Thread by @docMJP

The meme is a very good one. It hits on what Hollywood has played off of for a very long time: people are so starved for anything that so much as nods to their red state American existence that they will accept corrupted stories that ultimately revile and betray them.

This is what Disney did for a long time before the unvarnished wokeness started soaking through the camouflage. Guys like Iger are masters of this. You can’t let the rubes out there know your actual “values” but you help them “progress” by using stories that nod to their own.

You nod to their traditional understandings but you do so ultimately to subvert them. This is what mass entertainment has been about for a long time. So long that what was once concealed now is public and tyrannically enforced and although many disagree it still wins the day.

These stories and popular media, like education, are what ultimately molds the public mind and heart—what ultimately shapes opinion. There is no victory without control of education and media, and this is what the Right ceded over to people who hate it and hate red state America.

In the case of Yellowstone, which is part of the red state-nodding empire Taylor Sheridan has built, starting with Sicario and Hell or High Water, we must say this: the guy is good. And the popularity of his stuff proves the thesis as to what’s desperately wanted by the audience.

And while I do not necessarily think he’s personally, consciously playing the game I describe above, his stuff increasingly ends up bowing to the woke gods.

@matthewdmarsden spoke insightfully about his genius a bit on the show here:

newfounding.podbean.com/e/a-festivus-o…

Many aspects, much to say (better to do!), but final point for now: conflated confusion in such shows is also just reflective of actual confused & contradictory understanding & political & cultural state of voters/red state America itself. Which the meme brilliantly reflects.

ps

pps