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Appalachia, Opioids, and a Politician Decoding a Crucial Scene from Hillbilly Elegy, by Tucker Seifert

Section I: Introduction

Building on the necessity of media literacy, the project explores how a crucial scene from Hillbilly Elegy fits in with the discourse on the opioid epidemic and stereotypes of poverty in the Upland South. It also provides a decoding exercise for college students and/or adult community members to break down how this scene is constructed to engage with these themes as well as who benefits from it.

Hillbilly Elegy Follows the life of Senator J.D. Vance as he grows up from poor economic beginnings to a Yale Law school student. Along the way, the audience sees his family move from the mountains of Kentucky to a working-class town on the fringe of the Appalachian region in Ohio. J.D.'s family fights their circumstances as they attempt to navigate poverty, drug use, and mental health issues. Eventually, J.D. finds his way into law after he learned difficult lessons about personal responsibility and work ethic from his grandmother as a child and teenager. The movie ends with J.D. returning to Yale for an interview with a law firm after helping his mother through a heroin overdose.

What is Media Literacy?

Our world is awash information. From our human senses, through social interactions, to electronically broadcasted messages, the myriad media that structure our understandings of and interactions with the environment around us intersect with most dimensions of our existence. Because these media are fundamental and pervasive, being able to “access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication” empowers people to think and make critical evaluations, effectively communicate, and play an active role as an informed citizen (Media Literacy Defined, n.d.). This ability is media literacy. Importantly, such a literacy expands beyond the traditional view of reading and writing to encompass “all electronic or digital means and print or artistic visuals used to transmit messages” (Media Literacy Defined, n.d.). As such, cultivating media literacy helps us to unpack the social and political messages we receive and disseminate in order to understand how we categorize phenomena, label others, and react to stimuli.

The Opioid Epidemic

From left to right: Pills and a syringe as an example of common opioid medications and drugs (credit to John Hopkins Medicine https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/opioids). Opium poppies showing the pods from which opium is derived, which, until the 20th century, was the source of all opioid (or in this case, opiate) medications until major pharmacological developments in the 1900s (credit to istockphoto.com https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/opium-poppy-close-up-on-papaver-somniferum-the-opium-poppy-cultivation-gm886701690-246177994). A graph showing the three waves of the opioid epidemic (credit to the Center for Disease control and Prevention https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html).

The United States has been experiencing a pharmacological tragedy over the course of three decades. In the 1990s, successful campaigns from pharmaceutical companies, such as Purdue Pharma, allowed these manufacturers to apply their marketing directly to practicing doctors. Coupled with this, pharmaceutical companies lobbied to loosen restrictions on their sale and development of powerful and addictive opioid medications (Meier, 2018). The proliferation of these painkilling medications, with pharmacological properties similar to morphine and heroin, led to a wave of addiction as patients became hooked on opioid medications such as OxyContin and Percocet. As a result, overdose deaths rose through the 1990s and early 2000s with more and more individuals becoming licit and illicit habitual users of these strong drugs. In 2010, researchers realized that a new wave of the crisis ushered in a major uptick in the number of heroin overdose deaths. Following this, in 2013 a rise in synthetic opioid-related deaths, from substances such as fentanyl, began to greatly increase, even with the rate of other prescription opioids and heroin deaths leveling off or decreasing. These three waves have constituted the current “opioid epidemic,” a health crisis in which at least 645,000 people have died in the United States since the 1990s from overdoses involving opioids (Understanding the Opioid Overdose Epidemic, n.d.). Because this epidemic poses such an immediate threat to the health of the country, politicians, reporters, artists, researchers, and more have created media that touches on the devastating impacts. As with many drug-related matters, the discourse can be heated and leveraged by groups to conform to their political ambitions. Practicing media literacy through decoding, such as in this project, helps students and community members to think critically about the opioid epidemic and make informed health and political decisions.

The Upland South, Stereotypes, and Hillbilly Elegy

Photo Courtesy of Brooks Blevins, Arkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol’ Boys Defined a State. This book cover utilizes a stereotypical imagine of an Upland Southern man, which was commonly applied to people from Appalachia and the Ozark.
Photo courtesy of Barnes & Noble (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hillbilly-elegy-j-d-vance/1123457475). The cover of Vance's book shows a dilapidated building in what appears to be rural Appalachia. 
Photo courtesy of Bowdoin College (https://www.bowdoin.edu/news/2017/06/portraying-appalachia-how-the-movies-can-get-it-wrong.html). This still from the movie Deliverance demonstrates how the movie built upon and perpetuated the common stereotypes of Appalachian otherness, backwardness, and poverty. 

Like opioids, the Upland South (the mountainous regions of the Southern United States, such as the Ozarks and Appalachia) has experienced vast media attention. For example, Southern Appalachian has been the subject of books, articles, political campaigns, and films that use a constructed gaze to cast the region in a light that separates and “others” the people and land from the rest of the country since at least the last few decades of the 19th century (Eller, 2008; Shapiro, 2014). The Upland South has carried with it a stigma that centers on poverty and backwardness, which media creators have used since they “discovered” the mountains at the turn of the 20th century. Originally, novelists and local color writers used these “hillbilly” tropes and stereotypes to pique the interest of other Americans and promote attention to the “contemporary ancestors” living in the frozen frontier of the mountains (Shapiro, 2014). Through the years, screen-based media transmitted these stereotypes, such as the famously Ozarks-inspired family, the Clampetts, from “The Beverly Hillbillies” (Blevins, 2009). Politicians, like JFK and LBJ, leveraged television and paper news to illustrate Southern Appalachia’s poverty and find support for their social programs (Eller, 2008). More recently, J.D. Vance, a sitting Republican U.S. senator for Ohio, released an autobiographical book, Hillbilly Elegy, in 2016, with a movie adaptation released in 2020. In Hillbilly Elegy, Vance how he and his family contended with poverty as they navigated a socioeconomically depressed area in Ohio after leaving the mountains of Kentucky. In the popular film, viewers see how J.D.’s mother struggled with opioid addiction and how he worked his way up through the world to become an attorney. Engaging with the Hillbilly Elegy movie in a media-literate manner illuminates the sociopolitical implications of these messages.

It is important to critically unpack media representations of opioids and the Upland South. For one, Appalachia has been a breeding ground for opioid addiction since the early days of the epidemic, and it is still a severely impacted region (Meier, 2018). This fact, unfortunately, gets absorbed into the “culture of poverty” model, exemplified by the idea that the poor Southern mountaineers “lacked only the skills and behaviors necessary to succeed in modern society,” which researchers and media creators have broadcasted for decades (Eller, 2008). Compounding this, there is a propensity to shift guilt, blame, and stigma onto those whose use drugs (Askew & Salinas, 2019). These intersecting factors leave the opioid epidemic a ripe subject for media to employ. This project offers an analysis of a crucial scene in Hillbilly Elegy based on Share, Jolls, and Thoman’s (2005) five core concepts (and associated questions) of media literacy and offers a media decoding activity for college-level students and adult community members that aims to assess the critical themes that intersect with the Upland South, poverty and class, as well as the opioid epidemic.

Practicing Media Literacy is important

As the history of Appalachian-based media exemplifies, an expanded understanding of what constitutes media literacy is crucial. Since the time of the local color writers, a passive consumption of their work resulted in the perpetuation of lazy stereotypes. Today, as social media, smart technology, and digital forms of communication abound, we run the risk of continuing this trend. As Potter (2020) notes, the saturation of media in our day-to-day environment fosters a sense of “automaticity,” which is a state of automatically processing messages without much critical thought as a result of having to take in large amounts of information. Thanks to automaticity, people often feel resistant to learning about media; however, the benefits of actively and critically engaging media outweigh this initial resistance. Media literacy in our modern world is, as Sherri hope Culver (Our Delaware Valley, 2020) described, analogous to a muscle that we must continuously exercise. By doing so, we can live well-informed lives and navigate our environments to make decisions that are better for ourselves and our communities.

Section II: Media Analysis

Utilizing the five core concepts of media literacy as defined by Share, Jolls, and Thoman (2005), we will deconstruct a crucial scene in Hillbilly Elegy. In this scene, J.D. Vance is called to the town where he grew up because his mother overdosed on heroin while he was interviewing for internships and attending Yale law school. While driving to the hospital, he is confronted by the socio-economic environment of his childhood. At the hospital, his mother and sister are arguing with staff because his mother did not renew her medical insurance. J.D. and his sister are unable to secure a bed for their mother and must find another solution. While discussing the situation, J.D. receives a call informing him that he has been invited to an interview the following morning and must drive back to Yale through the night in order to attend. The scene ends with the siblings discussing how their mother is using heroin.

Timestamp for the scene: 36:32-41:10

First Core Concept: all messages are “constructed.” Associated question: “who created this message?”

Left: Ron Howard, director of Hillbilly Elegy. Right: J.D. Vance, senator and author of Hillbilly Elegy. Both of these individuals, among many others, helped to construct the medium we are analyzing. Photo courtesy of Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/columns/hillbilly-elegy-ron-howard-jd-vance-1235438056/)

A medium is not a naturally occurring entity; to create one requires planning, intention, and a design. In other words, people construct media through a series of myriad decisions that ultimately shape the final product. What is included and excluded depend on the medium (or text) itself as well as the aims of the people involved in its construction. Hillbilly Elegy is a movie adapted from a book, which J. D. Vance, a conservative politician from Ohio who has familial roots in the mountains of Kentucky, who wrote about his life and his ideas about poverty, family, and success. In the creative process, decisions on what should be a part of the narrative and what should not structured Hillbilly Elegy from Vance’s creative consciousness to the screen of Netflix.

The above video is a campaign ad for J.D. Vance. It provides some idea of who he is, his political orientation, and how he interprets the events that the scene portrays in a political context.

Along the way, people and institutions exercised creative and economic control to shape the final product of the film. Vance crafted the narrative by selecting which aspects to include in his book and how to frame them, followed by publishing decisions made by Harper. When adapted to film, the narrative was then filtered through the lenses and choices of director Ron Howard, the writers J.D. Vance and Vanessa Taylor, the actors of the movies (e.g., Amy Adams, Glen Close, and Gabriel Basso), and the production company Imagine Entertainment for Netflix (Hillbilly Elegy (2020), IMDb, n.d.). As the movie was touched by many through its production, the construction of the scene in question becomes clear: actors perform from a script that was adapted from Vance’s book as they are filmed. They portray how Bev Vance, J.D.'s mother, who is still living in an area of poverty, overdosed on heroin, let her insurance lapse, and now requires the assistance of her children. J. D. Vance appears as an exhausted son attempting to remedy the situation as he supports his worn-out sister. The actor for J. D. clearly calls out the medical establishment for their role in his mother’s addition (i.e., the opioid epidemic) and then proceeds to judge his mother for going “off a cliff” for using heroin. In its totality, the construction feels natural, like this is a memory; however, this examination shows what was chosen to be included to make J. D. Vance the protagonist in his crusade to help with his drug-addicted mother as he balances the poverty of his upbringing with the prospect of a bright future in law—all captured for devices that can stream Netflix.

The scene (as well as the movie in general) mostly takes place from J.D's perspective. Here you can see him driving to the hospital near the town he grew up in because his mother's recent overdosed. Because this is based J.D's autobiographical source and the scene is shot from his perspective, it can seem to flow as a memory or a representation of "what happened.". Yet, we must remember that it is a constructed medium.

Second Concept: Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules. Associated Questions: “what creative techniques are used to attract my attention?”

The construction of the scene requires a creative language. This includes the dialogue, sound effects, lighting, camera shots, actor performance and dynamics, the main character’s viewpoint, color pallet, symbols and metaphors, and framing devices, among other artistic techniques. Employing a critical analysis allows one to deconstruct this language and see what the constructors are attempting to convey and what emotional and argumentative devices are used (Buckingham, 2019). Putting these pieces together illuminates the messages that is transmitted to audiences:

The scene employs myriad techniques that attract attention and on build on its internal rules. Looking at the photos above from left to right starting at the top, J.D. drives through town and faces poverty, demonstrated by a family sitting outside of a dilapidated building. The use of children and the dramatic panning of the camera highlight the emotional tone of the shot. Following this, J.D. walks into a dramatically different environment as he is buttoning his suit, which is a sharp visual designator that highlights the difference between his current state and the socioeconomic reality of the town he just drove through. When speaking with the nurse, the actors who play his mother and sister have makeup and expressions that signal emotional and physical wear, the camera also pans dramatically between actors as they discuss the high stakes situation of J.D.'s mother having no insurance and, as a result, no place to recover after her overdose.

Look at the techniques used in the following still frames. Think about what the "rules" are for the creative language and logic on display.

What is the internal language of the scene saying here? This still frame is taken from when J.D. drove into town. The difference of dress from J.D. and the previous scenes at a university suggest socio-cultural difference. These actors' unexplained behavior might infer shady activity as J.D. observes poverty, while he inches closer and closer to the edge of the Appalachian region where he grew up.

In this shot, Bev Vance pleads with the nurse, stating that when she worked for the hospital they did not kick out patients just because they did not have insurance. It is a dramatic moment and one that the actor utilizes emotion to capture. Her worn-out appearance helps to sell the idea that she has experienced strife. The reference to her past also portrays a "fall" from her past position to her present circumstances.

What does it mean for J.D. and the doctor to be so well put together? J.D. drove all night to the hospital, yet his hair is made, he appears less tired than his family members, and he speaks assuredly and calmly. The scene highlighted people in desperate socioeconomic circumstances as well as deep emotional turmoil. Yet, choices were made to have J.D. retain physical and mental composure, which, as this shot demonstrates, is mirroring the professionalism of the doctor.

Third Concept: different people experience the same media message differently. Associated Question: “How might different people understand this message differently from me?”

No two people experience the same piece of art or media in the same way. Their internal subjective experiences surely result in different interpretations of the meaning of a piece. Additionally, several intersecting aspects of identity result in different lived experiences for everyone. As a result, we all pick up on particular aspect of a medium, while ignoring or not engaging with others, leading to a vast spectrum of ideas and inferences that result from the same medium. Positionality is also important. For instance, the creators will have different ideas about a piece than a consumer. This concept might appear commonly understood, yet it is important to highlight it and examine what it could mean.

Personally, as evidenced by my research and writing for this project, I am drawn to the connections of the opioid epidemic and the socioeconomic stereotypes of the Upland South that J.D. Vance included in his narrative. Others might discard those connections and see the scene as a particular example of a family in pain without connection to the macro sociological issues. There is not a necessarily “correct” interpretation in this case. Even Vance’s own perspective is one of innumerable others. Reviews of Hillbilly Elegy stress this concept well. For instance, A.O. Scott (2020) for The New York Times provided his biggest takeaway from the film: “that success in America means growing up to be less interesting than your parents or grandparents.” His perspective was one of a film critic who thought about the art of the medium based on the script, direction, and performance of those who made it, which clearly contrasts with my most prominent takeaways. According to Alissa Wilkinson (2020) for Vox, the film lacked the “conviction” of the book and failed on every level to produce a compelling movie. Yet, many people do not see it this way. Several posts online, such as this reddit thread, demonstrate that people care for the production. It is important for us to assess how we think about a medium, while keeping in mind that others understand the same thing in a different way.

Returning to this still frame, how else might one interpret this shot? What have I left out of the analysis?

Fourth Concept: Media have embedded values and points of view. Associated Question: "what lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?"

Because media are constructed and not just naturally occurring reflections of reality, they contain embedded lifestyles, values, and points of view. Let us consider this in the following shots:

After proclaiming to the doctor that the hospital was "probably where this shit started" in reference to the opioid epidemic and as the cause of his mother's addiction, J.D. quickly moves on to perpetuating the stigma around heroin, which, aside from DEA scheduling and cultural conceptions, is extremely similar to pharmaceutical opioids. His exasperated "Jesus" conveys his disgust with the drug and his mother.
The use of heroin is going "off a cliff." What does this imply for those who use heroin and related drugs? Are pharmaceutical opioids different? The scene carries on a legacy of differentiating heroin, a close pharmacological cousin to many drugs used in medical setting, from other drugs of the opioid epidemic.
Another important value, and, perhaps related with J.D.'s sociopolitical views, is the ethic of hard work to better one's circumstances. In the face of the poverty of his upbringing and the reality of his family's disfunction, he still agrees to drive all night for an interview at a law firm the next morning.
What does J.D.'s work ethic in the scene mean when it is contrasted with shots like this? What does it mean that this family appears idle, while J.D. is extremely active?
Is appearance an important aspect of social upward mobility?

Consider the distance J.D. is shown to have with the poverty of the town he drives through. The scene is perhaps arguing that a specific type of individual effort lifted him from the circumstances of his family and environment.

J.D.'s physical composure compared with that of his sister and mother drives the point home.

After letting her insurance lapse (another example of a possible personal failing, like her use of heroin), J.D's mother cannot stay in the hospital and the medical staff only offer Suboxone (an opioid designed to maintain those who are dependent on this class of drugs) to help her situation. The scene puts it up to J.D., and to a lesser extent his sister, to find arrangements for their mother. Another example of hard personal work overcoming a personal failing.

Hard work overcoming personal failings, such as poor economic decisions and illicit drug use, pervades the scene. J.D. Vance is shown to have moved beyond the resource and emotionally poor environment of his upbringing near the Upland South to have become a candidate for a law internship, while he comes to the rescue of his heroin-using mother and worn out sister.

Of course, myriad other interpretations of the lifestyles, values, and points of view also exist (recall the third concept) and should be taken into consideration. However, one cannot ignore the intersecting themes of poverty and opioid use in contrast to (J.D.'s) strong personal work ethic.

Fifth Concept: Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power. Associated Question: "Why is this message being sent?"

Who gains what from Hillbilly Elegy? The actors, director producers, managers, production company and numerous others stood to gain money, recognitions, and advance their careers. Netflix likely hopes that by offering the movie it will entice some to a subscription to their services and provide content for those who already subscribe. We cannot know the exact reasons why everyone involved in this scene, and, by extension, the entire movie, decided to be a part of it. Yet, we can infer that there were monetary and socio-economic reasons for their decisions.

J.D. Vance, on the other hand, provides evidence that Hillbilly Elegy plays an important political role for him. Consider this add from earlier:

In this ad for his senate seat, entitled "Are You a Racist?" he emphasizes being the author of Hillbilly Elegy, while delivering the following lines: "Are you a racist, do you hate Mexicans? The media calls us racist for not wanting to build Trump's wall." "Joe Biden's open border is killing Ohioans. With more illegal drugs and democrat voters pouring into this country." "This issue is personal. I nearly lost my mother to the poison coming across our border." "No child should grow up an orphan." "Whatever they call us, we will put America first."

Utilizing the emotions; persuasion of the movie and book, J.D. Vance goes on to claim that border security is the primary reason for his mother's overdose, imploring voters to elect him so he can "put America first." He even touts his authorship under his name in the ad. In no small part from the production and construction of Hillbilly Elegy, he gained influence over the discourse of the opioid epidemic and received power directly in congress.

Section III: Media Decoding

This exercise is built to guide participants in decoding this scene from Hillbilly Elegy in order for them to gain practice unpacking messages about poverty, opioid use, and work in addition to developing insight into who gains from the production and what constructs the scene itself. This decoding exercise is intended for community college and university students as well as adult community members. It is flexible, so any participants who are old enough to engage with the themes of poverty and drug use can participate (instructor should use discretion). As such, the instructor should expect a diversity of identities and intellectual abilities, with participant being around eighteen years of age and older.

As discussed, media literacy is of the utmost importance in our time and society. This decoding exercise can add to a diverse range of curricula to promote critical analysis. Building on the ideas of Scheibe and Rogow (2012), the following exercise presents broad and engaging questions, evidence probes, restatements, expansions, clarifications, and interpretations that an instructor can use to develop their conversation. Participant (or student) responses represent hypothesized responses and might differ in practice. Instructor questions can also adapt based on the classroom needs and environment.

-Begin the decoding with a broad and engaging question to spark dialogue. After discussing initial impressions and general ideas, guide participants to discuss the socio-economic dynamics, stereotypes, assumptions:

Instructor: “What is the scene about?” Or, “how does the scene make you feel?”

[depending on participant responses, instructor should then use an expansion (e.g., “tell more about what you mean by…”, probe for evidence (e.g., “where does it show this?”), or open the discussion (e.g., “Does anyone else see it this way, or perhaps differently?)]

Participant: “It made me feel bad for the family.”

Instructor: “So, are you saying that J.D., his sister, and his mother are experiencing hardship?”

Participant: “Yes.”

Instructor: “How do you know?”

Participant: “His mom is in the hospital and his sister has been crying and arguing with the nurse.

Instructor: “What else do we notice?”

Participant: “Only the women seem very emotional.”

Instructor: “I would have pointed that out as well, can you tell us evidence for that from the scene?

Participant: “The doctor and J.D. speak more calmly with each other, while his mom, the nurse, and sister are visibly emotional and more argumentative.”

After this initial section, highlight the socio-economic themes:

Instructor: “What does this scene say about poverty?”

Participant: “That it is a poor neighborhood.”

Instructor: “Interesting, you say that the neighborhood is poor, what is the evidence for this?”

Participant: “The people he sees while driving are not working, and the way they are dressed and acting make it seem like that.”

Instructor: “Tell me more about how these people appear poor.”

-Depending on participant’s responses, begin to ask about J.D. Vance and his mother in relation to socio-economic questions:

Instructor: “How does J.D. come off or present himself in this scene?”

Participant: “Maybe a little tired, cares about his family.”

Instructor: “Tell me more about that, how does he care for his family?”

Participant: “He went to the hospital to see his mother and tried to get her a longer stay.”

Instructor: “Are there other interpretations of J.D.? How does he compare with the people he saw outside the hospital?”

[From here, guide the participants to compare and contrast the appearance of J.D., the people of the town, the doctors, and his family. Using restatements, probes, expansions, and clarifications, address J.D.’s work ethic as portrayed by the scene, his mother’s lack of health insurance, and the markers of socio-economic differences between the actors in the scene.]

-Open the discussion to the ways that the scene handles drug use:

Instructor: “In what ways do the characters discuss opioid use?”

Participant: “J.D. blames the doctor and hospital.”

Instructor: “I would have said that too, yet what does he actually say about this?”

Participant: “That ‘this is where it started.’”

Instructor: “Exactly. What else does J.D. say about drug use, especially in relation to his mother?”

Participant: “That she is using heroin.”

Instructor: “How does he feel about that?”

Participant: “He is angry.”

Instructor: “What makes you say that?”

Participant: “He sems annoyed when talking about it with his sister and asked when their mom went ‘off a cliff.’”

[From this point, the instructor can continue to probe and unpack the attitudes expressed by the scene towards the opioid epidemic and users.]

-Turn attention toward the construction of the scene. Begin broad, perhaps referencing the opening questions:

Instructor: “Let’s return to how the scene made us feel. We spoke about the hardships that the characters are going through. How does the scene portray this?”

Participant: “Everyone is emotional or struggling.”

Instructor: “Interesting point. In what way do the actors convey this?”

Participant: “Well, it looks like they have been crying.”

Instructor: “Yes, I agree! Can you tell me why it looks like they have been crying?”

Participant: “The mom and sister have puffy faces, and their eyes look swollen.”

Instructor: “Interesting, so makeup and/or method acting can portray certain emotions!”

[Continuing on this track allows for the class to decode the methods of the production, such as cinematography, acting, and dialogue, that construct the scene.]

-Move on to addressing how the medium is constructed and that someone stands to gain from it:

Instructor: “Who stands to gain in this scene?”

Participants: “The mother.”

Instructor: “Why do you say that?”

Participant: “She has two children who are trying to help her.”

Instructor: “I would have said that too; however, who do we think the protagonist is?”

Participant: “J.D.?”

Instructor: “Yes! What can he profit from this scene?”

Participant: “Money.”

Instructor: “How would he receive money for this?”

Participant: “The actor, for playing the part.”

Instructor: “So, you are saying that the actors have a monetary reason for performing this scene. Yes, that makes sense. Let’s remember that this is based on a ‘true story.’ What does J.D. get from this scene?”

Participant: “The audience will root for him.”

Instructor: “What about the scene sparked that idea?”

Participant: “He is shown as a likeable person and works hard to make sure his mother has care.”

[If applicable, continuing on this theme can include questions about J.D. Vance as a politician].

Finishing Decoding Exercise:

Depending on the time allotted and the audience, expand the conversation to discuss more about the stereotypes of poverty and drug use as well as the artistic construction of the scene. Probe for students to address the choices made (or, perhaps, omitted) that shape the character’s actions and appearances on screen. Remember to incorporate probing and open-ended questions to guide participants and not force them to a conclusion. If the class allows, bring in evidence from the book Hillbilly Elegy, the rest of the movie, and/or Vance’s campaign ad. Remember that these themes can be difficult, so proceed with warning and tact as participants might have experiences of and/or sensitivities to what this decoding sequences is unpacking.

Conclusion

Media literacy continues to prove to me how important it is. By applying it for this project, I realized how much more there is to learn once one understands a component of it. For instance, I was certain about my analysis of interweaving aspects of the opioid epidemic and Upland South stereotypes. However, when I actually got down to dissecting the dialogue and applying the Third Concept, I had to critically evaluate my own assumptions (I still do hold that my analysis is important and accurate). I also believe that the beauty of art leads to an innumerable amount of interpretations and avenues for further analysis. Hopefully, this information will be used to support classrooms and communities in Appalachia, an area that has historically been left out of many discussions, including media literacy. Additionally, I hope that those who read this and watched Hillbilly Elegy will apply these critical concepts to the narratives presented in the film and to the figure of J.D. Vance. Moving forward, our collective media literacy can help to bring applicable change to the circumstances of the often invisible victims of poverty and the opioid epidemic.

References

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Shapiro, H. D. (2014). Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870-1920. The University of North Carolina Press.

Share, J., Jolls, T., & Thoman, E. (2005). Five key questions that can change the world: Classroom activities for media literacy. Center for Media Literacy

Understanding the Opioid Overdose Epidemic | Opioids | CDC. (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2024, from https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html

Wilkinson, Alissa. “Everything about Netflix’s Hillbilly Elegy Movie Is Awful.” Vox, November 10, 2020. https://www.vox.com/culture/21547861/hillbilly-elegy-review-netflix.

*All Screenshot taken from Hillbilly Elegy with author's camera

*Fair Use Disclaimer: Media in this analysis has been compiled for educational purposes.

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