Amerika

While agenda-driven leftist film plots are prolific, and rural whites are vilified as ignorant clingers, John Krasinski’s film The Quiet Place provides a refreshingly positive representation of rural white America.

Set in a dystopian world, this film begins after most of humanity is already eliminated by alien-like predators which hunt by sound. The protagonist last family standing is that commonly vilified caricature: a rural white family with three children (and another on the way).

This family is presented in extremely positive terms: loving, crafty, supportive, persevering, resourceful. They quickly learn sign language and set up noise-eliminating devices allowing them to access every necessary area. They are a self-sufficient unit, manifesting positive qualities of rural white: growing their own food, testing technological methods to find the predator’s weaknesses.

The white parents are presented as loving, mutually supportive, and idealistic. This may not seem strange until one spends a moment trying to recall another extremely positive white male-female relationship presented in mass media in recent time.

Whether or not the director meant to create an anti-establishment film, I give this film five stars simply for positively presenting one of the most marginalized groups: rural white Americans.

Tags: dystopian, film