海角大神

When two filmmakers made a recent documentary about poverty and rural identity in Appalachia, the first thing they did was track down a man named Billy Redden.听

In 1971, a Hollywood casting director for the horror movie 鈥淒eliverance鈥� discovered Mr. Redden, then a teenager, at his school in Georgia. The director was looking for someone to play a so-called听inbred.听Mr. Redden鈥檚 now-famous scene, in which he plucks a banjo while sitting on a back-porch swing, remains a reference point for how some people describe poor, rural America.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 make a movie about media representations of Appalachia without telling the story of 鈥楧eliverance,鈥欌�� says Ashley York, co-director of the 2018 documentary 鈥淗illbilly.鈥澨�

Though the role brought Mr. Redden brief fame, he鈥檚 disturbed by the thriller鈥檚 lingering impression of mountain people as destitute rapists. 听

鈥淗e wouldn鈥檛 have done it had he known that,鈥� says Ms. York.

Almost 50 years since 鈥淒eliverance,鈥� Hollywood still exerts a powerful influence on perceptions of America鈥檚 countryside. Three recent movies 鈥� 鈥淗illbilly Elegy,鈥� 鈥淣omadland,鈥� and 鈥淏orat Subsequent Moviefilm鈥� 鈥� are provoking fresh conversation about their portrayals of the rural underclass.听

听

It鈥檚 a touchy topic. White, rural voters have been excoriated in some quarters of the media for voting for Donald Trump. Consequently, popular culture depictions of those in the countryside are often viewed through a political lens. Those living in small-town America worry about how they鈥檙e portrayed by filmmakers who鈥檝e parachuted into a locale. Others argue that the outsider storytellers can bring fresh perspectives to socioeconomic issues. But there鈥檚 also widespread agreement that Hollywood should venture into the outer reaches of听red states more often and try to tell nuanced stories about what unites and divides us.

鈥淥ne of the things that drives the fury of Trump voters is that they feel looked down on and stereotyped, belittled by who they perceive as the elite,鈥� says Ty Burr, movie critic at The Boston Globe. 鈥淭he things we don鈥檛 address in the movies and in popular culture are issues of class, issues of ethnicity. You鈥檝e got to be intersectional with this stuff. It鈥檚 not just, poor people living in the country love Trump and the middle class and upper-middle class people in the cities and suburbs love Biden. Maybe it鈥檚 a lot more complicated than that.鈥澨�听

The recent sequel to the hit comedy 鈥淏orat鈥� doesn鈥檛 exactly reflect that complexity. In the guise of the titular journalist from Kazakhstan, actor Sacha Baron Cohen visits two Trump voters in an unspecified small town. The subjects of Mr. Cohen鈥檚 candid-camera prank come across like a modern-day version of 鈥淟i鈥檒 Abner.鈥� As they pore over QAnon conspiracy theories in their cabin home, the movie invites audiences to laugh at the sweet-natured duo鈥檚 simpleminded gullibility.听听

Those tropes of rural Americans as ignorant, wild, drunken, and lazy are one reason why Dee Davis founded the Center for Rural Strategies. The nonprofit based in Whitesburg, Kentucky, strives to present accurate portraits of rural cultures as a way to deepen public debate and improve economic conditions for countryside communities. In 2003, Mr. Davis marshaled a successful campaign to dissuade CBS from producing a 鈥渃atfish-out-of-water鈥� reality television show called 鈥淭he Real Beverly Hillbillies.鈥� But other shows such as MTV鈥檚 reality series 鈥淏uckwild鈥� and TLC鈥檚 鈥淗ere Comes Honey Boo Boo鈥� have perpetuated听stereotypes.听

鈥淩ural people want to be known for pulling their weight, not people who have to be taken care of, or who are jokes, or who are bigots,鈥� says Mr. Davis. 鈥淭hey may not vote the way you want them to vote. But if you run into a ditch in front of a Trump voter鈥檚 house, they鈥檙e still going to find a way to pull you out of there and they鈥檙e going to offer you supper.鈥澨�听

Yet the recent horror franchises 鈥淲rong Turn鈥� and 鈥淭he Hills Have Eyes鈥� suggest that urban visitors to the countryside will be set upon and eaten by rural people. According to some scholars, such portrayals are rooted in the idea that urbanized capitalism represents the progress of civilization. Thus hillbillies are savages who can be left behind.

Then again, when Hollywood rails against capitalism or materialism, the reverse happens. Movies serve up beatific visions of small towns as hearths of the nation in which salt-of-the-earth communities eschew the rat-race lifestyle, uphold simple virtues, and bake apple pies for each other. Think 鈥淚t鈥檚 a Wonderful Life,鈥� 鈥淭he Spitfire Grill,鈥� 鈥淒oc Hollywood,鈥� or anything on the Hallmark channel.听

鈥淚n both cases, whether overromanticized or overvilified, it hides the complexity of what鈥檚 really going on in terms of the intertwining of the fates of urban and rural [areas], and the mobility of people between the two, and the shared values that occur across both,鈥� says Emily Satterwhite, a professor of Appalachian studies and pop culture at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.听

One new movie that film critics have lauded for its realistic depiction of rural America is Chlo茅 Zhao鈥檚 鈥淣omadland.鈥� (Following an Oscar-qualifying limited release this month, it will be released nationwide on Feb. 19.) Filmed in Nebraska, the drama follows a former school teacher (played by Frances McDormand) who becomes a gig-economy itinerant worker after her factory town literally shuts down during a recession. The Chinese director offers a humanized portrayal of the rural underclass, which includes real-life RV park dwellers playing themselves. Mr. Burr, the film critic, says the characters in the movie may not be fully aware of how the system that they鈥檙e in is making their lives poorer.听In that respect, the cin茅ma v茅rit茅 of 鈥淣omadland鈥� presents an alternative to some of the prevalent narratives about poverty in Hollywood movies.

鈥淭hey [often] become these dramatic stories of the ways in which individuals, through their own determination and heroic efforts, overcome the obstacles in their way,鈥� says Stephen Pimpare, senior lecturer in American politics and public policy at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester and author of 鈥淕hettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen.鈥� 鈥淪o it winds up retelling what I would argue is this fiction, that poverty is the fault of the individual and something that can be remedied by altering individual behavior.鈥�

Unlike some of its predecessors,听鈥淗illbilly Elegy,鈥� from Netflix, tells an aspirational story. The prestige drama is based on J.D. Vance鈥檚 memoir about how he worked his way up from a poor Appalachian family to earn a law degree at Yale University. But many critics lambasted the conservative author鈥檚 views on overcoming poverty, which include personal responsibility and hard work.听听

While promoting the movie, director Ron Howard has repeatedly emphasized that his adaptation 鈥� starring Amy Adams as Mr. Vance鈥檚 drug-addicted single mother and Glenn Close as his no-nonsense grandmother 鈥� is apolitical. The movie鈥檚 only overt nod to Mr. Vance鈥檚 views is a scene in which he complains to his Indian, Ivy League girlfriend about the difficulty Appalachian Hill People encounter when trying to overcome听their socioeconomic status. She pointedly reminds him that her immigrant father arrived in America with nothing.听听

Arguments about 鈥淗illbilly Elegy鈥� tend to fixate on whether poverty should be alleviated through听overhauling systems versus focusing on individual choices, says David French, author of 鈥淒ivided We Fall鈥� and a senior editor听at The Dispatch. In fact, a careful reading of Mr. Vance鈥檚 book reveals that it sits somewhere between the two poles. He鈥檚 long argued for systemic fixes and rejected the rugged individualist brand of conservatism.听

鈥淭he interesting thing about 鈥楬illbilly Elegy,鈥� the movie especially, is that it does not give you the impression that what J.D. had to do was lift himself up by his own bootstraps,鈥� says Mr. French, who recently interviewed Mr. Vance and Mr. Howard about the film. 鈥淗e gives you the impression that people had to yank him up 鈥� like his grandmother, and specifically with [her] dramatic intervention into his life.鈥澨�

In the case of Appalachia, some observers say that movies such as 鈥淗illbilly Elegy鈥� and 鈥淲inter鈥檚 Bone鈥� depict such a narrow slice of life that viewers miss out on the culture and demographic diversity of a region of 25 million people that stretches from New York to Alabama. By perpetuating a narrative about extreme poverty in the region, some viewers wouldn鈥檛 suspect that millionaires live there, too. Black and Indigenous people, and LGBTQ individuals, are seldom represented, either. When Ms. York teamed up with Sally Rubin to co-direct the documentary 鈥淗illbilly,鈥� the progressive-leaning听filmmakers set out to contrast the real Appalachia to media portrayals. Their aim was to humanize the region鈥檚 white voters 鈥� including Ms. York鈥檚 pro-Trump family members 鈥� during a fraught political moment.听听

鈥淚n Hollywood in the last five years, there has been a movement to diversify the industry, to be more inclusive. ... The poor white people from the Appalachian Mountains are sort of that last remaining group of people that it鈥檚 OK to make fun of,鈥� says Ms. York, who was born in Eastern Kentucky but now lives in Los Angeles. 鈥淚 really hope that this 鈥楬illbilly Elegy鈥� moment can really help us take a step forward in the media culture and in doing something that鈥檚 thoughtful.鈥�