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.
“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.
The article also remarked on Vance’s turn from previously criticizing Trump to suddenly becoming his running mate.
“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.
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