Variety’s chief film critic suggested on Wednesday that Sen. JD Vance may have risen to become former President Trump’s vice-running mate “thanks to Hollywood’s help.”
The 2020 Netflix adaptation of Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir surged to the top 10 most-watched list after Trump announced on Monday that the Ohio senator would be his running mate for the 2024 presidential race.
The book, as well as the film, recounts Vance’s upbringing in a small Ohio town plagued with addiction and poverty before eventually graduating from Yale.
Gabriel Basso, Amy Adams and Haley Bennett in “Hillbilly Elegy.” (Netflix)
“It was that dimension of Vance’s narrative that clearly attracted director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer — both self-avowed liberals, who may have created a monster by legitimizing his origin story, much as ‘The Apprentice’ producer Mark Burnett did by giving Trump a reality TV spotlight back in 2004,” Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge wrote.
VAN JONES CONDEMNS TRUMP’S VP PICK JD VANCE AS A ‘HORROR ON THE WORLD STAGE,’ A ‘DANGEROUS VIRUS’
He elaborated that the film likely “contributed to the mythmaking” that helped Vance win his Senate seat in 2022, while writing that Vance has largely outgrown his Middle America background.
“In the book, Vance used his personal experience (an upbringing that seemed the polar opposite of Trump’s) to explain the disconnect between Middle America and the coastal elites … to the coastal elites,” Variety wrote. “Ironically, in the eight years since the book was published, Vance has joined their ranks.”
Debruge acknowledged Vance’s memoir helped liberals and the mainstream media understand what made many White working-class voters gravitate towards Trump in 2016. However, he emphasized that they don’t seem to care about “the rights of others.”
Senator JD Vance, a Republican from Ohio and Republican vice-presidential nominee, at a walkthrough during the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“On page after page, Vance argues that a vast segment of white working-class Americans has been feeling disenfranchised. Offensive as it may sound to some, the ‘Make America Great Again’ concept appeals to voters so preoccupied with their own day-to-day reality that they aren’t nearly as focused on the rights of others — Black Americans, immigrants, welfare cases,” he wrote.
The article also remarked on Vance’s turn from previously criticizing Trump to suddenly becoming his running mate.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance applaud on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 16, 2024. (REUTERS/Callaghan Ohare)
“In 2016, the Middletown types he described in his book were free to project whatever they wanted upon Trump as a candidate, as the wheeler-dealer had no political experience, and therefore no track record to go by. Eight years later, the world knows what Trump stands for, and Vance has made a calculated choice to align himself with the ex-president — a strategy that paid off as he was picked to be the ultimate celebrity apprentice,” Debruge concluded.