RECESS  |  CULTURE

The limits and paradoxes of pop culture’s liberalism

<p>Celebrities like Beyoncé and Jay Z have been vigorously opposed to Trump's presidency.&nbsp;</p>

Celebrities like Beyoncé and Jay Z have been vigorously opposed to Trump's presidency. 

The last presidential election seemed to open a rift within the pop culture community. On the one hand, we saw a reality-television show host rise to power in no small part due to his celebrity status. On the other, we witnessed the combined forces of Beyoncé, Jay-Z and a whole host of entertainers stand for his rival. Never before has the liberal skew of pop culture seemed more apparent. Never before, too, has its politics seemed more contradictory—President Trump, after all, has long been a pop culture icon.

This all begs the question: is pop culture really “liberal”?

Pop culture, of course, is no monolith. But the leftward leanings of this vaguely defined nexus of singers and actors and producers is hard to deny. After all, Trump had to reach all the way back to 2003 to find someone who would play his inauguration. The two nuclei of pop culture, Hollywood and New York, are two of the bluest areas in the country. And historically, art—and its extension, the entertainment industry—has sprung from the oppressed, those demanding change.

Already in the weeks since Trump’s inauguration, a number of entertainers have used their platforms to call out the president on his policies and stand in solidarity with minorities, immigrants and refugees. Last week, “Stranger Things” star David Harbour brought down the house at the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, turning Winona Ryder into a living meme in the process. Before that, Meryl Streep delivered a blistering defense of Hollywood, the arts and the press at the Golden Globes, saying, “When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”

For an observer watching from home, something in these speeches rang hollow (we’ll talk about the unfair vilification of the MMA later). The entertainment industry has a long history of paying lip service to progressive causes.

Just take the 2016 Grammy Awards, which included a memorable performance from rap king incumbent Kendrick Lamar. The performance—which LL Cool J dubbed “very controversial” before it even happened, a bizarrely premature judgment that may have hinted at the show’s goal—featured chain gangs, references to Africa and some mean pyrotechnics. Like Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance, it seemed designed to inflame, to bring difficult issues to the masses.

Only it didn’t, at least not completely. Perhaps the most powerful line in the chorus of Lamar’s “Alright”— “And we hate po-po, wanna kill us dead in the street for sure”—was conspicuously swapped for the innocuous “I’m at the preacher’s door” that would normally follow in the song. In a spectacle so intent on controversy, the omission undermined that goal. From networks like CBS, which hosts the Grammys, the message seems to be: Push some buttons, but not too many. Make a statement, but not too much.

Underpinning pop culture’s ideology is the fact that behind every performance and awards show and entertainment product is a corporation with its own set of interests. To truly embrace progressive ideals would be to dismantle the system on which these industries are built.

A number of beloved corporations have made headlines recently for their politics. Of course, there’s been the Uber-versus-Lyft fiasco in the wake of protests at JFK Airport. Before #DeleteUber, though, surprising revelations came out of that most revered of all pseudo-Woodstocks: the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival.

Philip Anschutz—who owns Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns concert operator Goldenvoice, which owns Coachella—was recently found to have monetary ties to anti-LGBT and climate change denial groups. The fact that this news was surprising to music journalists, concertgoers and musicians alike was itself no surprise. To most people, a place like Coachella is the last place they’d expect conservative ideology.

Then again, isn’t a Hollywood star the last person we’d expect to lead the charge against the “Hollywood elite”?

What this all amounts to is a strange contradiction between the values espoused by pop culture and the values enacted by those who have the most control over it. Hollywood liberalism, Coachella liberalism and Lyft liberalism are united in that they outwardly call for change while failing to address the systemic issues that boil underneath. In a culture dominated by corporations and consumerism, it will take more than a speech from a celebrity to effect real progress.

No matter how many singers campaigned for Hillary Clinton or abstained from Trump’s inauguration, pop culture’s brand of liberalism is one that only takes progressivism as far as it will benefit consumerism and no further. Its joined forces were not enough to prevent Trump from taking the White House. They will certainly not be enough to prevent him for the next four years.

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