{"id":40548,"date":"2024-07-18T16:47:47","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T20:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=40548"},"modified":"2024-07-18T16:47:47","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T20:47:47","slug":"a-hillbilly-takes-center-stage-divine-renovationproducers-build-on-faith-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2024\/07\/a-hillbilly-takes-center-stage-divine-renovationproducers-build-on-faith-values.html","title":{"rendered":"A &#8220;Hillbilly&#8221; takes center stage + &#8220;Divine Renovation&#8221;producers build on faith values"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media &amp; culture: 07\/18\/24<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><iframe title=\"Hillbilly Elegy a Ron Howard Film | Amy Adams &amp; Glenn Close | Official Trailer | Netflix\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KW_3aaoSOYg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Rediscovering <em>Hillbilly Elegy<\/em>. <\/strong>Just about immediately after<strong> Donald Trump <\/strong>named<strong> Ohio Senator J.D. Vance <\/strong>as his vice presidential running mate, his bestselling 2016 memoir <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/politics-news\/hillbilly-elegy-soars-netflix-amazon-vp-jd-vance-1235950086\/\"><strong><em>Hillbilly Elegy <\/em><\/strong>and its 2020 movie adaptation (directed by<strong> Ron Howard<\/strong>) respectively soared to the top of the book charts on <strong>Amazon<\/strong> and soared in viewership on <strong>Netflix<\/strong><\/a><strong>.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Here&#8217;s the film synopsis Netflix put out at the time of the film&#8217;s original release:\u00a0<\/strong> <em>J.D. Vance (<strong>Gabriel Basso<\/strong>), a former Marine from southern Ohio and current <strong>Yale Law<\/strong> student, is on the verge of landing his dream job when a family crisis forces him to return to the home he\u2019s tried to forget. J.D. must navigate the complex dynamics of his Appalachian family, including his volatile relationship with his mother Bev (<strong>Amy Adams<\/strong>), who\u2019s struggling with addiction. Fueled by memories of his grandmother Mamaw (<strong>Glenn Close)<\/strong>, the resilient and whip-smart woman who raised him, J.D. comes to embrace his family\u2019s indelible imprint on his own personal journey.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I reviewed\u00a0 the when it first came out and, regardless of current politics, I can straight up tell you it&#8217;s one on of the best and most-honest movies I have ever seen.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the skillful hands of Ron Howard, <em>Hillbilly Elegy<\/em> is far more than a gritty version of<strong><em> Mayberry R.F.D<\/em>.<\/strong> From writing to directing to acting, it renders a very believable, compelling and compassionate account of one real-life family&#8217;s struggles through poverty, psychological trauma, bad decisions and drug addiction to arrive at a place of forgiveness of the past, personal responsibility in the present and hope for the future.\u00a0 There&#8217;s not a false or overly sentimental note in the entire movie. The acting, as noted, is beyond first rate &#8211; especially from <strong>Glenn Close<\/strong> and<strong> Amy Adams<\/strong> who really lose themselves in their complex but relatable characters. It is now, as it was then<strong>, Highly Recommended.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/hillbilly_elegy\">If you go <strong>Rotten Tomatoes<\/strong><\/a> you will see that elite critics and the viewing audience are quite divided over the film. The critics gave it a measly 25% score while the audience awarded it a far more robust 82% grade. What else is new?<\/p>\n<p>So, why the disconnect between ordinary viewers and the generally Woke critic class? Perhaps it&#8217;s because, while ordinary people connect to its universal story, the critics see a daisy cutter missile exploding the deliberately-divisive myth that privilege in America is a function of racial identity and not class identity. J.D. Vance&#8217;s family is certainly white and just as certainly are not among the privileged. There is, to be sure, plenty of unfair privilege in our country but its foundation is built on wealth and access to the levers of information, communication and power. That power is concentrated in the hands of a few globalist corporations who much prefer that the poor and working classes squabble with each other over history and identity than focus on present-day policies that enrich the lever pullers while throwing American workers under the proverbial bus.<\/p>\n<p>On the bright side, the public embrace of <em>Hillbilly Elegy<\/em> demonstrates that a strong audience exists for quality storytelling that enlightens and honestly sows hope that, through good choices and, yes, a little government help (based on circumstance, not identity), individuals can be empowered to seize control of their destiny. We are not prisoners of history but students of it. We learn from our past (the good and the bad). One consistent lesson of the human saga is that enemies seek to confuse and divide their prey. From <strong>Aesop<\/strong> to <strong>The Bible<\/strong> to powerful modern-day books and films like<em> Hillbilly Elegy<\/em>, through the ages good storytelling has clarified the basic truths that help us survive and move forward. Unfortunately, for the past several years most of our stories have been filtered through the globalist gatekeepers. That, as they say, has been a game changer. But the game isn&#8217;t over.<\/p>\n<p>How the movie impacts the upcoming election, if at all, is anybody&#8217;s guess but, as rich and meaningful storytelling, <em>Hillbilly Elegy<\/em> is hard to beat.<br \/>\n_____<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-xs-12\">\n<div class=\"responsive-handler fr-view breakable\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"s123-editor\">\n<div class=\"editorBox editorBox_img\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"imageWidth100 fr-fic fr-dii\" src=\"https:\/\/static.s123-cdn-static-d.com\/uploads\/8911569\/normal_664bb46be6b69.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"323\" height=\"242\" data-ratio=\"1.3333333333333333\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong>Building a positive brand<\/strong>. Producing partners <strong>Monty Hobbs<\/strong> and <strong>Valerie Smaldone<\/strong> have launched a new content creation company called <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justdogoodent.com\/\">Just Do Good Entertainment<\/a><\/strong> built on the idea that media content should entertain &#8211; and inspire. Aptly, their current project, <strong><em>Divine Renovation<\/em><\/strong>, is built on a foundation of helping others.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>JWK: First of all, how did you guys come together to form Just Do Good Entertainment?<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nValerie Smaldone:<\/strong> Monty and I had been working together for a couple of years. Our first major project &#8211; and I mean major project &#8211; was a feature film that we produced together with a third partner, and I directed, called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zz_xaYvyDlw\"><em><strong>The Thursday Night Club<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. That was filmed in New Milford, Connecticut. It was a story about college students who were getting ready to start their lives and their careers and were very immersed in that (until) they find that there&#8217;s more to life through giving back to the world. Because they suffer a traumatic incident in their lives, they decide that the best way to really handle the grief and the trauma is to give back and to do good for other people. That was our first film. It was pop icon&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2024\/02\/music-legend-gloria-gaynor-on-surviving-and-thriving-karen-allen-on-her-new-tv-role-and-how-her-indiana-jones-arc-ended.html\"><strong>Gloria Gaynor<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s acting debut&#8230;So, Monty and I and a third partner decided that we wanted to do more after the film was over. Once the shooting is over it&#8217;s a little bit sad and everybody goes their separate ways but we decided we wanted to continue the idea of physically really doing good in the community through entertainment. That&#8217;s how <em><strong>Divine Renovation<\/strong><\/em> was born.<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Monty Hobbs:<\/strong> It was born on an idea of giving back&#8230;When we see all these home renovation shows, they&#8217;re so over the top. They&#8217;re really unrealistic. So, we said let&#8217;s make something realistic. Let&#8217;s make something very humble. Let&#8217;s come up with a spiritual element but not beat people to death with it because we want people of all kinds to watch this show and generate the kindness and humility we have ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>I told Valerie I&#8217;ve been working around reality shows for a few years and I got an idea. I pitched it to her and we started really thinking about the impact it would do. More importantly, we started thinking about the budget on how we could get this done. So, we utilized where I&#8217;m from &#8211; Wilmington, North Carolina &#8211; as our base. Then, lo and behold, after we got an outline I picked up the phone and I called <strong>Erik Estrada<\/strong>. I pitched him the idea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nJWK: Why Erik Estrada? <\/strong><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Why Erik Estrada? He has the background. He started off in the (faith film) industry with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w4ANAyIQi8Y\"><em><strong>The Cross and the Switchblade<\/strong><\/em><\/a> with <strong>Pat Boone<\/strong>. It still resonates with a lot of people. What we believe, John, is one thing. America was born on giving&#8230;Erik Estrada who was in our living rooms year after year (representing) American values (on <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/CHiPs\"><em><strong>CHiPs<\/strong><\/em><\/a>). We thought he would be the right person. Lo and behold, we just explained the concept and he was in. Fast forward, we&#8217;re in production of <em>Divine Renovation<\/em> Season 1 in Wilmington, North Carolina and we have five days to shoot it &#8211; during a hurricane!<\/p>\n<p><strong>VS:<\/strong> We had a very tight budget&#8230;at the end 2022 &#8211; which was hurricane season in Wilmington, North Carolina. I&#8217;m from New York City. We don&#8217;t have a lot of hurricanes. We do occasionally have nor&#8217;easters &#8211; but this was barreling up the coast. We had to figure out how to make it work. We had five days to shoot six episodes &#8211; and we did it!<\/p>\n<p>It was quite a challenge but our main goal was to tell the story. We weren&#8217;t that interested in how pretty it looked &#8211; it was to tell the story of how we came along as a production company &#8211; as a team &#8211; identified people in need and helped to make their lives just a little bit better through home enhancements. Along the way, we provided what we call &#8220;the spiritual uplift.&#8221; In every episode we did some fun event that was meaningful to them. One veteran was an accomplished trumpet player. He no longer played the trumpet. We brought a trumpeter from the <strong>Wilmington Symphony<\/strong> to come and play <strong><em>Ode to Joy <\/em><\/strong>and surprise him on his property. So, little things like that that really make people feel like they matter is very integral to the storylines and to the mission of the kind of content that we produce. <strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong>JWK: I hope the hurricane didn&#8217;t wipe out your efforts.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nVS: <\/strong>Everything survived! Nothing got destroyed at all!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><strong>JWK: That&#8217;s good to hear! So, where can people watch<em> Divine Renovation<\/em>?<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> People can watch Season 1 on <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tubitv.com\/series\/300000735\/divine-renovation\">Tubi<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tv.apple.com\/us\/show\/divine-renovation\/umc.cmc.474needcyiwswfj3yan6la8kw\">Apple<\/a><\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Divine-Renovations-Season-1\/dp\/B0C941P6WY\"><strong>Amazon Prime<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/my.upfaithandfamily.com\/divine-renovation\"><strong>UP Faith &amp; Family<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tct.tv\/blog\/program\/divine-renovations\/\"><strong>TCT<\/strong><\/a>&#8230;Season 1 is on eleven streaming channels as of today. <strong>Season 2 will be on Amazon Prime September 19th this fall<\/strong>. We&#8217;re adding more (platforms) constantly&#8230;Season 2 is a lot more in depth. The production values have tripled. The length of the episodes, the great deeds of the community, everything is enhanced for that one idea that we have off of Season 1.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>JWK: Season 2 is called\u00a0<em> Divine Renovation: New England. <\/em>Do you see this show as running multiple seasons like those HGTV shows.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>VS:<\/strong> Sure. We want to go to different areas of the country. We&#8217;ve been to Wilmington. Now, we been to the Northeast. We have two or three different markets in mind (going forward). The idea is to go in and find individuals that want to be a part of this &#8211; and businesses. (It&#8217;s) very important (that) we bring the business community together because we can&#8217;t do it without them. What we&#8217;ve identified is that&#8230;they really want to give back to the community. There are honored when we ask them to join us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>We&#8217;ve had workers say &#8220;I can do a renovation for someone&#8217;s home and it&#8217;s just transactional but coming here, working with you and helping a family with perhaps a disabled child, makes me feel good. It makes me feel important! This is really the direction I want to go in!&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>So, we&#8217;ve identified those businesses who want to come on board and join us. We&#8217;ve identified not-for-profit organizations that help us find those in need. In some cases, we&#8217;ve actually helped the nonprofits. In Season 2 you&#8217;ll find that we worked with a homeless shelter and food pantry in Connecticut and a dog training facility for veterans and the disabled.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JWK: And your teaming up with Erik Estrada, this time on a children&#8217;s book.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nVS: <\/strong>Yes, we are<strong><strong><strong><strong>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><strong><br \/>\nJWK: So, you&#8217;re not just a television production company. You&#8217;re a multimedia company.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nMH:<\/strong> Sure&#8230;We wanted that level of joy, giving back and the message of kindness (to be attached) to something tangible.<strong><br \/>\nVS: <\/strong>There&#8217;s a tremendous charitable component to (the book) and there&#8217;s a message involved with it. My husband, who recently passed away, had multiple sclerosis. I witnessed his struggles. I know that it&#8217;s really hard for children to&#8230;have a disabled parent or someone (in the family) with a chronic illness.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong>JWK: I&#8217;m sorry for your loss. Do you have children?<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>VS: <\/strong>I do not have children but I know of people with families where one of the parents &#8211; or both parents &#8211; are sick or disabled. It truly impacts the family. It&#8217;s not just the individual. It&#8217;s the spouse. It&#8217;s the children. It&#8217;s the pets. Everybody&#8217;s affected. I wanted to sort of normalize for families what it means to have somebody who&#8217;s disabled and not make it so huge that they are put on a pedestal. They&#8217;re just regular people that have to deal with this challenge.<\/p>\n<p>So, we worked with the gentleman who wrote <em>The Thursday Night Club<\/em>, <strong>Steve Manchester<\/strong>, who is a very beautiful spiritual writer. They call him the <a href=\"https:\/\/nicholassparks.com\/\"><strong>Nicholas Sparks<\/strong><\/a> of New England. We worked with Steve and with Erik to write this story for children &#8211; not babies, but 11 or 12-year-old kids. What is is like to have a parent with a disability &#8211; and how can they help other people? It&#8217;s called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justdogoodent.com\/our-work\/boost-your-income\"><em><strong>Officer Erik and the Very Special Dad<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. Officer Erik meets this father and is very blown away by the fact that he is challenged and says &#8220;How can I help you?&#8221; He says &#8220;I don&#8217;t need help but I do know of some neighbors who are elderly and could use some work in the house.&#8221; That&#8217;s just the high concept of the book. We&#8217;re going to be giving a portion of the proceeds to an MS charity. We want to really make it a message about disability, about awareness for disability families &#8211; that people, no matter what their challenges are,\u00a0 can still do things for other people and can still improve the lives of other people.Our entire mission for the company, John, is Just Do Good. It&#8217;s like Nike, right? Just do it!\u00a0 Just do good &#8211; whatever that is!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><strong>JWK: It&#8217;s right there in the name. <\/strong><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><em>John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God. <\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong><em><span class=\"st\">Encourage one another and build each other up &#8211; <\/span><\/em><span class=\"st\">1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media &amp; culture: 07\/18\/24 Rediscovering Hillbilly Elegy. Just about immediately after Donald Trump named Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate, his bestselling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy and its 2020 movie adaptation (directed by Ron Howard) respectively soared to the top of the book&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A &quot;Hillbilly&quot; takes center stage + &quot;Divine Renovation&quot;producers build on faith values<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2024\/07\/a-hillbilly-takes-center-stage-divine-renovationproducers-build-on-faith-values.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A &quot;Hillbilly&quot; takes center stage + &quot;Divine Renovation&quot;producers build on faith values\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media &amp; culture: 07\/18\/24 Rediscovering Hillbilly Elegy. Just about immediately after Donald Trump named Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate, his bestselling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy and its 2020 movie adaptation (directed by Ron Howard) respectively soared to the top of the book&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2024\/07\/a-hillbilly-takes-center-stage-divine-renovationproducers-build-on-faith-values.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-07-18T20:47:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.s123-cdn-static-d.com\/uploads\/8911569\/normal_664bb46be6b69.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. 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Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40548"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40752,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40548\/revisions\/40752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}