Hillbilly Elegy brings to mind America’s most famous hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies can also teach the country important lessons.
Alex Berenson has written another piece saying that J.D. Vance gives him the heebie jeebies.
It’s interesting to me that Alex would pen thousands of words to advance a view that runs counter to most of his audience. But “Unreported Truths” is his Substack and he has 250,000 subscribers so I’m not going to say anything.
Well, actually I am. In reading about Mr. Vance, I learned that he’s famous/infamous for writing a book called Hillbilly Elegy, which Ron Howard made into a movie. Thinking about this made me think about American’s most famous hillbillies.
One of my favorite TV shows growing up
was "The Beverly Hillbillies."
The show tells a story about a man named Jed. Basically, it’s about a family of hillbillies who end up in Beverly Hills after Jed, a poor mountaineer who could barely keep his family fed, struck black gold (Texas tea) while hunting possums back in the hills of Tennessee.
Jed had a fetching daughter named Elly May, who was a bit of a Tom Boy and never learned how to cook. Her biscuits, for example, were as hard as rocks. But the matriarch of the family, a grandmother named Granny, was the equal of the Pioneer Woman when it came to cooking up what the Clampetts called “vittles.” (While the family was not well-fed as hillbillies in Tennessee, they ate very well in Beverly Hills.)
The “Beverly Hillbillies” makes many provocative points about equality, diversity and inclusion - about differences between rural Americans and the country’s elites - circa 1960s/early 1970s.
Back-to-back classics …
As a child, after I watched this show, I watched another program called "Gilligan's Island." This show was about a man named Gilligan, the largely inept first mate of a boat, and one of several fascinating characters who got stranded on a deserted island after a storm ended the passengers’ three-hour tour.
One of the men on the island was another elite millionaire who might have hailed from Beverly Hills. It’s possible Thurston Howell III might have known the Clampetts. I'm not sure.
No offense to Mrs. Howell, but only 2 women stood out on the island
One of these women was a breath-taking, auburn-haired Hollywood starlet named Ginger. Ginger's roommate was a farmer's daughter named Mary Ann who was cuter than a Kansas button.
In the years since, a great societal debate has ensued on who men (or even boys) would prefer to marry - Ginger or Mary Ann.
Speaking for myself, I used to have a terrible crush on Mary Ann, but as, I got older, I started looking at Ginger with different eyes.
My first TV crush was actually Penny from "Lost in Space." (As an aside, I later learned that this actress was one of the children in "The Sound of Music.” I never knew Penny had such a beautiful singing voice).
Aside No. 2: ”Lost in Space” gave the world a famous line that probably applies to today’s world: "Danger, Will Robinson!”
While many people consider “Lost in Space” a cutting-edge scientific drama, in recent years critics have appeared as guests on shows like Joe Rogan’s podcast and said the Robinson family never even made it to space. The whole thing was staged in a Hollywood studio, the entire show an elaborate CIA operation designed to make citizens think men really had travelled to the moon.
Personally, I don’t take a position either way. I just know that when I was 7, I thought Penny was pretty.
Back to Gilligan’s Island …
An actual professor, a real scientist, was also ship-wrecked on this island. As far as I know, the Professor (audiences never learned his real name) was an old-school scientist who did not depend on grants from Anthony Fauci (who had just started working for the NIAID when the cast-aways were ship-wrecked.) All I know is that if this professor hadn’t been stranded on that island, the rest of the cast-aways wouldn’t have lasted two weeks.
While "Gilligan's Island" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" are today considered classics of the golden era of Hollywood sitcoms, these penetrating character studies were panned by critics of the era.
This criticism is even more strident today as modern critics note neither show included one character who was a minority, a transgender or a homosexual. (Some have speculated that Ms. Hathaway, the kindly and efficient banker’s secretary in “The Beverly Hillbillies” may have been a lesbian.)
Interestingly, both shows featured theme songs that winning sports teams would sing on the bus on the way back home after a big victory. (While few boys know all the words to our National Anthem, we all know all the words to these enduring theme songs).
Social scientists have yet to definitively settle The "Ginger or Mary Ann" debate, which will no doubt continue for centuries.
The enduring social significance of these TV shows …
Whenever I watch a TV show or movie with my children, I always tell them, “The amazing thing is that this really happened.” Whether they believe me or not, I’m not sure, but both of these programs convey powerful messages about today’s times.
For example, the “Hillbilly issue” is still incredibly contentious and relevant and, even today, many people don’t understand why Gilligan’s fellow cast-aways didn’t just frack him.
I also found it interesting that Ron Howard made a movie about Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy as Howard was a once a child star actor as Opie on “The Andy Griffith Show” and was, in fact, a contemporary of Ginger, Mary Ann, Jed and Elly May.
Sadly, the “The Andy Griffith Show” has now been banned by most TV networks because Mayberry apparently had no African Americans. Still, many Americans have seen each episode at least 14 times.
As TV buffs are aware, Ron Howard later starred as Richie Cunningham in “Happy Days” before his buddy Fonzie jumped a shark - about three decades before the rest of the United States did the same thing.
The Kamala/Nanny Story remains to be told …
It’s too early to tell if Hillbilly Elegy will help propel J.D. Vance into the White House.
Contemporary social commentators (such as myself) have noted that Kamala Harris may be propelled into the White House after she was chosen as the running mate of a life-long politician who prospered - and had many interesting adventures - despite losing the use of his brain.
Like the Clampetts, Ms. Harris settled in California and interacted with the wealthy and elite citizens of the Golden State. She later married an entertainment lawyer who developed a crush - not on Ginger or Mary Ann - but on his children’s nanny.
Like Vance, the Nanny grew up in Ohio before going to college in Alabama, where she is said to have frequented with so-called “red necks,” “white trash” and other extremists who would one day become supporters of Donald Trump.
Like the Clampetts, she loaded up the truck and moved to California and now lives in The Hamptons, where, for all we know, she might be neighbors with a widow whose late husband produced “The Beverly Hillbillies.” (At least to me, it’s fascinating how all the dots seem to connect.)
Although I know he caught some flack for broaching this controversial subject, I appreciate Alex Berenson highlighting this important national issue.
Full-disclosure: I recently optioned the rights of the Kamala/Doug Emhoff/Nanny story to Hollywood. At the moment, I’m not sure if it’s going to be a sitcom, a memoir or a film drama. Ron Howard is on my short list of possible directors. I think Netflix is in the lead to air the story, perhaps in the year 2064.
I’ve been writing “save-the-world columns” since I was 23. My late mother once told me, “Bill, I like your silly ones.” Mom, this one was for you.
Buy Bill some vittles …
I read Hillbilly Elegy. Written before the man had political aspirations. He grew up poor and has been to "the other side". It scares the rich because they do not compute, Will Robinson. Nothing like a person who has been poor to scare the rich elite with the knowledge that he knows what they can become and he can probably put them there if he squeals on their decadent and evil lifestyle? Wishful thinking. We all know The Blackmail Game. This is a man who has actually paid into the social security system, unlike all 'the political elites' who have their own retirement outside of the one forced upon The Third Estate, of which none of them belong. And I grew up watching the same stuff as you. Hubs is a Maryanne guy. I asked if he was a Maryanne guy why did he marry a Ginger? I was a David Cassidy kind of gal. We used to play Lost in Space and always fought over who got to be Judy. I think we are being run by a shit ton of Dr. Smiths...what a crock of hooey this world has become.
You are wrong about Miss Hathaway. She was always in love with Jethro.