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PORTSIDE CULTURE

WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHY TRUMP WON THE ELECTION? LOOK AT POP CULTURE.
 
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Kyndall Cunningham
November 15, 2024
Vox
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_ This pendulum swing from the sort of diversity-focused art that
dominated pop culture during the Obama years to what we’re seeing
now is hardly unprecedented. _

Singers Post Malone and Morgan Wallen performing at the 57th Annual
CMA Music Awards on November 8, 2023 , Frank Micelotta/Disney via
Getty Images

 

Kyndall Cunningham
[[link removed]] is a culture writer
interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and
celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and
contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine,
and Bitch Media.

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Earlier this year, conservatives on social media claimed an unlikely
new icon. It wasn’t a podcaster with questionable views or a
libertarian businessman selling a course or any particular ideology.
It was actress Sydney Sweeney, _Euphoria_ star and the recent lead
of the rom-com _Anyone but You._

Following her _Saturday Night Live_ hosting gig in March, two
conservative outlets published
[[link removed]] columns
[[link removed]] heralding
Sweeney as a return to conventional beauty standards of the ’90s and
early 2000s — or as, Bridget Phetasy for the Spectator put it,
“the giggling blonde with an amazing rack.” Both pieces postulate
that, by wearing low-cut dresses and playing up her sexuality, Sweeney
was inviting men to gawk at her, therefore raising a middle finger to
“woke culture” and the Me Too movement.

Sweeney hasn’t publicly aligned herself with the right in any way.
(Her family’s politics
[[link removed]],
though, were the subject of controversy in 2022, which may have
something to do with the right’s eager embrace of her.) Rather, her
ascension as a throwback-y, hyper-feminine sex symbol has given
conservatives the rare mainstream Gen Z figure on whom to project
their values. For those paying close attention, the past year was rife
with springboards for the conservative message.

In the hindsight following Trump’s reelection, it seems the
zeitgeist of 2024 was a foreshadowing of his return to office and
something forecasters might have considered a little more seriously.
“Bro country” singers became the artists de jour, going
head-to-head with female pop singers on the charts and, in many
cases, outperforming them
[[link removed]].
The buzziest new reality shows were about Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders
[[link removed]] and Mormon
TikTokers
[[link removed]].
Conservative films from smaller distributors, like the
biopic _Reagan_ and Daily Wire documentary _Am I Racist?_, made
millions at the box office. Nominally apolitical podcasters and
streamers, from Joe Rogan to the Nelk Boys, hosted
presidential candidates
[[link removed]] and
took on an increasingly political valence.

It’s a sharp turn from the liberal-coded pop culture of the Obama
years
[[link removed]] and
the sort of trends that took off in response to Trump’s first
presidency — comic-book movies with a progressive edge like _Wonder
Woman_ and _Black Panther, _social commentary films like _Get
Out_ and _Promising Young Woman_, not to mention the explosion of
drag culture
[[link removed]].

Joel Penney, an associate professor at Montclair State University,
says the overall conservative feel of pop culture at the moment is, in
many ways, a response to the Me Too movement
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the notion by its detractors that “masculinity is in crisis.” At
the same time that we’re seeing Sweeney receive praise for
representing “traditional” femininity, the All-American straight
white “bro” is getting renewed cultural attention.

“There’s been a lot of this trying to restore these strong male
role models in pop culture, whether it’s Tom Cruise in the _Top
Gun_ remake or these ‘bro’ podcasters and country singers,”
Penney says.

2024 WAS ALL ABOUT THE STRAIGHT WHITE BRO

We can see this happening most visibly in mainstream music. It’s not
just that country music — a Southern genre with a past and present
of conservative politics — has emerged in the mainstream over the
past two years — with
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It’s that this class of musicians — Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan,
Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Shaboozey, and the newly rustic Post Malone
— are glaringly male. Shaboozey’s unprecedented achievements in an
overwhelmingly white genre add a refreshing element to this
conversation. Beyoncé also released a successful country album
[[link removed]] this
year featuring Shaboozey and an array of Black female country
artists._ Cowboy Carter_’s lead single, “Texas Hold ’Em,”
topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, a shorter amount of time
than Morgan Wallen, Post Malone, and Shaboozey’s No.1 songs this
year. Nor was she recognized by the country establishment, getting
completely shut out of the Country Music Association awards
[[link removed]].
Overall, it seems like country fans and the average young person,
who’s listening to more country music
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days, are still more eager to hear dudes croon about beer.

Outside of the charts, these country singers have also become
mainstream personalities and subjects of celebrity gossip. In the span
of roughly a year, Bryan went from a little-known alternative country
crooner posting YouTube videos
[[link removed]] to a
celebrity whose personal relationships are being analyzed
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and explained in the pages of People
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Jelly Roll and his wife, influencer and popular podcast host Bunnie
XO, have also become a recognizable celebrity couple, while
Wallen’s dating life
[[link removed]] and public
antics
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become Page Six fodder.

[Zach Bryan in an all-black tuxedo posing beside a brunette in a lace
corset dress.]
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Singer Zach Bryan and influencer Bri LaPaglia a.k.a. Brianna
Chickenfry at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena
on February 4, 2024, in Los Angeles.

 Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty Images

Elsewhere in pop culture, figures seemingly designated for a more
male, conservative audience have gone mainstream. First, there was
the viral video
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a woman from Tennessee being asked about oral sex outside of a bar —
a very bro-y Girls Gone Wild-inspired genre that’s emerged on TikTok
— and offering a memorable onomatopoeia. There’s also the viral
Florida-based father-and-son duo A.J. and Big Justice, who do food
reviews at Costco. With the exception of Big Justice’s sister and
mother — who’s literally referred to as the “Mother of Big
Justice” in videos — this expanded universe of “Costco Guys
[[link removed]]” is made of white men
and boys from Florida and New Jersey rating foods in a cartoonishly
macho manner.

They’re not explicitly expressing MAGA as a value, but they’re
trafficking in spaces that have been less visible in recent years:
rural and suburban enclaves, featuring white, heterosexual, male, and
even “bro-y” talent that was out of vogue in recent history.

One can assume that the current MAGA-coded fabric of mainstream
culture correlates with a generation of young people who identify
as more conservative than their parents
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although Penney says the relationship between pop culture and politics
is a two-way street. While the media can reflect growing opinions and
interests of the moment, it can also be used to shape it.

“Pop culture doesn’t just emerge out of nowhere,” says Penney,
who wrote the book _Pop Culture, Politics, and the News_. “We’re
seeing attempts to shape the culture that are increasingly coming from
the conservative media ecosystem.”

CONSERVATIVES CARVED OUT A SPACE FOR THEMSELVES AT THE MOVIES

In March, Ben Shapiro’s media company the Daily Wire released its
first theatrical movie, the “satirical” documentary _Am I
Racist?, _which earned $4.5 million
[[link removed]] its
opening weekend. Currently, it’s the highest-grossing documentary of
the year along with a handful of other conservative nonfiction films
including the Catholic documentary _Jesus Thirsts: The Story of the
Eucharist_, the Dinesh D’Souza-directed _Vindicating Trump_, and
the creationist movie _The Ark and the Darkness_ all making the top
10 list [[link removed]].

2024 saw other movies from conservative studios and right-wing
producers make notable financial gains. Despite overwhelmingly
negative reviews, the Ronald Reagan biopic, _Reagan_, starring Dennis
Quaid, broke into the top 5 at the box office
[[link removed]] when
it premiered in August, doing particularly well with older, white,
and Southern audiences
[[link removed]].
Over the summer, the Christian media company Angel Studios also
released the pro-adoption movie _Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum
Trout_, marketed by Daily Wire+. While it made significantly less
money than its 2023 predecessor _Sound of Freedom_
[[link removed]]_, _which had
a vocal fan base of QAnon supporters
[[link removed]]_,_ its
nearly $12 million worldwide earnings are still a massive
accomplishment for a small Christian film with no movie stars.

While the performance of these movies has not bred the same immediate
concern of something like _Sound of Freedom_, it does provide a
potential incentive for major studios to start courting a movie-going
crowd that’s felt alienated by mainstream Hollywood.

[Actors Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones looking at a tornado in the
2024 film Twisters. ]
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Actors Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones in the 2024 film _Twisters_.

 Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Amblin Entertainment

Warner Bros has yet to produce its own _Sound of Freedom_, but
we’ve seen hints that Hollywood is interested in movies that at
least appeal to white, Southern, and conservative audiences. American
nostalgia bait came to the fore in the summer blockbuster _Twisters_.
The Oklahoma-set film with a star-studded, country-infused soundtrack
did particularly well in Southern cities and theater chains
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middle America, outperforming initial estimations. While it’s
probably most accurate to describe the film as decidedly apolitical
with some patriotic markers, it does see the white, blond savior
(played by Glen Powell) emasculate the movie’s other male main
character, Latino storm chaser Javi (Anthony Ramos). Powell happened
to produce another piece of Americana, _Blue Angels_, a look at the
US Navy’s flight demo squadron, and the fourth highest-grossing
documentary of 2024. He also co-starred with Sweeney in _Anyone but
You_, a film released at the end of 2023 that crossed the $200
million
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in early 2024.

Penney says corporations will try new strategies and pander to
different audiences, as they’ve done with Marvel and Disney’s
diversity pushes in recent years, based on what they think will
benefit them financially. They’re not really thinking about
political impact.

“That was very much the reality of capitalism at work,” Penney
says. “[Disney] was trying new strategies, not because they were
really, truly convinced that they were going to save the world through
expanding diversity, but they were getting a sense that that’s what
the audience wanted. It was a response to Me Too and Black Lives
Matter and things that actually resonated with our culture to a
degree.”

This pendulum swing from the sort of diversity-focused art that
dominated pop culture during the Obama years to what we’re seeing
now is hardly unprecedented. Specifically in music, country’s
popularity as a genre has historically corresponded with a push in
right-wing politics,
[[link removed]] from
the jingoist anthems following 9/11 to “Okie From Muskogee” during
the Nixon years. Pop culture has also seen movies with conservative
and/or religious themes, from_ American Sniper_ and _The Passion of
the Christ_, break the box office. If this current moment tells us
anything, it’s that we’re stuck in an ouroboros of shifting
political values and corporate interests.

Suffice to say, it’s not a question of whether we’ve been here
before but whether we’re paying attention to what these signals all
mean. With an honest look at our media landscape, were the results of
the election truly that surprising?

* right wing media
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* country music
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* Trump
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* conservative culture
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