Interesting take. I saw a few episodes of the show on a plane and found it unappealing for basically the same reasons Rob describes, but I’ve heard the show described as ‘peak tv for red states’- so I’m surprised to see it described as progressive or hear that conservative activists are dragging it. My impression was that it’s meant to present people who do things like cattle ranching as heroic figures preserving a virtuous way of life in the face of less virtuous modern ways of living like actually making money.
The show’s apparent popularity among right wing boomers is rather revealing about some of the pathologies of this demographic in my view. The very fact that John Dutton is regarded as some kind of protagonist is amusing in its own right as he’s basically launching an actual war that results in several deaths just to prevent anyone from disrupting his antiquated hobbies; the way that outsiders and ‘transplants’ (basically people who have real jobs and want to conduct regular business in Montana) are depicted as cartoon villains is eye-rolling. I was genuinely unclear if the audience is meant to sympathize with the Duttons at all but I think they are considered the protagonists, even when engaging in unsavory behavior.
I often hear from right wing media that liberal elites look down at rural conservatives and think they are better. In my view, this has it backwards: urban liberals don’t think about rural America much at all- the idea that some hipsters in Brooklyn are wasting any brain space on the goings on in rural Montana reflects a weird kind of delusional narcissism. By contrast, as reflected in this show, rural conservatives create whole tv series devoted to depicting themselves as superior to everyone else, featuring lurid fantasies of physical violence carried out against outsiders and long diatribes against ‘transplants.’ I can’t think of a counter example of a liberal tv show where some hipster gives an extended soliloquy about how much better he is than cattle ranchers and then arranges to have them murdered purely out of spite. But maybe I’ve been misreading the show altogether and everyone else agrees that the Duttons are losers.
I'd disagree that Yellowstone is woke - it quite deliberately lets characters have different points of view and doesn't try at all to cram an ideology down its viewers' throats. It's no accident that Beth, who is profoundly unwoke, has become a wildly popular character among women viewers, for example. And Thomas Rainwater isn't very woke as the ex-Wall Street tribal chief committed to using the market to recover tribal lands.
You might take a look at the special issue of PERC Reports from the Property and Environment Research Center, where a number of PERC-affiliated folks (including me) wrote about free market environmental themes we found in particular scenes in the show. Taylor Sheridan joined us via Zoom for part of the conference where we discussed our pieces and in his remarks he stressed his view that entertainment shows shouldn't be pushing ideologies on viewers but let them make up their own minds. https://www.perc.org/2021/12/06/the-yellowstone-we-know/
Great episode, but can Rob please not spoil TV shows other than the one that's being discussed? He gave what sounds like a major spoiler for Succession, which I was planning to watch.
This show just seems like very typical Taylor Sheridan. If you’ve seen the movies he’s written, the common themes are: they’re neo-westerns that lionize the downtrodden in a populist fashion, like poor uneducated types or native Americans on reservations, who are being victimized by a big bank or oil company; also, narratively pretty straightforward. Wind River and Hell or High Water were both good but very conventional movies.
If I had to impute an ideology to SherIdan’s work it’d probably be class-first leftish with some primitivism mixed in. Sheridan is at his best when he’s making movies with straightforward plots, well done action scenes and reasonably engaging if mildly cliche characters. He can make a good 2 hours worth of entertainment out of that, but running a TV show just doesn’t seem like it would be his forte. It requires a lot more enduring creativity than making a decent film.
Your really off beam on this one. I subscribed to your Stack to see how far you’ve gone. You say you’re not truly right wing just someone whose a Contrarian. I consider myself a Contrarian in that I like to challenge mainstream thinking. But from what I’ve seen of your latest Stacks they’re just outright right wing attack. I’m still struggling to see how Yellowstone even figures in the woke debate to be honest. If any show challenges wokeness it’s Yellowstone.
I've watched it a little, there are some interesting themes from living close to the range. The thing that bothers me the most is that it's never snowing and freezing cold in Montana in this show!! Anyone who's lived there knows this is the biggest falsehood of all
The Ultimate Boomer Bait
Interesting take. I saw a few episodes of the show on a plane and found it unappealing for basically the same reasons Rob describes, but I’ve heard the show described as ‘peak tv for red states’- so I’m surprised to see it described as progressive or hear that conservative activists are dragging it. My impression was that it’s meant to present people who do things like cattle ranching as heroic figures preserving a virtuous way of life in the face of less virtuous modern ways of living like actually making money.
The show’s apparent popularity among right wing boomers is rather revealing about some of the pathologies of this demographic in my view. The very fact that John Dutton is regarded as some kind of protagonist is amusing in its own right as he’s basically launching an actual war that results in several deaths just to prevent anyone from disrupting his antiquated hobbies; the way that outsiders and ‘transplants’ (basically people who have real jobs and want to conduct regular business in Montana) are depicted as cartoon villains is eye-rolling. I was genuinely unclear if the audience is meant to sympathize with the Duttons at all but I think they are considered the protagonists, even when engaging in unsavory behavior.
I often hear from right wing media that liberal elites look down at rural conservatives and think they are better. In my view, this has it backwards: urban liberals don’t think about rural America much at all- the idea that some hipsters in Brooklyn are wasting any brain space on the goings on in rural Montana reflects a weird kind of delusional narcissism. By contrast, as reflected in this show, rural conservatives create whole tv series devoted to depicting themselves as superior to everyone else, featuring lurid fantasies of physical violence carried out against outsiders and long diatribes against ‘transplants.’ I can’t think of a counter example of a liberal tv show where some hipster gives an extended soliloquy about how much better he is than cattle ranchers and then arranges to have them murdered purely out of spite. But maybe I’ve been misreading the show altogether and everyone else agrees that the Duttons are losers.
I'd disagree that Yellowstone is woke - it quite deliberately lets characters have different points of view and doesn't try at all to cram an ideology down its viewers' throats. It's no accident that Beth, who is profoundly unwoke, has become a wildly popular character among women viewers, for example. And Thomas Rainwater isn't very woke as the ex-Wall Street tribal chief committed to using the market to recover tribal lands.
You might take a look at the special issue of PERC Reports from the Property and Environment Research Center, where a number of PERC-affiliated folks (including me) wrote about free market environmental themes we found in particular scenes in the show. Taylor Sheridan joined us via Zoom for part of the conference where we discussed our pieces and in his remarks he stressed his view that entertainment shows shouldn't be pushing ideologies on viewers but let them make up their own minds. https://www.perc.org/2021/12/06/the-yellowstone-we-know/
It’s Trojan Horse Wokism just like Peaky Blinders.
> but it can also be fun to turn your brain off for an hour and enjoy...
...cable TV news and politicians. Its even more fun if youre stoned.
Great episode, but can Rob please not spoil TV shows other than the one that's being discussed? He gave what sounds like a major spoiler for Succession, which I was planning to watch.
As a tail-end boomer, I will attest that Yellowstone is not woke. The characters are repellent, and the overt ideology predates Ayn Rand.
Plus everything gets solved by killing someone, for which no one gies to prison. (How does law enforcement know nothing of the gigantic open grave?)
Token sprinkles of contemporary matters are still solved using the Rand hymn book.
The rest is ridiculous soap opera. It's entertainment, not woke.
#NotAllBoomers
This show just seems like very typical Taylor Sheridan. If you’ve seen the movies he’s written, the common themes are: they’re neo-westerns that lionize the downtrodden in a populist fashion, like poor uneducated types or native Americans on reservations, who are being victimized by a big bank or oil company; also, narratively pretty straightforward. Wind River and Hell or High Water were both good but very conventional movies.
If I had to impute an ideology to SherIdan’s work it’d probably be class-first leftish with some primitivism mixed in. Sheridan is at his best when he’s making movies with straightforward plots, well done action scenes and reasonably engaging if mildly cliche characters. He can make a good 2 hours worth of entertainment out of that, but running a TV show just doesn’t seem like it would be his forte. It requires a lot more enduring creativity than making a decent film.
Your really off beam on this one. I subscribed to your Stack to see how far you’ve gone. You say you’re not truly right wing just someone whose a Contrarian. I consider myself a Contrarian in that I like to challenge mainstream thinking. But from what I’ve seen of your latest Stacks they’re just outright right wing attack. I’m still struggling to see how Yellowstone even figures in the woke debate to be honest. If any show challenges wokeness it’s Yellowstone.
I've watched it a little, there are some interesting themes from living close to the range. The thing that bothers me the most is that it's never snowing and freezing cold in Montana in this show!! Anyone who's lived there knows this is the biggest falsehood of all