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Cry Harder: Variety Is VERY CONCERNED That 'Hillbilly Elegy' Is Surging on Netflix and Amazon

South Park Studios

In conservative circles, Donald Trump's selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate on Monday has been met with mostly positive reviews. Though some factions of the right might have preferred another pick for Vice President, the majority of Republicans have been generally happy with the choice. 

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Over on the left, on the other hand ...

LOL. 

We won't go through the litany, but Twitchy readers know already that Liz Cheney is apoplectic about it, Tea Pain is furious that Vance is a white man, and one New Hampshire Democrat even tried to claim that Vance's wife Usha (who is an American citizen) might even be deported under the boogeyman of Project 2025

So, you know, a typical reaction from the left. 

Another element of Vance's selection that is making them cry is that his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, has rocketed to number one on the Amazon bestsellers list in less than two days. Similarly, as reported by The New York Post, Ron Howard's 2020 film adaptation of the book has seen a huge surge in views on Netflix of more than one thousand percent.

In the 24 hours since former President Donald Trump named Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, 39, as his running mate on the Republican ticket for the 2024 presidential election, views of the Netflix movie based on Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” have shot up 1,179%.

Citing data from Luminate, Variety reported that the 2020 film, directed by Ron Howard and starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams, was viewed 19.2 million minutes on Monday — up from 1.5 million the day before. 

On Tuesday, the paperback and hardcover editions of “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” respectively held the No. 1 and No. 2 bestseller slots on Amazon’s books list.

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Wow. It's not a surprise that the memoir and movie would increase in popularity, but those are pretty big numbers. 

This was extremely upsetting to the people at Variety, who pulled out the long knives for Howard and producer Brian Grazer for elevating Vance with their film adaptation. 

Aww, they are BIG mad. Let's see how Variety's film critic Peter Debruge describes Hillbilly Elegy:

In both the book and its middling Netflix adaptation (forgettable but for a fiery turn from Glenn Close as “Mamaw,” the woman who raised young JD while his mother was dealing with drug addiction and deadbeat boyfriends), Vance portrayed himself as an Appalachian kid from poor stock who’d escaped the Rust Belt for an Ivy League education and a lucrative career.

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.

"Legitimizing his origin story." Unbelievable. He actually wrote those words. 

Obviously, in Hollywood, you are only allowed to tell inspiring stories that elevate leftists and leftist narratives, not -- GASP! -- a Republican.

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Unfortunately for Variety, the internet is forever, and the publication had a different view of the movie when it first came out. 

Whoops. 

The movie actually received a number of accolades even though critics didn't love it (because of course they didn't). Glenn Close was nominated for an Academy Award as well as Golden Globe and SAG awards for Best Supporting Actress. Amy Adams was also nominated for a SAG award for Best Actress. 

But now that Vance is poised to become the Vice President of the United States, everyone associated with the movie -- but Ron Howard specifically -- is instantly a Hollywood Horrible PersonTM.

This is worse than the time Richie took a picture of Clarabell the Clown without makeup (yes, this writer is old). 

Heads will explode. They practically are already. 

He grew up with Sheriff Andy and Aunt Bea. He must have always been a secret conservative. 

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Variety doesn't care about those people, and they care even less about giving those people some humanity through a movie based on a best-selling memoir. 

Of course, he wasn't. But Hollywood loves some juicy scapegoats. 

Say it with us: 'THAT'S (D)IFFERENT.'

Twitter had a lot of fun with the whining from Debruge though. 

Pretty sad career highlight, if you ask us. But Debruge probably got a lot of virtue-signaling points for this article. 

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Now don't be too hard on Debruge. You know what they say. Those who can, do. Those who can't ... become film critics for Variety. 

We're not sure it's possible, but we're here to watch Debruge try. 

OOF. LOL. 

Hey, we didn't say it (but we kind of wish we had). 

It's kind of beautiful, isn't it? Almost good enough to be a Hollywood movie. 

Ron Howard can direct. 

***
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