Sexual predators and opportunistic entourages crawl through Hollywood, waiting to use and abuse promising young talent and turn their labors for a profit. The crooked city blackballed women who sought safety from the rapists running top production and talent agencies while celebrating and protecting every monster from Kevin Spacey to Harvey Weinstein. It’s the kind of city that turned Donald Trump from a tabloid sideshow to media superstar to president of the United States.
Trump understood the nature of the city that built him. It’s why he knew how to weaponize historically unifying elements of American culture such as the NFL into winning issues for conservatives and how to position himself as backlash to an elite that’s been increasingly exposed by everything from the college admissions fraud crackdown to the #MeToo movement. (If you still believe this harmed Trump more than his adversaries in the Democratic Party and Hollywood, I have some news for you.)
The president is also old and fulminating in a city he’s never really seemed to embrace. Trump is a creature of decadent Manhattan skyscrapers and Beverly Hills estates, not the staid, Brooks Brothers-decked boulevards of Washington, D.C. His increasing disconnect with the pulse of the culture wars is showing, and no more so than his apparent rant directed at an upcoming Universal Pictures film, The Hunt.
….to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2019
Weird “racism” charge aside, Trump’s tweetstorm doesn’t just miss the mark based on content, but more significantly because he’s targeting a film that makes the basic case for his rise in politics.
The eponymous “hunt” in the film, due for release next month, puts average Americans derided as “deplorables” in the firing line of wealthy elites who devise the hunt for their own sick pleasure. Based on the clips and trailers available, it clearly intends to draw a parallel to reality and mock coastal elitists who think they deserve violent supremacy over proponents of the Second Amendment or pro-life Americans, satirizing the effect to the point of literal bloodlust.
If you still don’t believe the film is a justified populist revenge fantasy rather than a call to violence against Trump supporters, just consider the casting. The trio seemingly leading the “deplorables” are two hot blonde chicks, played by Betty Gilpin and Emma Roberts, and Justin Hartley. You know, this average Joe from This Is Us.
Justin Hartley. pic.twitter.com/bWrCsKYawE
— Hot Male Celebrities (@Hotmal3celebs) July 17, 2019
The beautiful but not hot head of the elites is played by Hilary Swank, who appears intentionally icy and unsensual in the trailer.
Hollywood is a vapid enough place that in the overwhelming majority of films, beauty and sexuality confer goodness and unattractiveness spells villainy. Trump firing off at a random film that basically defends his supporters simply demonstrates that he’s disconnected from the content of the culture wars that carried him to the White House.
Hollywood’s liberal bias is real, but if Republicans respond by rejecting the entirety of arts and entertainment outright, they’ll lose the culture war for good.
