Hillbilly Elegy director Ron Howard hits out at ‘disappointing’ JD Vance
www.independent.co.uk
‘We didn’t talk a lot of politics when we were making the movie,’ filmmaker said

Hillbilly Elegy director Ron Howard has taken a swipe at JD Vance, suggesting that Donald Trump’s Republican running mate has “changed” since he first met him.

Earlier this year, Vance was selected to be Trump’s possible vice president in the 2024 US presidential election race – but before his political career, he was known for being the author of memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was later adapted into a Netflix film of the same name.

Since being announced as Trump’s running mate, Vance has been criticised for comments that saw him refer to women, such as Trump’s presidential rival Kamala Harris, as “childless cat ladies”. This prompted swift backlash and accusations of sexism, with Vance claiming the remarks were made in “sarcasm”.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    7·
    4 months ago

    Maybe he could have just been, I don’t know, paying attention? Ron Howard is full of shit, here.

    From JD Vance’s Wikipedia:

    In December 2016, Vance said he planned to move to Ohio and would consider starting a nonprofit or running for office.[54][50] In Ohio, he started Our Ohio Renewal, a 501©(4) advocacy organization focused on education, addiction, and other “social ills” he had mentioned in his memoir.[55] According to a 2017 archived capture of the nonprofit’s website, the members of the advisory board were Keith Humphreys, Jamil Jivani, Yuval Levin, and Sally Satel.[56][57] According to a 2020 capture of the website, those four remained in those positions throughout the organization’s existence.[58] Our Ohio Renewal closed after less than two years with sparse achievements.[55][59] According to Jivani, the organization’s director of law and policy, its work was derailed by Jivani’s cancer diagnosis.[60][61] It raised around $221,000 in 2017 and spent the majority of its revenue on overhead costs and travel. In subsequent years, it raised less than $50,000.[57]

    During Vance’s 2022 campaign for US Senate, Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee, said the charity was a front for Vance’s political ambitions. Ryan pointed to reports that the organization paid a Vance political adviser and conducted public opinion polling, while its efforts to address addiction failed. Vance denied the characterization.[62][63][c] Our Ohio Renewal’s tax filings showed that in its first year, it spent more (over $63,000) on “management services” provided by its executive director Jai Chabria, who also served as Vance’s top political adviser, than it did on programs to fight opioid abuse.[67][57]

    • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      4 months ago

      Vance was born in Middletown Ohio. He never was a hillbilly or an appalachian. So it can always get worse. It would be an insult to veneers to call his projected identity a thin veneer. I don’t think it’s substantial enough to even be a laquer.

      The dude is trading on stories told to him by his parents and grandparents when he was a wee little ottoman fucker. Passing it off as if it was his accomplishment.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        3·
        4 months ago

        Yeah he’s as much a hillbilly as I am, except I actually lived in urban Kentucky for like a year once and sometimes date actual Appalachians. He’s just some guy who got into a good school and ditched the rust belt for the coasts, which I don’t judge, it’s a good decision and one I wish I’d studied enough for. But a lot of those folks build their identity on being from back here and it gets weird.

        There’s this coastal idea of Ohio vs the realit. I think Ron DeSantis showed it best where they keep trying to act like Ohio is this salt of the earth conservative place, and like yeah it’s lost its swing state status, but it isn’t conservative like Miami or Orange County, it’s conservative like folks who haven’t met people different from them. It’s conservative but we love weed and abortion is contentious not hated. And also Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati aren’t conservative. Please coastal conservatives stop moving to Ohio cities and thinking we’re cool with your bigotry.

        Anyways yeah Vance is a costal conservative and thinks he understands Ohio just because he lived in Middletown until he had the ability to bail.

    • haunte@leminal.spaceEnglish
      7·
      4 months ago

      It’s possible that he never discussed any of that with Howard when they were planning the movie. Vance wasn’t heavily involved in the process, he didn’t write the screenplay or produce it. They probably just had a few discussions about how the book should be translated into film, as a courtesy. And Vance at that time was very anti-Trump, so if they did discuss politics in passing that might have colored Howard’s views on him. None of that means Howard is “full of shit”.

      I haven’t read the book or seen the film, so I can’t speak to anything specific on the adaptation, but according the the review linked in the article Howard did little to change the overall message, so he deserves criticism on that point.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        My point is simply he has documented political ambitions going back as far as 2016, and acting like Ron Howard couldn’t have been aware of that by 2019 is absurd.

        2016: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/12/21/daily-202-why-the-author-of-hillbilly-elegy-is-moving-home-to-ohio/5859da6ee9b69b36fcfeaf48/

        “No, not now,” he said when asked if he’ll ever run for office. “I think that I need to live in the state for a while and get to know these problems a little better before actually doing something like that. Never say never, but it’s certainly not something I am thinking about over the short-term.”

        2018: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/henrygomez/jd-vance-is-now-seriously-considering-running-for-senate-in

        “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since Friday,” said Jai Chabria, an adviser to Vance who joined him in Washington this week for meetings with those encouraging his candidacy.

        “The amount of support for J.D. Vance is incredible,” Chabria told BuzzFeed News. “People are starting to realize he has the best message to beat [Democratic incumbent] Sherrod Brown. J.D. is giving serious consideration toward this, because there are very serious people asking him to run.”

        Oh wait, who was Jai Chabria again?

        Our Ohio Renewal’s tax filings showed that in its first year, it spent more (over $63,000) on “management services” provided by its executive director Jai Chabria, who also served as Vance’s top political adviser, than it did on programs to fight opioid abuse.