Chapo Trap House - Reviewing Hillbilly Elegy

from episode 475

[@InvinciblKillerQueen]

"How can you trust a guy won't piss clean for his mom?" Truer words have never been spoken.

[@zainmudassir2964]

He would certainly piss to get into a law firm but not his mom

[@rd264]

vulgar

[@InvinciblKillerQueen]

@@rd264 yes

[@grapeapetape9132]

so this movie is like a good will hunting type but if he wasn’t actually smart or troubled or kind

[@VincentTroia]

lol

[@Baseballnfj]

It's all his fault... how do you like dem apples?

[@raptormoments]

Good Will Menaker

[@ClibanariusJJ]

@@raptormoments HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA hell yeah, dude.

[@raptormoments]

@@ClibanariusJJ was hitting the apple pipe on the porch last night and was like yup, that works

[@nachomanrandysauvage8257]

The bullies in Kentucky had the right idea.

[@Big73Red]

They had the right idea, but they went about it the wrong way at least partially. He got bullied for being able to read and his mom and aunt weren’t the same person. He should’ve been bullied for being the psychotic demon he’d become. I also say partially because they were correct to bully him for being from Ohio though and he’s a narc.

[@nachomanrandysauvage8257]

@@Big73Red - Very true. He is a dumb narc and altogether such a boring mundane figure. Amber's right, there are absolutely zero stakes or conflict of any kind driving the story. I doubt that he was even bullied to the extent shown in the film.

[@Big73Red]

@@nachomanrandysauvage8257 I think it was one of the Trillbilly boys (can’t remember which one off the top of my head) said that it’d have been much more interesting to see a movie about the mom and grandma and I completely agree. Give me that movie or give me a movie where Vance’s character is a psychotic chud like irl and in the book. I’d take a movie where I absolutely hate the protagonist and hope he’d fail over what we got.

[@Magnulus76]

You nailed it. J.D. Vance is a dishonest narrator that's full of repressed rage. If he really cared about his family, he wouldn't be having this subconscious rage against his own mother, and wouldn't be telling this story in this way.

[@PurushaDesa]

🤦🏽‍♂️ Nothing says, “I feel your pain,” like middle class feel good Americana extraordinaire Ron Fucking Howard.

[@efronlopez745]

The reason why “Hillbilly Elegy” was lavished with praise originally, I’m sure, is that elites read it as a “there but for the grace of god go I” story. Vance deserved praise for hating his mom and abandoning his a family. If he had clung to his prior life he would have never become the bicoastal elite god intended him to be.

[@thiswasamistake7306]

to be fair, given the kind of person he became after his talking head phase, being a bicoastal elite was by far the better option in hindsight

[@Chr0nicallyILL]

Hearing amber talk about butter nuts reminds me about how my family was displaced from Ireland and then Kansas all in the same century

[@moazamkhan]

Lmao he's going to be the new senator from Ohio. So glad I left that garbage state.

[@nsaylor9]

PA is probably going to have Dr. Oz. I hope Fetterman pulls it off but I’d be surprised.

[@moazamkhan]

@@nsaylor9 fetterman did

[@papercutseven1926]

Real life J.D. Vance kind of looks like bizarro Will

[@mitchhosking5599]

Mill Wenaker

[@AaronAnaya]

He looks like if Will never left puberty but still managed to grow a beard.

[@adamtherock2008]

Harsh but fair

[@Baseballnfj]

@@AaronAnaya will looks like that anyway

[@bills.prestonesq.5905]

I'm only disappointed it's called 'Elegy' and he's still alive

[@ringo8410]

I haven't read the book nor seen the movie, but listening to this episode, my reaction is: That's it? This is the story that received such glowing reviews a few years back, a kid throwing out a calculator and then retrieving it?

[@ringo8410]

@IntrepidTit Not really. This lamebrain movie idea could only be cooked up by a Vance.

[@ringo8410]

@Otneimica Can you elaborate? I listened to the clip and it didn't seem all that complex.

[@ringo8410]

@Otneimica Didn't he leave his mom to withdraw at some cheapo motel because he had a Heritage Foundation interview?

[@kazumahazeuzumaki]

Amber sounds sloshed. Very cool.

[@RIP_Greedo]

Haley Bennett (the sister) is an exact face morph of Jennifer Lawrence and Taylor swift.

[@PashtunDoughnut33]

I had to read his book as a Freshman in college 😵‍💫😵‍💫

[@mlbp2567]

😵‍💫

[@emmarie2930]

34:10 them talking about the "fatass" scene and it developing into a Caleb situation was so fucking funny. I always relisten to the Caleb Jacoby story, too good.

[@berdyderg900]

Ah, my close, real life friends Will, Matt and A***r

[@sammosaurusrex]

I fucking love any self-indulgent autofiction - I’m torn between a drive to hatewatch this and not wanting to give JD Vance a dime

[@Speedojesus]

Have you heard of thepiratebay my dude?

[@sammosaurusrex]

@@Speedojesus I have not made a trip there since like... 2012? I’m too scared to get back in the game

[@monsignorerasmus.6441]

Im not a guy who's troubled by spoilers, telling a tale doesn't marr the cinematic spectacle for me. and besides, most movies are essentially the same. If you still get surprised at plot twists in fast and furious 8 your parents made you play pop warner football way too early in life. This description plus my knowledge of JD Vance makes it a pass for me. On a positive note, im glad Ron Howard had his recent DUI expunged by directing this movie.

[@dbarker7794]

"He's a monster!" He's also now a US Senator.

[@skeletonwizard708]

It is worth noting, on the subject of "I have to choose between my dying mom or this interview" that in the book, Vance brags that he has so many interview offers that he just stops showing up for them at some point.

[@sammosaurusrex]

The amount of Mr Show references on this show is making me feel young

[@jfrsnjhnsn]

I will bet that the reason he included the scene where he objects to the word redneck, is because in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 movie, Richard Ojeda describes the term redneck in a positive way and relates it to the 20th century labor movement.

[@kingofsting19]

That Terminator philosophy reminded me of the part of Reservoir where Mr. Blonde says: "Either he's dead or the cops got 'em or they don't."

[@AwesometownUSA]

38:46 you can rollerskate on opiates just fine. yes they can be a downer - depending on type & dosage - but a lot of it is simply elation & euphoria. heck yeah rollerskating around like a psycho, that would rule while high

[@Baseballnfj]

In fact... many people can ONLY get through a work day with opiates.....

[@AnarchoCatBoyEthan]

exactly, people dont think about drugs hitting everybody differently. opiates give me energy until i start like literally laying down and then i’d nod off, but yeah had some very productive opiated days.

[@booboo4963]

The only time I’ve ever done something that was really fun and active was while geeked to the gills on oxy/opana/Vicodin. Why did I quit?

[@ProbablyJules]

Comments by people right before they break their nose

[@catznjam470]

And I'm speaking as a real "hillbilly"- it was not a good book- John grisham has a better grasp of the "South" and hillbillies, and that's fiction 🙄.

[@AbsolutelyTrashed]

My friend was a side-character in this and I made it to the scene he was in and turned off the movie. Most boring movie I've ever seen.

[@sammosaurusrex]

Oof, that shit about “the maudlin junkie is the easiest fucking kind to deal with, get over yourself” hit close to home

[@bobjohnson7148]

I guess you could call it an Elegy of Emptiness

[@cornerstore_d]

All praises to AM for the movie eps I forgot all about

[@twistedoperator4422]

Indiana absolutely recognizes daylight savings time. Thanks Mitch Daniels.

[@noheroespublishing1907]

So, what you're saying is, just watch "Out of the Furnace" and piss on a picture of JD Vance; got it.

[@richarcher499]

Excellent movie. It gets a little farfetched towards the end but it contains some of the cast's best performances ever

[@orionred2489]

I grew up in Scioto County Ohio, and Glenn Close in this movie is my mother one more time.

[@Baseballnfj]

When I saw the thumbnail for this I assumed it was a comedy and glenn close was a man... Kinda like a bad grandma type thing.... I decided to watch some of it as I enjoy these reviews more when I know what the fuck they are talking about... Boy does this movie suck shit.

[@zachflame123]

October Sky has similar themes but a way better movie

[@collindysart6472]

A very appealing movie.

[@laurie113]

Loved that movie

[@orionred2489]

they had a similar big change between the parents. Book, she begs him to quit the mine and it's killing him. He asks where would they live, because they have no money. She says one of the most loving things ever, she'd live under a tree if it means she gets to live with him. Movie, she screams about leaving him, and he taunts her, oh yeah, where you gonna live? She screams, I'd live under a tree to get away from you.

[@eottoe2001]

(In the City of Cincinnati Appalachian people are considered an acknowledged minority. One can be Appalachian without being white if you or your parents or grandparents came from "the hills." It is its own culture.) ¶ What is funny about this analysis is that J.D. Vance while trying to appear like the everyman Appalachian fits the Thomas Franks idea that liberal-neoliberals-elite or PMCs where they see the problems in the world as just an education problem. If you do good tests, get into the right university, and get the right kind of degree the world is your oyster. If you don't succeed that is obviously your fault. The point is not too much different than Hillary and Bill's view that they will trash the industry but if the government provides education and retraining, it will all be okay. It wasn't, however: it cost her the Midwest electoral votes due to NAFTA and WTO Vance is part of the elite and he isn't all that different than Hillary and Bill in values. ¶ I have wondered if Thiel and Vance are doing a kind of right-wing triangulation between the different desperate alt-right groups to form a story that will work with the demise of democracy they have wet-dreams over and the installation of modern day Huey Long though a dumb Huey Long.

[@eottoe2001]

@Antonio-Gransci That’s a good question. because I picked Huey being glib. “The Great White Hope” the current “aristocracy” were hoping for was DeSantis but despite his Yale degree, he’s not smart politically. They want a Viktor Orbán, or closer to home a George Wallace or Lester Madox. With Long, they wouldn’t have liked him because Long and his brothers weren’t naive and one-dimensional as Trump. Long’s legacy or history was killed pretty much by Robert Penn Warren’s book ALL THE KINGS MEN which wasn’t a portrait of the real Kingfish but a facsimile. Big business (think oil) and the aristocracy of Louisiana & the US aristocracy, in general, didn’t like Huey. Huey stepped on the same toes as Mohammad Mosaddegh did in Iran or Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala with “Every Man a King.”

[@Tbonemeister]

pulling that knife on the door isnt a case of chekhov's gun they can only afford remington

[@synner707]

Were the trillbillys even in this episode ? I swear they talk for a total of 2 minutes

[@barryo924]

amber’s drawl here 🤠

[@catznjam470]

How in the world did they get Glenn Close to be in it?

[@joshmccollen700]

42:40 Despite leaving out the social consequences of de-industrialization, Murray was quite prescient.

[@TG-ch8gu]

It is funny that they say he’s done nothing and now he’s a United States Senator lol

[@OpiatesAndTits]

There’s like a point in your opioid highs where you like go clean shit naked but the dosages ramp up so quickly it’s like within a few months your high is just nodding out. But yeah it doesn’t like make you behave like a fucking lunatic snd do crazy shit

[@ericclaptonsrobotpilot7276]

It’s pretty clear BT Amber ain’t from Appalachia because she can’t even say Appalachia correctly.

[@andrewdunn8778]

Dolly Parton says "Appa-LAY-sha"

[@andrewdunn8778]

@@hobochangba7638 I understand how it's "actually" pronounced. I'm saying that Dolly Parton, IRL, pronounces it Appalaysha.

[@BigHomieGayAss1917]

Both pronunciations are correct. Also she’s from Indiana, which is not in Appalachia

[@BigHomieGayAss1917]

@@hobochangba7638 app-uh-lay-sha is the northern pronunciation, which is a valid pronunciation

[@paxton_wulgus]

She high-tailed it to NYC as soon as she could. Then she moved to LA after that. her repping Appalachia has always been the most stolen valor crap ever when the rest of her image is some NYC culture critic / art ho

[@antoniovaccaro2160]

Compare it to Rain Man

[@Windrammer]

I want to give Mr. JD some cocky

[@catznjam470]

They made a movie out of that pos book? Why? 🤨 It's terrible lol

[@Eamonshort1]

Love you Amber, but you are very wrong about how people outwardly behave / feel on opiates. Yeah sometimes when you're on a heavy nod you want a nap, but for 8 years the only way I could get the energy to get thru the day was with 100mg of oxy or atleast a few points of hammer

[@funguswungus2918]

P.M.C. Vance

[@emmy8526]

Omg, Will quoting his own Letterboxd review. What a Film Guy dork.

[@bb-zr2tv]

It was a funny review

[@zainmudassir2964]

And now JD Vance is going to be Trumpist Senator maybe even President.

[@bills.prestonesq.5905]

Oh, and although the guy is a dog, you won't *die* of heroin withdrawal. You're thinking barbiturates. Alcohol too maybe, I've heard.

[@athousandfeethigh]

Alcohol withdrawal is absolutely deadly, depending on what a person drank and for how long. They say to always taper off if you can't get prescribed anything to help rather than ever going cold turkey because the risk of seizure is so high.

[@laurie113]

Pi tful republicans ."for sure

[@tomtomtom6970]

eh I remember it not being that bad

[@davidhill2020]

It's weird that he calls Ron Howard a "middling director" not that long after calling Gal Godot "not that good looking". Criticize all you want, but at least do it correctly.

[@fkrkf]

She's like a 6 1/2 in Hollywood. Definitely nothing compared to a Angelina Jolie at that age or Olivia wild or Rose Byrne. I've seen prettier girls in a LA pizzeria.

[@GaziRahman-pc1ip]

Did you smash?