Episode 6: Lights, Camera, Hillbilly! with Meredith McCarroll

What images spring up in your mind when you think about popular representations of people living in Appalachia? Is it a bearded man in a coon-skin cap? A toothless old granny? Young children running barefoot in homemade clothes?

The truth is that Appalachia is as diverse in race, class and thought as the rest of the nation but rather than take the time to tell more complicated and nuanced stories, the media frequently fall back on stereotypes.

The most recent example, but by no means the last, is director Ron Howard’s new film, Hillbilly Elegy, which was released by Netflix in 2020.

The film is based on the bestselling memoir by J.D. Vance. Like the book, the movie follows Vance’s struggle to rise above impoverishment and drug addiction in southwestern Ohio to become a Yale law graduate and later, a high-powered venture capitalist.

Critics blasted the film as being little more than a “shameless piece of Oscar bait.”

Nevertheless, the strategy worked. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently honored Glenn Close with an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Vance’s Mamaw. The fact that Howard’s film garnered so much buzz and attention, even if most of it is negative, is a testament to the power of media.

In this week's episode, host Jonathan Michels speaks with Meredith McCarroll about Hillbilly Elegy and why media literacy is so important if we hope to recognize the ways that Hollywood and publishers perpetuate stereotypes of Appalachian life in the media.

McCarroll was born and raised in the Appalachian mountains of Western North Carolina. She currently teaches writing and rhetoric at Bowdoin College and is the author of several books including Un-White: Appalachia, Race, and Film and Appalachian Reckoning, an edited collection of essays written in response to Hillbilly Elegy.

For a transcription of this episode, please click here.

Further reading:

• Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film by Meredith McCarroll
• “J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America” 2016 article by Sarah Jones about how J.D. Vance became one of the media’s favorite explainers of the Trump phenomenon
• “Parler Wanted Donald Trump On Its Site. Trump’s Company Wanted A Stake.”
• Appalshop 
• Appalachian Media Institute