Commentary: Pop culture isn't biased toward 'coastal elites.' If anything, it's the opposite
An odd result of both the election Donald Trump won and the one he lost was to raise the question of whether the panjandrums of popular culture were — and are — doing enough for the people who supported — and still support — him. Telling their stories. Respecting their lives. Feeling their pain.
The 2016 election, it's fair to say, took most people by surprise, including, many believe, the person elected. Among other things, this eleventh-hour upset set Hollywood — which skews to the left — to wonder what it might have overlooked, an audience not merely underserved but also untapped. As in the political media, this business tends to be discussed in dualistic terms: coastal elites versus flyover states, urban versus rural, red versus blue, nonbinary versus super-binary and so on. The real world is more granular and complex, of course; there are progressive farmers and conservative sitcom stars (a few, anyway). There are functional and dysfunctional families in every ZIP Code in the country. And everyone everywhere loves Dolly Parton.
The truth is, film and television have long
