# Hillbilly Elegy directed by Ron Howard **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [November 11, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369 "2020-11-11T22:23:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sweepkick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@sweepkick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweepkick)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/21 "2020-12-01T00:02:04Z")
Ron Howard has heard your criticism. > **[Defensive Ron Howard: ‘You Try Making A Good Movie About Fucking Hillbillies’](https://www.theonion.com/defensive-ron-howard-you-try-making-a-good-movie-abou-1845777290?utm_campaign=The%20Onion&utm_content=1606772401&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2lDQP87byRIrJYxxYue-jtpuSy9WMPoPewdDOTaGSns-Zp4XxC7ma0QYs)** > > LOS ANGELES—In response to widespread negative reviews of his recently released film, Hillbilly Elegy, defensive director Ron Howard told his critics Monday, “You try making a good movie about fucking hillbillies.” “I’d invite anyone who didn’t like... ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/22 "2020-12-01T14:45:12Z")
Coal Miner’s daughter was mainly about Hillbillies and was an A+ movie ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/23 "2020-12-01T14:47:55Z")
As movies about Hillbillies go, so was _Deliverance_. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/24 "2020-12-01T15:28:39Z")
I rafted the main Deliverance river, the Chatooga. At the end there are 5 rapids close together that are big and you don’t want to swim those. One is crack in the rock and if you get in the crack you almost are certain to die. Water was low so we walked around that one. At the end there is a lake and they towed our rafts with a small power boat. One of the best rivers in the US to raft. Age limit is 12 ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/25 "2020-12-02T02:09:32Z")
Has anyone ever seen 1973’s “Lolly Madonna?” It stars Rod Steiger, Jeff Bridges, Robert Ryan and Scott Wilson. And Gary Busey and Randy Quaid are in it too. Now THERE’S a hillbilly movie! Even saw it at a drive-in. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/26 "2020-12-02T03:10:31Z")
> [@Arcite](#): > > Overwhelmingly SJW professional film critics are of course going to hate a movie that’s sympathetic to the deplorables. Huh, I haven’t read the book or seen the movie, but the impression I get is that the book’s author himself [is not particularly “sympathetic to the deplorables”](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-lives-of-poor-white-people): > [@](#): > > Vance, too, is proud to be a hillbilly: he uses the term in a dignified and respectful way throughout his book. All the same, he comes to believe that his community suffers from “cognitive dissonance”; there is, he writes, “a broken connection between the world we see and the values we preach.” If family is all-important, then why are alcoholism and domestic abuse so common? If hillbillies are so hardworking, then why do so few people in Middletown work? Plenty of people, of course, work hard, often struggling to assemble a livelihood out of part-time jobs. But they live alongside able-bodied neighbors who are lifetime welfare recipients (and experts at gaming the welfare system). One friend quits a good job because he’s “sick of waking up early,” then takes to Facebook to bemoan the “Obama economy.” > > In Vance’s view, the depredations of globalization have been sharpened by poorly implemented social programs, which, though well-intentioned, allow “a large minority . . . to live off the dole,” while breeding resentment and rage among everyone else. But “hillbilly culture,” which allows “the white working class to blame its problems on society or the government,” is part of the problem, too. Vance criticizes its violence, its stubbornness, its pride, its incuriosity, and its “bizarre sexism,” which, he thinks, all encourage “reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible.” While communities elsewhere in America are enthralled by the prosperity gospel, Vance’s friends and family recite a disengaged catechism: “We can’t trust the evening news. We can’t trust our politicians. Our universities, the gateway to a better life, are rigged against us. We can’t get jobs. You can’t believe these things and participate meaningfully in society.” He concludes, “There is a lack of agency here—a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America.” It sounds as though a number of non-hillbilly white conservatives have decided that this movie is “sympathetic” because of its country-boy-bootstraps-his-way-to-success theme, but have ignored its [lack of actual engagement with “hillbilly” cultures or problems](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-silent-political-messaging-in-ron-howards-hillbilly-elegy-adaptation): > [@](#): > > In his book, Vance hectors poor Americans like his family members about lack of thrift and lack of discipline (“We spend our way into the poorhouse… Our homes are a chaotic mess… We don’t study as children, and we don’t make our kids study when we’re parents”) and, detailing a litany of destructive behavior in his community, concludes, “Public policy can help, but there is no government that can fix these problems for us. . . . We created them, and only we can fix them.” Howard’s movie doesn’t include a single line of such ideological advocacy—it doesn’t suggest that the character of J.D. has any political thoughts at all. Yet, through its very suppression of political ideas or concerns, it evinces the same politically regressive ideas at the core of Vance’s memoir. […] > > The movie’s vision of America is one of “nothing” except self-interest and self-improvement; it’s one in which the only reach beyond the self is the one that embraces family, in which pleasure is a distraction and a danger, and culture is a fraud and a lure. With his soupy, impersonal manipulations of memory and experience, void of the burrs that attach them to the world at large, Howard, whether intentionally or not, has made a libertarian’s fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/27 "2020-12-02T04:57:12Z")
I watched it last night and I thought it was good. I like the way the young man sticks with his family no matter their faults. I also like how him as a young man and because of him wanting to please his Mamaw, ditches his bad friends, cleans up his act, gets back to work getting good grades, gets a job to help support his family, and generally puts his families weak points behind him. Also I used to live in rural Missouri and it reminded me of many people I knew. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/28 "2020-12-02T14:38:39Z")
I haven’t read the book so I can make no comparisons. But I did enjoy the movie. I didn’t see why it had so many negative reviews. IMO, Glenn Close was amazing. Actually, all three of the leads were great. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/29 "2020-12-02T21:14:36Z")
Ron Howard had the golden touch for a long time. His movies made big money. Ron caught heat for his Star Wars film and now Hillbilly Elegy. He needs to find a great script and get back on track with the hits. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2020, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/30 "2020-12-10T05:17:37Z")
I actually loved this movie. It reminded me of people I have known all my life. It’s something I feel like my brother could have written only mom wasn’t an addict, she was just very ill most of my life. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2020, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369/31 "2020-12-10T14:07:45Z")
Star Wars Solo movie directed by Ron Howard got mostly good reviews. Many fans did not like it. I liked it. Remember he was not the original director, he took over after the first 2 were fired. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillbilly-elegy-directed-by-ron-howard/925369.md?page=1)