Following the 2023 Grammy Awards, which saw Sam Smith and Kim Petras stage a satanic ritual on live television (sponsored by Pfizer), liberal commentator Joy Reid pronounced the culture war over, claiming the Left had won in a rout.
She was right, of course. The forces of progressivism now wield unquestioned authority in American culture. For at least a decade, every major nonreligious institution has pledged loyalty to the movement in writing, from corporations to academia to Hollywood. College applicants must now bend their knee to the new orthodoxy in order to be considered for admittance. Job seekers and Hollywood aspirants must scrub their socials of wrongthink. Reid’s assertion was and is self-evidently true.
But she wasn’t supposed to say it out loud. The now dominant moral framework relies upon a static hierarchy of identity groups that places straight, white, cisgendered Christian men at the top. Any sign of fluctuation, such as the ubiquity of woke ideology in cultural power centers or the earnings dominance of Asian Americans over all other ethnic groups, upends the entire system. After all, one cannot simultaneously be predominant and marginalized.
(Reid, who is the daughter of an engineer and college professor, a Harvard graduate, a multimillionaire, and who has lamely attempted to blame “hackers” on past homophobic blog posts, is an ironic bearer of this good/bad news.)
But in order to continue reaping the social benefits of perceived “marginalization,” prominent figures from within cultural progressivism must now perform this fraught balancing act; they must continue to present themselves as “marginalized” despite obvious shifts in power dynamics.
Last week, Rolling Stone’s widely discussed interview and photoshoot with actress Kristen Stewart laid bare the dilemma. Images of a mulleted and conspicuously unshowered Stewart wearing garb meant to evoke lesbianism — a softball jersey, high athletic socks with racer stripes, “granny” underwear, etc. — went viral, but not for the reason the magazine would have hoped. Instead of fomenting outrage among traditionalists, the risque shots underscored the progressive reliance upon outsider status as a means of transforming vacuous “shock art” into something profound.
The only problem was that no one was buying it. The article was pilloried on X for its bald cynicism, as well as its demonstration of the pervasive deficit in the progressive imagination. For a movement that prides itself on subversiveness, its commitment to lazy stereotypes never ceases to amaze.
“I want to do the gayest f***ing thing you’ve ever seen in your life,” Stewart said in the interview, “If I could grow a little mustache, if I could grow a f***ing happy trail and unbutton my pants, I would.”
The sentiment was supposed to be “edgy,” but instead it evoked the image of Steve Buscemi posing as a high school student with a skateboard slung over his shoulder on 30 Rock. After all, what could possibly be more mainstream in 2024 than Stewart spreading her legs while wearing a shirt that says “eat me” in Rolling Stone? Or foisting her hand down her crotch and staring vacantly into the camera?
In response to the chorus of groans, both Rolling Stone and Stewart went into damage control and, to the surprise of precisely no one, pretended the uproar was really about “the patriarchy” — or something.
“The existence of a female body thrusting any type of sexuality at you that’s not designed for or desired by exclusively cis straight males is something that people are not like super comfy with, so I’m really happy with it,” she said at a press conference for the Berlin International Film Festival.
Rolling Stone’s X account, for its part, responded to the mockery by saying, “Right-wing influencers are once again furious that a celebrity, this time Rolling Stone cover star Kristen Stewart, is gender-nonconforming.”
The only problem, of course, was that virtually no one on X or elsewhere was “furious” by the shoot. Many laughed at the pitiable attempt to remain relevant, but no one was scandalized.
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As I watched this manufactured culture war “controversy” unfold, I couldn’t help but imagine how offended I’d be by this cynical media strategy if I were a gay person. This brazen attempt to seek relevance and ultimately profit from the perpetuation of a lame stereotype is both exploitative and insulting. It undermines the pursuit of dignity and makes a mockery of the experiences of non-celebrity queer people.
But for progressives who rely upon an outdated model of cultural power, and who utterly lack any spark of true inspiration or intelligence, it remains the preferred avenue to notoriety. Ginned-up controversies such as the Stewart interview are a necessary evil for a movement that hasn’t adapted to its own dominance and is utterly bereft of new ideas.
Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, and the National Catholic Register.
