Why Everybody Who Chooses to Argue About The Culture War As Important Is A Fool
And Why Neither Side Will Let Go Any Time Soon
The dumbest thing any political figure in either party can ever possibly do is to declare war on a word. I’ve lost count on how many of those ‘wars’ have been going on in my lifetime: war on poverty, on drugs, on crime, on terror, on inequality — you name it.
I don’t know what genius it was in politics who came up with this idea because this is flawed in at least three critical ways, aside from the idea of fighting against a concept:
1. Unlike wars against countries or foreign powers, you have no clear idea who the enemy is. Therefore the government has no real idea where to direct its energy and it invariably puts in the wrong place.
2. No one knows what victory over this idea looks like because it’s abstract. How do we know when we’ve defeated drugs, crime or poverty? What does it look like?
3. By arguing that the fight is ‘a war’ you have played into the fundamental American concept that you can never retreat from it because that is a defeat. As a result, even the idea of reframing it puts you on target for endless political outrage on your opponents who will capitalize on it for their own gain.
This last one is, frankly, the only real winner of all these so-called wars: anyone who argues about how important it is you elect someone who can wage it better.
In that sense the so-called culture wars are just another version of these similar fights. In some senses it’s different as at least one side — the conservatives — can at least point to something they’re looking for in winning. It is of course a racist, misogynistic, homophobic war based entirely in white supremacy and there is no possible way that when it comes to Hollywood — where the major battlegrounds have been fought for at least half a century — they will ever be able to win it.
The problem is slightly different than with all of these other wars, and its something that neither side has ever truly grasped. Compared to other parts of the culture war — the ones that involve the law and other restrictions on society — the one in Hollywood is almost irrelevant to the rest of the larger issues. Hollywood is not a branch of government or corporate America in the larger sense: it’s entertainment and despite what so many people on both sides — and indeed within the industry — believe, the problems of racial, gender, and other forms of diversity don’t matter a hill of beans compared to all of the other struggles doing on in society. Indeed, compared to all of the very real struggles that so many of these minorities face throughout America as well as all of the bigotry, whether or not any minority appears in a film or television show, is basically irrelevant. The only people it really matters to are the people in Hollywood and as we already know, they’ve got an inflated opinion of themselves to begin with (no doubt magnified by all the cameras on them on a regular basis)
I say this, for the record, as someone who has taken on as his main job at this site to watch and review their work. Those of you who have read my column know that I have almost entirely tried to keep any political opinions out of my reviews of so many works of art. That is because I sincerely believe that great storytelling transcends whoever it’s a talking about. As a white cisgender male, I have been able to emotionally connect with series that, by the makeup of their casts and writers, not meant for me. Some of the shows on my top ten lists over the years have including Ramy, Insecure, Jane The Virgin, Beef, Pose and Fellow Travelers. I recognize that these series have not been aimed for my demographic specifically but that has never stopped me from loving the work by all of these people involved and on multiple occasions, promoting them for Emmy nominations and other awards. I have tried to look at all work through the lens of storytelling, performance and technical aspects. Whether the story is about characters who look like me is very look on my considerations for appreciating them.
And I think that those people who reject them because of their own beliefs and think they are sign of a moral decline in Hollywood and America (sometimes overlapping, sometimes not) are bigoted, small-minded people who I often wonder have nothing better to do with their time than demonstrate how fundamentally racist and offensive they are. I have no use for them in my life and I want to support the struggles of those that cry out for equality.
But at the same time, I don’t hold for one instant any of these shows, movies or entertainments are anything more than a reflection of the struggles going on and certainly will do nothing to win the fight for equality. Those people who choose to argue that pop culture is some kind of great political struggle — one that, if anything, is more important then the very real struggles that so many of those who suffer from discrimination but don’t have the benefit of being millionaires playing them on screen — are, in their own way, as delusional and foolish as those who denounce these groups appearing on screen.
I still don’t know why, particularly after the labor stoppage that has basically done much to harm the industry during the spring and summer of 2023, anyone could still have the very real impression that Hollywood is nothing more than a business. Entertainment is an industry. You may not personally pay money to watch their product on any of the streaming services but believe me people made money to write it, to direct it and to star in it. And someone paid a lot of money to put that story on the screen because they thought they could money from it. The all-female remake of Ghostbusters was not made for some battle for gender equality. It was an investment for the studio — one that, for the record, didn’t pay off. Shonda Rhimes may be breaking grounds in diversity across every show she’s apart of but the only reasons she’s allowed to do is the same reason that the Dick Wolfs and Vince Gilligan’s: studios think that she can make them money.
Yes it is wonderful that female, minority and LGBTQ+ performers and writers are able to make groundbreaking stories for TV and movies as never before. Hollywood is not, however, doing it because they have such big hearts or because they truly think that society will see these movies and shows en masse and, Mon Dieu, bigotry as we know it will end in society. No, they’re doing it to advance their bottom lines. That is why corporations do everything. It’s really why everybody does almost everything something that is ignored by the left and that the right, which has a clearer vision on this, tends to omit in its rants about the industry.
In a sense both sides are winning the wars about pop culture though I’m pretty sure one side hasn’t realized how insignificant their victories are compared to the right. On the side of the left, Hollywood has managed to make great strides in diversity across the board for people of every single minority in the coalition. On the other, the right has managed to convince quite a lot of average Americans that this is a destructive force, have tied it in to the Democratic parties values and have convinced a lot of them to vote Republican.
Now I would argue that the conservatives victories are far more significant for the country as a whole and will definitely effect many of those minorities who don’t have the benefits of the wealth and privilege of those in Hollywood in a way that will negatively impact their way of life for the next four years and possibly far longer. I’d also argue that those people who choose to spend a lot of time and energy arguing that any time Hollywood chooses to make a decision that comes at the expense of a minority group on the screen in a film or TV show as the equivalent of any executive order or piece of legislation that will hurt that same group infinitely more is engaged in the most active form of navel gazing and engaging in the same kind of false outrage and grievances that the right has been doing for years, albeit far more successfully.
But I also know having spent far too much time on this site and others that these are the same kind of battles that so many of this generation and minority groups have decided that they are fronts that they’re going to wage with virtual pens posing as swords. That they truly see these products — which are products of an industry — as part of some great moral struggle in which the people waging them are, in some ways, as much the enemy as those in active opposition to them — shows how small their worlds are compared to the larger ones.
Hollywood is not a microcosm of society. It is an industry that produces a product. It may hold up a mirror to its inequities, it may tell stories to elevate the underprivilege, but it can’t bring about great societal change on its own. Change can only come from the electorate and the political forces and aside from campaign contributions by some of its wealthier members, Hollywood has no real impact on societal change. Some people may think it does but that’s because the actors within believe their own press and because the conservative media has chosen to make them their target for more than half a century. Celebrity endorsements change nothing in our society unless the voters are willing to listen and the product they make does even less to influence that dialogue. And it only happens because corporations think there’s profit in it — something that everyone who works in it goes out of their way to deny any truth about when they appear promoting their films or shows.
Pop culture is a business. It’s not a battle for the soul of society, it’s not going to be the single leading cause of societal change and it’s not some kind of subtle argument for whatever political meaning certain scholars want to read into it. I don’t deny the very real problems in our society and how they’ve infected so much of our discourse. I do deny that any part of it can be repaired through the entertainment industry.
But I know this opinion will never sink in besides those who might be inclined to agree already. I hope that number gets larger over the years and maybe it will. I do know that, as with almost everything else and particularly those endless wars against nebulous concepts, the loudest voices will keep rising up on partisan lines. And like so much of our discourse it will never be resolved because so many of us are having completely different conversations and the other side doesn’t want to hear.
After all, if you listen to other people, then you might think the battle’s pointless. If you think that far, you might want us to walk away. And of course if that happens ‘they’ will win. You don’t know who ‘they’ are but you do know losing is not an option even if you don’t know what you’re fighting about to begin with.