Coffineau’s contribution examines how Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix, 2020) transforms J.D. Vance’s memoir into a politically productive narrative of upward mobility. Rather than offering a coherent account of personal development, the film relies on clichés, shallow class imagery, and structural inconsistencies that produce narrative gaps and ideological ambiguity. The story presents him as both representative of and exceptional within the white rural working class, while never fully resolving these contradictions. The essay presents the film’s lack of psychological and social depth is as a condition of its political efficacy: by substituting stereotypes and familiar tropes for reflection, Hillbilly Elegy opens a discursive space in which right-wing and far-right messages can take hold. In this sense, the film’s cinematic failures help explain its wider political usefulness.
Nicole Coffineau (Thu,) studied this question.