Hillbilly Elegy. Much like the visual archive generated during the War on Poverty, Elegy sells white middle-class observers an invasive and exploitative story of the region. For white people uncomfortable with images of the civil rights struggles and the realities of Black life those images depicted, an endless stream of sensationalized white poverty offered them an escape—a window into a more recognizable world of suffering. This intimacy, both now and then, does not equal less contempt, just more value for the viewer and creator.
