Personally, I hate the Yellowstone TV show. I’m not alone in that, although that isn’t stopping the ton of spinoffs, and most probably a gangbusters tune-in to see Kevin Costner ride off into the sunset. Yellowstone, although arguably just a slick TV show for the Trump era, does accidentally comment on several trends in society today. So let’s run through a few pros and cons of the hit that has spawned a gazillion prequels, sequels, and whatnot (somebody’s attempting to ride a gravy train to the end of the end of the line).
Con #1: Damn Yellowstone (the TV series), is unrealistic and cheesy to boot.
The cheesy part is not my opinion, I think it has plenty of style, but haters often cringe at the cheesiness they detect. Unrealistic storylines – uh yeah.
Pro #1: Nuh uh! It’s the best TV show ever.
Yellowstone lovers expect it to be unrealistic because it’s about super-fucking rich people! What do you expect? They’re rich! They’re not actual people! They’re rich people!
And how can it be cheesy? It’s set in Montana! Montana can’t be cheesy; it’s the rural American West. On a ranch! Ranches can’t be cheesy! Montana cannot be cheesy because it’s Montana and nobody lives there so no one really knows what it’s like, so probably it’s just like the show says it is – 100% gorgeous landscapes and wide open scenery. Also – it’s about rural people, and rural people are not cheesy to those who idealize rurality.
To people who do not idealize rurality; depictions of rural life can seem very cheesy indeed. This is partly because although great swathes of America are rural, not very many people live in them. Maybe 14% of the US population or so, depending on your definition. Since not very many Americans know what rural life is really like, a viewer’s imagination has a lot to do with what they think is cringe-worthy or awe-worthy about depictions of rural life.
Take for example, Jason Aldean’s Try That in a Small Town. Aldean doesn’t live in a rural area and he wasn’t raised in one. He didn’t write the song, but he also doesn’t know what he’s singing about. The song is about someone’s imagination not just of a small town but of an imagined power rural folks have that no one else does. Non-rural people apparently get sucker-punched on sidewalks and rural people seemingly have the amazing ability to stop that by being tough and, I guess, engaging in proactive or reactive sucker-punches themselves. ‘You can’t sucker punch me, cuz I got peeps who’ll sucker-punch you back! So there!”
So your view of all this to some degree depends on your view of the merits of reciprocal sucker-punches.
Social Trend #1: TV Shows about super-rich people.
Billions. Succession. The Crown. Big Little Lies. Bridgerton. White Lotus. Empire. Keeping Up With the Kardashians. All the Real Housewives shows. And more.
What’s next? A reality show about Bob ‘makes too much money’ Iger? Iger is the CEO of The Walt Disney Company, and yeah, go ahead and pitch your show called ‘CEOs’ about the wealthiest CEOs in the world and how they hang out together being rich and plotting against not just each other but everyone who is not rich. Wage theft! Collusion! Anti-trust violations! Lobbying! Price and wage-fixing! Offshoring for forced labor! Apocalypse bunkers! Fraud! Hiring little kids to clean their chicken factories and die! Lawsuits! Abuse! Exploitation! Sex with Grimes. Prison! Exotic locales. Guaranteed to be a hit in today’s climate, cheesy or not.
Personally, this is reason #1 why I hate Yellowstone. I don’t want to watch TV about super-rich people being assholes. And I certainly don’t want to root for said super-rich people just because other characters are assholes too. There’s too much super-rich assholery in the world that I’m aware of to want to tune into it for entertainment.
Just say no to shows about super-rich people! Time to get pretty fed up and tune the fuck out on that shit. Stop encouraging them! ‘
Con #2: Yeah, who cares about the spoiled rich people and their soap operas! Boooooring!
Yup, if it’s a trend, then by definition it’s going to be boring to people who are sensitive to being bored by an excess of anything. (Raises hand; yeah, that’s me.)
And let’s face it, a lot of people are bored by soap operas too. And lots of people aren’t. Case in point: married couple discussing ‘The Crown’. Married person #1: It’s basically a soap opera though (sighs). Married person #2: (Excitedly) I know!
The existence of multiple spin-offs does not decrease the boredom factor for the boredom-sensitive. It only makes it worse. Aaaaaagggghh!
Pro #2: But it’s a Western! For once! Also they aren’t spoiled! They’re tough. Because they live in a small town and punch each other!
Well I gotta agree there aren’t too many Western TV series these days. At least there weren’t. Before all those spin-offs.
As for whether they are spoiled or not, they are certainly seriously damaged (and damaging). So I guess it depends on your definition of spoiled.
Trend #2: Spoiled (or not) people freaking out because the world is changing and they are losing their old way of life.
Yellowstone addresses this theme pretty explicitly. And certainly if you look at the so-called ‘culture wars’, a lot of it seems to be about people freaking the fuck out because things are changing.
I will not disagree that things are changing. I decline to freak out about it, probably because I’m lazy. But also probably because I dislike feeling powerless, and thinking that the world is changing and there’s nothing you can do but dig your heels in and throw a tantrum is a pretty powerless feeling.
A pervading sense of powerlessness is the true social trend below the surface of all this, and thus we get the fantasy of watching rich people who feel powerless, being not powerless and fucking up everyone else that they think is powerful. Vicarious power by watching rich people powerfully fuck other people up. It’s more convoluted and therefore more subtle than singing about people in a small town fucking up non-small-town people. It’s effective partly because the viewer gets to be simultaneously powerless and powerful which is probably pretty cathartic.
And which naturally makes me hate the show all the more. Because a) the rich folks in the show are waaaaaay too powerful, and b) I don’t want to indulge in a fantasy of powerlessness. Get with the fucking times John Dutton! Get the fuck over yourself. Stop being stoic and murderous and powerful and figure out how to live in the world instead of, you know, your supposed legacy. Anywhoo…..
Con #3: No, really, why do people like Yellowstone? It’s just Dallas all over again.
I gotta disagree with this one. I wasn’t a fan of Dallas (look it up young folks!) but it was way more fun and had Larry Hagman. It was a veritable hoot compared to Yellowstone. If William Shatner was John Dutton (and William Shatner loooooves horses), I would watch it. Because William Shatner instantly makes everything less serious. Kevin Costner is seriousness personified. That’s not a diss. It just makes Yellowstone take itself too seriously. Seriously too seriously. Seriously.
Pro #3: But it’s good and I love it and ridiculousness is a feature not a bug.
Can’t argue with this line of reasoning. Ridiculousness didn’t stop people from loving Dallas so what makes anyone think the ridiculousness of Yellowstone would dim rather than enhance the love? It’s TV people; it’s supposed to be completely over the top.
Trend #3: Handsome, high-budget TV with movie stars and meticulous set direction.
Not just Yellowstone, but Big Little Lies. House of Cards. Stranger Things. Breaking Bad. Mad Men. West World. Mare of Easttown. Fargo. True Detective. All of these had at least one of those two components and sometimes both. And I am not complaining.
Con #4: John Dutton is a stubborn and despicable character. And don’t even get me started on Beth Dutton ….
Yeah, well, if despicable is your cup of tea, then you got a real fun fest going on in Yellowstone. Since despicable is absolutely not my cup of tea when it comes to protagonists, I gotta agree this characteristic of the show goes on to the con side of the ledger. For the record, I felt the same way about Succession.
Pro #4: No way – John Dutton kicks ass. And so does Beth.
If you like these characters because you think they’re flawed but also kick ass, well then you like them. I do hope you think they’re flawed though …
Trend #4: TV shows about unpleasant characters.
Breaking Bad. Mad Men. The Sopranos. The Walking Dead. Veep. Curb Your Enthusiasm. Game of Thrones. Handmaid’s Tale. Pretty Little Liars. Riverdale. Girls. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The White Lotus. Etc.
Unpleasant characters have always been a part of TV, I guess. But somehow the era of prestige TV ushered in the not-just-antiheroes trend but the let’s-just-fill-the-series-with-a-bunch-of-unpleasant-people-and-we’ll-be-sure-to-get-attention-and-critical-acclaim trend.
By and large, I’m not down with it. I made an exception for The Sopranos for a while but… while I love a good villain, I don’t want to spend my entertainment time getting invested in people and environments that are just rife with unpleasantness. Life hands that shit out for free! No need to sign up for extra.
Lots of people disagree with me, and apparently TV critics and pundits and whoever simply cannot possibly ever get enough unpleasantness to slake their thirst. Makes me wonder what kind of lives fans of unpleasantness lead. Or what is going on inside them. Maybe they are unpleasant with themselves so it just seems like warm, comforting bathwater to them to be enveloped in it on TV.
Pro #5: Scenery, outfits, ranching, horses, bunkhouse antics, grizzled old rancher guy who works with Rip!
Sometimes I get the feeling that Americans must be very scenery-deprived. I’ve got mountains to gaze at outside my window and plenty of perversely wide open spaces a short car trip away. I not infrequently pass a working ranch on my travels and it doesn’t look that glamorous. Which makes me, I guess, not that susceptible to the charms of pictures of Montana.
Con #5: But the people suck! They treat each other horribly. Also, the rodeo shit is just goofy and weird.
Some folks find roping calves and riding horses not that compelling. Go figure.
Trend #5: Discussion of old white folks’ fantasies
Stir up a discussion about Yellowstone and sooner or later someone will have to point out this the show is kind of an old white guy’s wet dream. I don’t know that Yellowstone’s audience consists mainly of old white guys, but I personally am of the opinion that many of us in America know far too much about old white guys and their fantasies about how America should be.
A semi-buzz-phrase of late is ‘gerontocracy.’ Gerontocracy basically means way damn too many old fart politicians running the government and driving everyone to despair.
Stop it! Stop it old fart politicians and go away! America is pretty fed up with you guys and it’s not a joke. More than 70% of Americans think their so-called leaders are too damn old. Even old people think that. I think that and I’m old. Well, not if I was in Congress. Then I’d be a juvenile pipsqueak.
Old people also have way more than their share of the nation’s wealth, due in large part to luck of their circumstances. To add to the schism white people are old. There are, apparently, a bunch of 58 year old white people running around, voting, and fantasizing about small towns and the world never changing. People who are not old white guys, though, fantasize about things like not being crippled by student debt burdens or not living in a world where the climate changes to a status known officially as ‘burning lake of fire’ (more informally, ‘hell’).
Time, indeed, to get pretty fed up.
Con #6: Rednecks love Yellowstone, so therefore normal people should hate it.
I’m not sure that either of these things is the case, but I am definitely aware that some people hate the show just because they believe that people that they hate like it. I personally do not choose what to like or dislike based on who else likes or dislikes it. But I might be weird that way.
Pro #6: You ignorant redneck-hating slut! It’s not about rednecks it’s about characters with depth!
Fans of the show often point to the depth of the characters. I think by this they mean that the characters are intense, and not consistently hateful or loving but inconsistently both. This is apparently a good thing.
I agree that it can be – especially if the hatefulness of the supposedly sympathetic characters was dialed down to something below predictably murderous, bullying ruthlessness.
Trend #6: Lots of hardcore swearing and nudity on Yellowstone.
This, of course, is a cable TV trend exemplified by the channel formerly known as HBO. I’m all in on this one. Keep your mouths a-running Yellowstone characters!
Con #7: Yellowstone is a low-grade melodrama. A melodramatically melodramatic melodrama.
Pro #7: Hell yeah! Bring on the dramatic dramatic-ness.
Since when did a series of overly dramatic events followed by more overly dramatic events that don’t really change anything become a bad thing?
Not a Trend #7. The series creator has said that Yellowstone is The Godfather on a ranch.
I didn’t like The Godfather. I don’t like glamorization of thugs just because they’re related to one another or belong to some sort of loyal clump of thugs. I don’t like bullies. I don’t like series about murderers (yeah, including you Dexter!). I don’t like mean-spirited shows (yeah, you Larry David). And I don’t like endless scenes of people sucking up to bullies and thugs. I’m not fed up with this kind of entertainment though, because I just don’t consume it.
All right – I’m weird that way, and I’m hypocritical too since I liked the Sopranos. Not to mention Scarface with Al Pacino. In my defense, I will only say that I felt that neither of those two glamorized crime. Just the opposite, in fact. They humanized the inherent tragedy and uselessness of such a life.
Does that make me a fucking humanist or something? It might. It just might.
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