Politicians have always been defined, at least in part, by their favorite movies. Woodrow Wilson had Birth of a Nation. Richard Nixon had Patton. Donald Trump has Sunset Boulevard and Citizen Kane.
The films that define the worldview of incoming Vice President JD Vance? It may be a toss-up between an indie cult classic and a sappy 2000s rom-com.
Vance got his start in national politics as an author and memoirist, but on the campaign trail he revealed himself to be something of a cinephile as well, dotting his speeches and public remarks with references to his favorite Hollywood films and TV shows (and no, not just Hillbilly Elegy or Lord of the Rings).
While the movies Vance alluded to cover a range of styles and genres — from Martin Scorsese’s historical epic Gangs of New York to the rom-com Forgetting Sarah Marshall — they tell a coherent story about his cultural outlook.
Most obviously, Vance — who turned 40 this past August — is the first millennial to serve as vice president, meaning his cultural reference points are much more recent than those favored by the gray-haired generations that still dominate Washington. (The oldest film Vance referred to was released in 1991 — the year Mitch McConnell was sworn into his second term in the Senate.)
But more specifically to Vance, his cinematic references are drawn primarily from movies that are preoccupied with the seedier and less glamorous sides of American life, from the rise of gang violence in South Central Los Angeles to the spiritual ennui of the New Jersey suburbs. Taken together, the films Vance has publicly name-checked paint an ambivalent picture of an America beset by both material and spiritual crises — a far cry from the triumphant picture of the country that dominated the silver screen during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
In this respect, Vance’s featured films offer some insight into the worldview that has shaped his particular brand of nationalist-populist conservativism. Like many of his fellow travelers on the “New Right” of the Republican Party, Vance has argued that the next generation of conservatives can’t just focus on conserving what they see as valuable parts of America’s political and cultural heritage, which — as Vance’s favorite movies suggest — have been destroyed by darker cultural impulses. Faced with this cultural landscape, Vance has written, conservatives need to “rebuild” those traditions using an “offensive conservatism, not merely one that tries to prevent the left from doing things we don’t like.”
Here are the films — all of which Vance has publicly mentioned by name — that have shaped that mission.
Inside JD Vance’s Hollywood
Source: Inside JD Vance’s Hollywood
