American Hollow

If Rory Kennedy meant her documentary, "American Hollow," to show us a poor Southern rural white family as something more respectable than the disparaging hillbilly stereotype, she failed.

Not only were those familiar stereotypes not dispelled in this film, they were played out before us.

The film offers us snaggletoothed, alcoholic louts given to ridiculing their wives and kids. We see amazingly good-humored, unprotesting womenfolk who do all the work of keeping the family together and fed, with little help from the men.

The chronically unemployed men in the Bowling family simply won't leave to find work and a better life outside the hollow in their part of Kentucky where there are few job prospects.

Worse, they actively encourage failure in the "young'uns" as well.

I suspect we're supposed to believe that the Bowlings are nevertheless noble because they have deep roots on the land they've been unemployed, impoverished, and uneducated on for generations.

My grandparents came across the Atlantic to America because they couldn't make a living in the old country. I think that's far more courageous (and American) than staying in a lousy situation with no hope.

Poor rural black folks have to contend with racial discrimination when they go to the city for job opportunities. By contrast, the Bowling men, most of them blond, wouldn't have that hurdle to jump. But no, they stay resolutely mired in their hollow.

I'm a pretty soft-hearted person, but I lost my respect for the Bowling men in the first ten minutes of the film.

However, even if most of the subjects of this documentary aren't appealing, the film itself is well-made. I did learn one thing from "American Hollow" -- that love-sick teenage boys and the sweet young things who lead them on are the same the world over.

I have witnessed first-hand much of the family dynamics that is portrayed in this documentary, and it is sad that people are so poor. What has never failed to astound me however, is the pride and ignorance that keeps these poor people from leaving the area or progressing. Amazingly, when they do leave, they keep coming back. This film not only shares the pitiful life style of America's poor, but also captures the deep level pridefulness of those unwilling to progress and change their lives they are so discontented with. This attitude surely is ignorance and fear which is far more disturbing than poverty.

I'd first like to say that I felt "American Hollow" was an excellent documentary. The main reason for this comment is to clarify some things about the film. Many people have problems because they felt the film did nothing to dispel stereotypes, and also that it added to the list of films only showing the poorest regions of Appalachia. Rory Kennedy's film was not meant to be a representation of Appalachia. She picked the Bowlings because she wanted to originally make a "poverty advocacy film". She was later so impressed by the strong character of Iree that she decided to focus on the family itself. I don't think Rory could have done anything about stereotypes. She didn't script this and hire actors. This was this family's real life. It may have perpetuated the "slack jawed yokel" stereotype, but hopefully in watching it you can relate to the family beyond the stereotypes.

As someone else mentioned, it's very important to realize that this family (especially Iree and Bass) is not lazy. In a meeting Rory Kennedy mentioned that two family members had recently gotten jobs that they had to commute 1 1/2 hours to get to everyday. It's obvious that if there were jobs available, they would have taken them gladly. Why don't they just move? This question shows that you don't really understand the situation. The film clearly pointed out that almost all of the members of the family had tried this and failed. Besides that, the film also shows that family is more important to them than monetary stability. This is a lesson we can all learn from.

BTW, Rory also mentioned that because of the film, Clint started to receive "propositions" from around the country. One lady sent him a plane ticket, but he was too afraid to get on the plane. She then sent him a bus ticket and he moved out to CA and they are "madly in love" and getting married!

As someone who grew up in the deep south, and had to leave it as an adult for the purpose of economic survival and the avoidance of poverty, I can deeply relate to this family.

The interesting thing about them is that they complain about their impoverished condition, yet when the 18 year-old boy want to move to Ohio to pursue a better life, the family sabotages his efforts with discouraging words such as "a bad check always returns."

Having come from such a family that also tried to sabotage my efforts to gain self-respect through work and better economic opportunities, this all rang true for me. Especially coming from a southern culture where ties to the land are strong and very few people actually summon up the guts to move to "the big city," where the inevitable hardships and culture shock await.

A very accurate and moving portrait of a southern family, obviously one which cares about each other, but one which seems to wallow in it's own dysfunction and lack of ambition. I kept wanting to say to them, but you could have a better life, if only you'd get up off your caboose and go out into the big, bad world and show some gumption and make something of yourself. That kind of attitude seems to be common in families which have grown up in a rural environment. I know, because I met many people like that in Arkansas, where I was raised.

This movie shows the poor, underprivileged, yet close-knit and seemingly happy family that lives in Appalachia. There's another side to the movie that most people don't see. All throughout the movie almost every family is living primarily off of welfare....they get their medicine through welfare. Instead of getting up off of their butts and doing something (aside from the few that "collect moss from the woods and sell it to pet stores"), they are sitting around not doing a thing, and are draining the economy's tax money. Your money. This movie depicts the negative side of Welfare. Welfare was created to benefit those who worked hard but cannot sustain enough to properly keep their family business, etc. in good health. But this shows how welfare has negative effects as well: it encourages some to be lazy and solely live off of the countries welfare instead of trying to hold steady jobs.