithful story, reducing inhabitants to stock characters to perform *our* preferred narrative.
