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.
(Also for context for new followers, I grew up in area very similar to Middletown (Fayette Co. PA). My husband grew up in mountains of swVA & we've worked in rural ministry in both places. I also liked book HE b/c it gave language to some generational stuff & how poverty cycles.)
Okay, back to pies for a bit!
Pecan out, pumpkin in. Time for take #2 on HE the movie:
1) One reason it's so hard to discuss this film is b/c it involves real, living breathing people. Actual people who live in actual Middletown OH who you can probably find on spcial media. They're not abstractions.
1) One reason it's so hard to discuss this film is b/c it involves real, living breathing people. Actual people who live in actual Middletown OH who you can probably find on spcial media. They're not abstractions.
2) Ironically, tho, commentators are using HE to explore & "understand" certain demographic while bypassing individual humanity of very people film is portraying.
Narratives are simple; people are layered & complicated.
Narratives are simple; people are layered & complicated.
3) So I'm incredibly wary of goal of "understanding" particular demographic which can be little more than veiled condescension. We turn people into objects of curiosity, opportunities for our own enlightenment. Love as goal is better way.
4) When love is goal, rather than understanding, you will work hard to understand, but you'll also protect the integrity of those you love. You will listen. You will let them be complicated. You will sit w/ the paradoxes of our shared humanity.
5) To be clear, I'm talking about us as consumers of the movie & by extension, who the directors & writers believed to be the primary audience. I'm not talking about Vance, the book, or his personal relationships.
Time to work on apple pie!
Okay, apple in the oven. Take #3: Gender & embodiment!
1) The star of this film is not Vance or Mamaw. It's the kind of individualism that's necessary if you want to climb out of poverty in our society. A kind of individualism that is the purview of those who's bodies don't carry community in them.
2) One of recurring themes that is left entirely underdeveloped (imo) is that women can't leave Middletown b/c of motherhood. And in an irony for the ages, men *can* choose to leave their mothers for sake of their future.
3) The tension of choosing btwn family & future is obvious & painful. But it's a tension really only available to those who don't get pregnant before they "get out"--either men or women who control their fertility.
4) The Q isn't even about sexual morality per se--it's about not having children too soon or too often. Why? B/c when you have kids, it restricts your ability to make the kinds of individualist choices necessary to escape poverty.
5) IOW, the best way to escape generational poverty is to stop the... generations. Conservatives *must* be honest about this reality.
6) Conservatives must acknowledge that the narrative of individual grit & determination to overcome poverty skews male.
7) Women's bodies are inherently communal. And in a society where forward progress demands leaving family behind, they will be at an inherent disadvantage.
8) What this means is that I want to see Lindsay Vance's story. I want to see the story of a woman who's been married for 22 years & raised her children in her failing home town. I want to see the story of the woman who didn't go to Yale but cared for her family well.
9) The difference btwn a male experience of poverty & female experience of poverty is the difference btwn individual & systemic solutions. This is no slight to Vance's story. But it's only half the story.
Okay, now I have to go clean my kitchen and wash dishes.
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