Middletown Lives through Middle-Class Eyes: Hillbilly Elegy and the Problem with the “Liberal Media”

Abstract

J.D. Vance does not become Senator Vance without the success of Hillbilly Elegy, his best-selling memoir (and later, film) about growing up in, and getting out of, rural Appalachia. Initially praised by media critics for its ability to challenge middle-class assumptions about the “white working class,” the book assuaged both liberal anxiety and conservative outrage by providing demographically appropriate explanations for the election of Donald Trump. However, the book, feature film and subsequent political campaign are also part of a much larger, lucrative culture industry built upon the commodification and fetishization of the white working class, one driven by middle-class tastes and prejudices. This was most apparent in the promotion of the book and film by the so-called liberal media establishment, represented by the New York Times, The New Yorker, Netflix, Imagine Entertainment, HarperCollins, and Harpo Productions, to name a few. However, the reinforcement of the false binary between liberal and conservative media obscured how the corporate media system helped elect a candidate who will work most certainly against the interests of actual working people, further alienating them from each other and a shared labor platform more generally. Examining Hillbilly Elegy through the five filters of the Propaganda Model will help to explain the ideological and material effects of the corporate media’s agenda upon the growing class divide.