I normally think your analysis on cultural issues is spot on, however I think on this one you missed the mark entirely. It has nothing to do with conservatives not producing their own art to counterbalance the other side. There are production companies doing such things now that are having some success, mostly led by Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel. What you are missing is that conservatives are tired of being bombarded with an endless display of culture that hates them in arenas that should be at worst neutral and are often mostly funded by and populated by people that are either conservative or in the middle politically. Do you really think limp-wristed, blue-haired Antifa foot soldiers are the ones supporting NFL teams? It’s art and entertainment and people have the right to complain it sucks, tune it out and disconnect from it. It’s showing in the ratings for the pointless awards shows and in athletics. The only reason the NFL is afloat is because Goodell has decided that international fans are more valuable than Americans and that he is growing the game. Euros don’t give a rats ass about American football it’s just a way for him to generate international advertising revenue which will create a bubble and burst after he is long gone and worth a billion dollars. I appreciate the call to arms but it will land flat. Still looking forward to the Thomas Sowell play.
It would have been generous of Mr Duncan to mention some artists producing excellent work in this space.
Lionel Shriver has been writing smart and relevant fiction for ages now that boldly challenges woke shibboleths.
What about the recent off Broadway production of Slam Frank? Why not expose of to these creators who mock intersectional creep in the theatre?
I recently saw a play directed by Kevin Ray in an off off setting that challenges both left and right wing perspectives.
This essay contradicts itself by it asserting that the right only whines and produces nothing. Yet he also mentions that there are artists who push back and languishing in some corner.
Your point would be better taken if conservatives hadn't offered up the rotting corpse of Kid Rock's career, a 3-minute hold music instrumental, a lesbian in a pantsuit singing gibberish, and some guy pretending he's not allowed to fish anymore. The cultural rot on the right runs so deep you don't even want to acknowledge the reality of what's going on, relying on Mel Gibson of all people to anchor the flimsiest of rejoinders.
Well, you seemed to have missed the point of my comment but that’s okay. I’m not on the right or the left because I realized long ago that it’s a pointless construct. I was responding to Clifton’s article about the right just complaining and not creating art, which as I stated, I thought he missed the mark on. I didn’t state whether the art was of a high quality merely that it exists which offered a counterpoint to Clifton’s thesis. I didn’t watch either halftime show, I watched the Olympics instead. That’s the best part about arts and entertainment, we get to choose what we like and tune in or what we don’t like and tune out. Hell, we can even say we like it or hate it. If you don’t like Kid Rock or whoever else they had at the halftime show or Mel Gibson or whoever else - awesome - don’t consume it
culture is also (at least in part over the long run) downstream from from system structures, and a key part of that is people's ability to effect it by operating in those structures, institutional spaces where people manufacture, select, standardize, and broadcast broadcast culture. The USA used to have a remarkably decentralized, diffused and pluralized cultural institutional spaces with local newspapers, regional theaters, local schools, neighborhood political clubs (that actually meant something policy wise), small publishers, local universities, fraternal orders, and on and on and on. that wasnt by accident or just a natura feature of the time period, in the 1820s we were moving to what we have now, people said no and baked decision making and influence diffusion in, it was on purpose
Post WW2, a bunch of those meaning factories and legitimacy gates got nationalized and centralized over a few decades schooling became more standardized and credential-driven; academia professionalized into tightly networked hierarchies; mass media consolidated into fewer national narrative hubs; entertainment distribution consolidated, etc
your right "right [and] left because [are] a pointless construct", these things didnt exist in any huge way amongst the general pop pre ww2, and in some ways not at all, we centralized the system and got centrally planned cultural production,
Nobody knows, but the themes of his movies are often the perspective of someone on the right. For example, Bane is clearly a leftist terrorist. Oppenheimer shown as being basically justly deprived of his security clearence even if he was also railroaded by a petty bureaucrat.
Look at Sound of Freedom as an example. Based on a true story about rescuing children from the sex trafficking. Who's against it? Hollywood, MSM, most liberals...
Shelved by Disney, the biggest pedo playground on the planet, because they figured they could buy it and make it disappear.
Bought back by the producer.
Rejected by studio after studio.
Crowdfunded 5 million dollars to market and release the film.
Grossed over $250 million worldwide.
Rotten Tomatoes Critics gave it 58% to make sure it looked like a dud at first glance because they're into the whole child-sex thing.
Rotten Tomatoes general audience (not professional critics) gave it 99%.
I saw the film and I would give it somewhere in the 85-90% range.
I'm not dodging anything. And this isn't a football game - where what you say makes you the winner, and somehow, I'm the loser. I saw the film. I was glad it was made. That said, I don't shut off my brain and say it was a great movie - because it wasn't. It was choppy, truncated storytelling, In several spots - poorly acted. But it did show POSSIBILITY for Conservative artists, and hopefully, a template for others to follow.
You might want to fight people that are your actual enemies.
Never saw it, don't intend to. Willing to accept it was poorly made for the purpose of my point. Was it more poorly made than the average cgi slopfest shat out now by Hollywood? Possibly, but I doubt it.
I think it was the subject matter that sold the movie the most, not the actors.
An actor can't make the writing and story line from crap to good. Perfect example is game of thrones. It didn't matter how well the actors acted after season 6, the subject matter was crap(the director's interpretation of books not yet made)
I am one of those conservative artists ( considered megatalented: I won an ABC and NBC TV writing fellowship, multiple hi level TV and screenwriting competitions, had work produced ( feature film, theatre, TV pilot). I collaborated with - and coached - Sundance Winners, Oscar Nominees, Emmy Award nominees. I'm also Puerto Rican...
But Hollywood HATED my outspoken views on important cultural and political issues ( early and often outspoken against Covid, the corrupt BLM, the terrorist front of Antifa) - and they blacklisted me because I was the opposite of "Woke". I believe in two genders, legal and controlled immigration, the nuclear family. I am fully aware of the Marxist agenda and 30 million alien invaders let in by that CIA psychopath and false President- Joe Biden - with the help of Zionist run NGO's.
They couldn't and wouldn't let someone like me rise up to a power player - so they circled the wagons and blacklisted me. I'm outside looking in - but I'm not OUT. I have a film I'm directing scheduled to shoot in Miami in 8 months - if I can tie together a bit more funding.
Conservative artists are rare - but they are not extinct.
"You should try selling to that new agency, CAN-SELL. They take everything we send them."
But seriously, I feel like production houses working outside the shit-lib orthodoxy just need to find some footing with a blast of shoe-string productions like Conan, Dollars Trilogy, etc. That shit was done for pocket change but the themes, the love, and some choice casting hold up to this day.
If I could offer some unsolicited audience opinion, I think of myself as a kind of sophisticated consumer and I don't really want explicit political messaging from the heterodoxy. The major studios just stopped exploring anything that wasn't rehashed liberal ontology. I don't even think of it as propaganda; I can easily imagine the professionals thinking they've got some daring new take and it's just like the thousandth version of either "Because they didn't love enough!" or "America made them a monster!" or "Being different is.... BEAUTIFUL PAIN!" I'm not even angry at the soap box anymore -- I actually just feel embarrassed for anyone who makes or consumes it earnestly.
There's so much that's just been left on the table I feel like it should be child's play to get something that feels fresh. Anyway, good luck!
Very soon, yes! I'm putting together an Instagram page for my film. The film is an adaptation of my NYC stage play called Crossing Currents. I'll post the name of the page here within a week or two as I finalize things ( the movie version has a different working title).
Thanks for asking. I may have another page for a TV series we're pitching to HBO and Netflix. I'll post both here soon.
Christian and conservative content providers are out there and the number of creators is growing. Angel Studios produces very good content. It will get better. Some of the large movie companies have noticed and made a push for more Christian or family friendly content, over the past few years.
I had to stop listening to popular music because I wanted to play a Pink song I heard on the radio for my granddaughters but, thankfully, checked the lyrics of "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" first. If I hadn't checked, I would have had to explain the term "whiskey d*ck" to a six year old girl. That was the day I began listening to Christian music.
There are some great Christian artists that I would put close to those on the mainstream side. TobyMac has been around a long time and is still putting out very relatable, very danceable music. There are many other examples. Brandon Lake is filling venues usually reserved for big name performers, as are other Christian artists.
Christians and conservatives are not only complaining, they are letting their dollars talk. Along with boycotting objectionable products and messages, as Budweiser learned, we are purchasing more conservative products, and investing in more conservative projects.
I turned off the Super Bowl to watch the TPUSA show, mostly to support them. In honesty, I haven't watched an actual halftime show in...okay, I've never watched a halftime show.
I have a similar experience with comedy! I love stand-up, and when my kids were little, I liked to play it as I was doing housework and what not. I ended up curating a comedy station on Pandora of clean comics which led me into a whole world of southern and Christian comics. It was a really cool foray into a new world of comedy for me. And of course now I follow rebel comics who stood up to the Covid madness as much as possible.
This is exactly why I only watch Dry Bar comedy. Are you familiar with it? A Mormon comedy club in Provo, UT, brings out small venue comics and pays them to do three shows. They record everything. The audience grades each comic on how funny and how clean their material was. If the comic gets a high score, the club gives a performance bonus. This is a gigantic money maker for Angel Studios. It is the only stand up comedy I’ll allow in our house.
That the thing- Hollywood KILLS indie films, look at what they’re doing to Markiplier and he’s just a regular dude- even lefty by most accounts but he made an indie film and they’re trying to kill the marketing because it embarrasses their system.
This is why I cheer for and try to support the small movie houses. Some of the Angel Studios movies still have that preachy edge but they're getting better. "Solo Mio" was a funny, heartwarming movie for Valentines Day. There were holes but we still enjoyed it.
I think the obligation to work smarter and figure out what’s better art is on the part of the studios not the consumers, but it’s still great to support those indie films
Did I miss something? The Turning Point halftime show was (I believe) the second most watched livestream in YouTube history, topping out at between 5 and 6 million concurrent viewers.
Sure, that pales in comparison to the ~100 million sportsball viewers, but considering the fact it takes effort to pull it up on the tube when most people just want to eat chicken wings and drink beer, that's not bad. It's more than good enough to stand on its own for future refinement and adaptation.
Her opinions. Another prophetic dream. The accusation of bots, even though the YouTube system accounts for that and doesn’t include them in the 20 million + views that TPUSA video got
the amount of comments to-claimed-number of viewers ratio. It tracks. Just like many other claims often made by NYTimes and liberal outlets. The ratio is always revelatory. When Candace gets 6 million views - inevitably, the comments are a certain percentage - and it's way higher. Also, Turning Point has lied about everything under the sun since Charlie Kirk was killed by Israeli agents - and this is just another bunch of lies by TP and Kolvet.
I would expect comments to be lower, as it is an alternative to the broadcast, where people passively watch instead of engaging with the content. I'd guess a lot of viewers watched on smart TVs. This argument is not particularly compelling. Since I saw the viewer count live, you'd have to convince me those viewers were a bot farm or something.
If you think YouTube and Rumble can't be gamed or manipulated - I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn that I own. Of course, I'm not behind the scenes in the tech room - but it's not beyond belief- and even just seeing the ratios on this end - and connecting the dots to other fraudulent claims that have been exposed - it's viable.
Of course comments will be lower than the amount of viewers. It's the ratio that's telling. She cited several other supposedly well-viewed events - with very, very low ratios of comments ( lower than typical, by a lot). It's kind of like WaPo subscribers, or the Daily Wire supposed followers - when we found out that all media outlets were propped up by NGO money. Think PBS - claiming they were this viable, thriving entity for a massive demographic - and it turns out that NGO grants were buying their subscriber numbers - and actual subscribers were 90% lower than the number they claimed.
Hahahahahah no it wasn’t! The halftime shoe numbers go down every year and the NFL lost 20 million viewers during the halftime show. Do you just spout mainstream talking points like it’s reality???
Are you saying this with a straight face? Lol. The NFL is not something people watch ONLINE. It’s one of the few last things people intentionally watch live. lol. Also watching it on YouTube doesn’t tell you anything about support. Live- the NFL lost HALF their viewers in the middle of the actual broadcast.
Easy there Sparky. Don't blow out a brain cell. I wasn't making a statement one way or another on the quality of the programming.... And if you think that's the "game I want to play", maybe try reading the four sentence comment you're responding to? Out loud if that helps?
Again. It's a four sentence comment, not "War and Peace". Cite it.
Or are you confusing my statement on viewership as a statement of quality? Millions of people ate at McDonalds yesterday. That doesn't make it surf and turf, Einstein.
Millions of people eat McDonald's each day because it is highly palatable. Millions tuned into the turning point show because it was an embarrassing spectacle.
You don't realize you are making statements about quality. But that is only because you are very stupid.
I didn't watch either program. I was cooking a fillet and some delicious corn fritters. Therefore, I have no opinion on the quality. That's why I didn't state any opinion on it.
I was describing a relative degree of commercial success, which is enough to prove the existence of a market and refine a product for it. This isn't hard to grasp. Maybe find a grown up to explain it to you?
The Daily Wire has produced some great docs, TV, features. But where do actors not in Nashville or in Mel Gibson's sphere go--those who want to collaborate and audition but the roles are "female identifying" so women compete with men in drag for Lady Macbeth. Or, equally corrosive, all subjected to a land acknowledgement before being cast in some anti-colonial artless piece of propaganda? So we stop auditioning. It's challenging finding our people--the rare, non-woke, non-conforming creative. I've Googled and DuckDuckGo'd for our people. Thank you for any advice. Meanwhile, navigating, praying for a funded Mamet to settle in the swamp. God bless you--I can't wait for your Sowell.
Conservatives recruited Kid Rock to perform their own halftime show, and it certainly wasn’t worse than Bad Bunny with a fraction of the production costs.
There should always be room for smart criticism and this piece would truly sting if you engaged with more of their arguments versus the
It’s why I just don’t watch anything newer than 2007, why my kids only really watch classic Looney Tunes and Disney VHS tapes, why my reading list doesn’t contain much after Tolkien and is now mostly just the Classics.
I’m understanding and teaching my children this truth:
Your imagination is more interesting than anything Hollywood can produce.
I find my enjoyment out of working on my own novel than I am watching anything on TV and I plan to self-publish it. Not because I don’t think it could compete. I know it would but I’m not going to compromise my vision, integrity, and the fruits for people who want to change it and steal money for my work.
That’s why I’m posting it here because I want to show that traditional thinkers are here and they are more creative than anyone the left is producing today. Enjoy and be inspired!
This is like arguing that the Holocaust was the Jews' fault because they didn't make an alternative country without antisemitism. And no, that's not an inappropriate analogy because the Holocaust was much worse than woke policing - the concept is the same even if the magnitude is different.
The analogy actually works extra well because when the Right makes its own stuff it gets hated for it the way the Jewish country does.
There are very few, if any, outlets to share the work of non-leftoids, whoever they may be. The Kennedy Center comes to mind. Or the Olympics.
Voting with our wallets should make our wallets fatter, at least, because woke tendrils have infiltrated every single opportunity to spend on frivolities. So there's that!
In fairness, conservatives have been on the defensive in the arts for as long as anyone can remember. The support networks - formed under duress, because the standard networks tend to block them out - are nascent. Getting to a point where the conservative-to-neutral support system catches up with the extant one will take time and evangelism.
This is a tough pill to swallow but unfortunately accurate. To be fair, conservatives are oftentimes more orderly and less creative (speaking in stereotypes) and we are sometimes more unsure of our creative abilities. Back when liberals and conservatives understood that they needed each other, this was a fine arrangement. This is flexing a new muscle for many of us. But I feel challenged and need to focus on creative over consuming
Irregardless of liking Mr. Duncan's opinion, it did create some great conversation. I agree with some of what he's saying here and also acknowledge that there are conservatives striving to create content (Angel Studios), Prime has "Faith and Family." I've seen a bit more faith based films being made, which is a great thing! I'd love to support artists if I knew there was a avenue to seek them out.
The NFL and most sports is primarily about money and your hard pressed to find a conservative coach or player that is willing to speak out against the machine. Kudos to those that do. I am sure there are many more that lean right (a term I hate) or teeter in the middle, it's an unpopular place to be.
I think it is our job to make conservative views more popular and use our voices and capabilities to be heard. I know many chose not to watch the Superbowl, myself included, but how many did and still complained? It can't work both ways. We do have some power and we chose not to use it in constructive ways. Support the atistry that believes in the things that we do and stop supporting the rest. Money talks, I am just as guilty, we don't want to be inconvenienced or stop watching our favorite show, choosing to overlook that they throw in content to win popularity contests, not because it adds any value to the story line.
It's almost as if we need a movement, someone to stand up and say, "we aren't going to tolerate it any longer," and the rest of us follow, not blindly, but because we want to be heard and we want things to change.
Those using Sound of Freedom as a counterexample here are part of the problem. That is a terrible movie despite its message. In a few years even its most passionate defenders will have forgotten it and moved on to the next flashpoint “message movie”. Yet The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars and more will continue to endure for a century.
I normally think your analysis on cultural issues is spot on, however I think on this one you missed the mark entirely. It has nothing to do with conservatives not producing their own art to counterbalance the other side. There are production companies doing such things now that are having some success, mostly led by Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel. What you are missing is that conservatives are tired of being bombarded with an endless display of culture that hates them in arenas that should be at worst neutral and are often mostly funded by and populated by people that are either conservative or in the middle politically. Do you really think limp-wristed, blue-haired Antifa foot soldiers are the ones supporting NFL teams? It’s art and entertainment and people have the right to complain it sucks, tune it out and disconnect from it. It’s showing in the ratings for the pointless awards shows and in athletics. The only reason the NFL is afloat is because Goodell has decided that international fans are more valuable than Americans and that he is growing the game. Euros don’t give a rats ass about American football it’s just a way for him to generate international advertising revenue which will create a bubble and burst after he is long gone and worth a billion dollars. I appreciate the call to arms but it will land flat. Still looking forward to the Thomas Sowell play.
It would have been generous of Mr Duncan to mention some artists producing excellent work in this space.
Lionel Shriver has been writing smart and relevant fiction for ages now that boldly challenges woke shibboleths.
What about the recent off Broadway production of Slam Frank? Why not expose of to these creators who mock intersectional creep in the theatre?
I recently saw a play directed by Kevin Ray in an off off setting that challenges both left and right wing perspectives.
This essay contradicts itself by it asserting that the right only whines and produces nothing. Yet he also mentions that there are artists who push back and languishing in some corner.
Which is it?
You proved his point. Never heard of them.
Your point would be better taken if conservatives hadn't offered up the rotting corpse of Kid Rock's career, a 3-minute hold music instrumental, a lesbian in a pantsuit singing gibberish, and some guy pretending he's not allowed to fish anymore. The cultural rot on the right runs so deep you don't even want to acknowledge the reality of what's going on, relying on Mel Gibson of all people to anchor the flimsiest of rejoinders.
Well, you seemed to have missed the point of my comment but that’s okay. I’m not on the right or the left because I realized long ago that it’s a pointless construct. I was responding to Clifton’s article about the right just complaining and not creating art, which as I stated, I thought he missed the mark on. I didn’t state whether the art was of a high quality merely that it exists which offered a counterpoint to Clifton’s thesis. I didn’t watch either halftime show, I watched the Olympics instead. That’s the best part about arts and entertainment, we get to choose what we like and tune in or what we don’t like and tune out. Hell, we can even say we like it or hate it. If you don’t like Kid Rock or whoever else they had at the halftime show or Mel Gibson or whoever else - awesome - don’t consume it
culture is also (at least in part over the long run) downstream from from system structures, and a key part of that is people's ability to effect it by operating in those structures, institutional spaces where people manufacture, select, standardize, and broadcast broadcast culture. The USA used to have a remarkably decentralized, diffused and pluralized cultural institutional spaces with local newspapers, regional theaters, local schools, neighborhood political clubs (that actually meant something policy wise), small publishers, local universities, fraternal orders, and on and on and on. that wasnt by accident or just a natura feature of the time period, in the 1820s we were moving to what we have now, people said no and baked decision making and influence diffusion in, it was on purpose
Post WW2, a bunch of those meaning factories and legitimacy gates got nationalized and centralized over a few decades schooling became more standardized and credential-driven; academia professionalized into tightly networked hierarchies; mass media consolidated into fewer national narrative hubs; entertainment distribution consolidated, etc
your right "right [and] left because [are] a pointless construct", these things didnt exist in any huge way amongst the general pop pre ww2, and in some ways not at all, we centralized the system and got centrally planned cultural production,
"I didn’t state whether the art was of a high quality merely that it exists"
Is this the cope you all are really hanging your hats on here? "I didn't say it was GOOD art!" hahahaha
Oops. Replied to a bot. Dang it.
Surprised you didn't call me Russian too
Just because YOU hate all those people doesn’t mean much. Lol.
I would love for someone here to admit they like Kid Rock. So far nobody is trashy enough to do that.
Hi my names Ashton and I still listen to Cowboy regularly. I’m a proud trash can.
Pleasure to meet you
You aren't ... kin by chance?
I mean our mommas is different but sometimes we both go to the same barbecues if that’s whatcher askin
Just one Terrence Malick movie made me question all my progressive, self actualizing values and assumptions and embrace grace.
But Dimes Square 😆
I love Clifton’s work so I’m using it to shamelessly self promote myself too so he and I both can stop having to try and create in this climate.
He’s nit totally wrong in this article, but I am a little triggered by it.
LOOK AT WHAT I WROTE YALL:
https://substack.com/@theladylayman/note/p-187911094?r=64bg90&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Christopher Nolan seems determined by sheer power of will to make everyone conservative
Wait for real? He's conservative?!
Nobody knows, but the themes of his movies are often the perspective of someone on the right. For example, Bane is clearly a leftist terrorist. Oppenheimer shown as being basically justly deprived of his security clearence even if he was also railroaded by a petty bureaucrat.
Look at Sound of Freedom as an example. Based on a true story about rescuing children from the sex trafficking. Who's against it? Hollywood, MSM, most liberals...
Shelved by Disney, the biggest pedo playground on the planet, because they figured they could buy it and make it disappear.
Bought back by the producer.
Rejected by studio after studio.
Crowdfunded 5 million dollars to market and release the film.
Grossed over $250 million worldwide.
Rotten Tomatoes Critics gave it 58% to make sure it looked like a dud at first glance because they're into the whole child-sex thing.
Rotten Tomatoes general audience (not professional critics) gave it 99%.
I saw the film and I would give it somewhere in the 85-90% range.
That is one project. And honestly, it wasn't that well made - the story has tons of gaps. Other than the lead actor, the acting wasn't that good.
That said, hopefully it provided a template of what is possible.
Crowdfunded for $5M, grossed $250M. You lose.
You're just trying to dodge the massive problem.
I'm not dodging anything. And this isn't a football game - where what you say makes you the winner, and somehow, I'm the loser. I saw the film. I was glad it was made. That said, I don't shut off my brain and say it was a great movie - because it wasn't. It was choppy, truncated storytelling, In several spots - poorly acted. But it did show POSSIBILITY for Conservative artists, and hopefully, a template for others to follow.
You might want to fight people that are your actual enemies.
Never saw it, don't intend to. Willing to accept it was poorly made for the purpose of my point. Was it more poorly made than the average cgi slopfest shat out now by Hollywood? Possibly, but I doubt it.
Look who's talking, lmao.
He didn't shit on the movie, he gave genuine feedback. You're an example of what the author is talking about though.
Liberals don't have to crowd fund $5M. Their elites just hand the $20 million without expecting a return. That's the point.
I think it was the subject matter that sold the movie the most, not the actors.
An actor can't make the writing and story line from crap to good. Perfect example is game of thrones. It didn't matter how well the actors acted after season 6, the subject matter was crap(the director's interpretation of books not yet made)
I saw the movie and it was a great movie imo.
You are 100% RIGHT.
I am one of those conservative artists ( considered megatalented: I won an ABC and NBC TV writing fellowship, multiple hi level TV and screenwriting competitions, had work produced ( feature film, theatre, TV pilot). I collaborated with - and coached - Sundance Winners, Oscar Nominees, Emmy Award nominees. I'm also Puerto Rican...
But Hollywood HATED my outspoken views on important cultural and political issues ( early and often outspoken against Covid, the corrupt BLM, the terrorist front of Antifa) - and they blacklisted me because I was the opposite of "Woke". I believe in two genders, legal and controlled immigration, the nuclear family. I am fully aware of the Marxist agenda and 30 million alien invaders let in by that CIA psychopath and false President- Joe Biden - with the help of Zionist run NGO's.
They couldn't and wouldn't let someone like me rise up to a power player - so they circled the wagons and blacklisted me. I'm outside looking in - but I'm not OUT. I have a film I'm directing scheduled to shoot in Miami in 8 months - if I can tie together a bit more funding.
Conservative artists are rare - but they are not extinct.
"You should try selling to that new agency, CAN-SELL. They take everything we send them."
But seriously, I feel like production houses working outside the shit-lib orthodoxy just need to find some footing with a blast of shoe-string productions like Conan, Dollars Trilogy, etc. That shit was done for pocket change but the themes, the love, and some choice casting hold up to this day.
If I could offer some unsolicited audience opinion, I think of myself as a kind of sophisticated consumer and I don't really want explicit political messaging from the heterodoxy. The major studios just stopped exploring anything that wasn't rehashed liberal ontology. I don't even think of it as propaganda; I can easily imagine the professionals thinking they've got some daring new take and it's just like the thousandth version of either "Because they didn't love enough!" or "America made them a monster!" or "Being different is.... BEAUTIFUL PAIN!" I'm not even angry at the soap box anymore -- I actually just feel embarrassed for anyone who makes or consumes it earnestly.
There's so much that's just been left on the table I feel like it should be child's play to get something that feels fresh. Anyway, good luck!
Carlos can I follow you on other platforms too?
Very soon, yes! I'm putting together an Instagram page for my film. The film is an adaptation of my NYC stage play called Crossing Currents. I'll post the name of the page here within a week or two as I finalize things ( the movie version has a different working title).
Thanks for asking. I may have another page for a TV series we're pitching to HBO and Netflix. I'll post both here soon.
Christian and conservative content providers are out there and the number of creators is growing. Angel Studios produces very good content. It will get better. Some of the large movie companies have noticed and made a push for more Christian or family friendly content, over the past few years.
I had to stop listening to popular music because I wanted to play a Pink song I heard on the radio for my granddaughters but, thankfully, checked the lyrics of "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" first. If I hadn't checked, I would have had to explain the term "whiskey d*ck" to a six year old girl. That was the day I began listening to Christian music.
There are some great Christian artists that I would put close to those on the mainstream side. TobyMac has been around a long time and is still putting out very relatable, very danceable music. There are many other examples. Brandon Lake is filling venues usually reserved for big name performers, as are other Christian artists.
Christians and conservatives are not only complaining, they are letting their dollars talk. Along with boycotting objectionable products and messages, as Budweiser learned, we are purchasing more conservative products, and investing in more conservative projects.
I turned off the Super Bowl to watch the TPUSA show, mostly to support them. In honesty, I haven't watched an actual halftime show in...okay, I've never watched a halftime show.
I have a similar experience with comedy! I love stand-up, and when my kids were little, I liked to play it as I was doing housework and what not. I ended up curating a comedy station on Pandora of clean comics which led me into a whole world of southern and Christian comics. It was a really cool foray into a new world of comedy for me. And of course now I follow rebel comics who stood up to the Covid madness as much as possible.
This is exactly why I only watch Dry Bar comedy. Are you familiar with it? A Mormon comedy club in Provo, UT, brings out small venue comics and pays them to do three shows. They record everything. The audience grades each comic on how funny and how clean their material was. If the comic gets a high score, the club gives a performance bonus. This is a gigantic money maker for Angel Studios. It is the only stand up comedy I’ll allow in our house.
I am familiar with Dry Bar comedy but didn’t know any of that about it! Thanks! 🙏
That the thing- Hollywood KILLS indie films, look at what they’re doing to Markiplier and he’s just a regular dude- even lefty by most accounts but he made an indie film and they’re trying to kill the marketing because it embarrasses their system.
This is why I cheer for and try to support the small movie houses. Some of the Angel Studios movies still have that preachy edge but they're getting better. "Solo Mio" was a funny, heartwarming movie for Valentines Day. There were holes but we still enjoyed it.
I think the obligation to work smarter and figure out what’s better art is on the part of the studios not the consumers, but it’s still great to support those indie films
Did I miss something? The Turning Point halftime show was (I believe) the second most watched livestream in YouTube history, topping out at between 5 and 6 million concurrent viewers.
Sure, that pales in comparison to the ~100 million sportsball viewers, but considering the fact it takes effort to pull it up on the tube when most people just want to eat chicken wings and drink beer, that's not bad. It's more than good enough to stand on its own for future refinement and adaptation.
Those numbers were completely ginned up. Candace Owens exposed the fraud yesterday. It was about 80% less than they claimed.
I logged in just to see how it was doing and saw more than 5 million viewers. What was the basis for her claim?
Her opinions. Another prophetic dream. The accusation of bots, even though the YouTube system accounts for that and doesn’t include them in the 20 million + views that TPUSA video got
the amount of comments to-claimed-number of viewers ratio. It tracks. Just like many other claims often made by NYTimes and liberal outlets. The ratio is always revelatory. When Candace gets 6 million views - inevitably, the comments are a certain percentage - and it's way higher. Also, Turning Point has lied about everything under the sun since Charlie Kirk was killed by Israeli agents - and this is just another bunch of lies by TP and Kolvet.
I would expect comments to be lower, as it is an alternative to the broadcast, where people passively watch instead of engaging with the content. I'd guess a lot of viewers watched on smart TVs. This argument is not particularly compelling. Since I saw the viewer count live, you'd have to convince me those viewers were a bot farm or something.
If you think YouTube and Rumble can't be gamed or manipulated - I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn that I own. Of course, I'm not behind the scenes in the tech room - but it's not beyond belief- and even just seeing the ratios on this end - and connecting the dots to other fraudulent claims that have been exposed - it's viable.
I agree that it is viable. I don't agree that it is likely in this particular case, but will take note if additional information comes to light.
Of course comments will be lower than the amount of viewers. It's the ratio that's telling. She cited several other supposedly well-viewed events - with very, very low ratios of comments ( lower than typical, by a lot). It's kind of like WaPo subscribers, or the Daily Wire supposed followers - when we found out that all media outlets were propped up by NGO money. Think PBS - claiming they were this viable, thriving entity for a massive demographic - and it turns out that NGO grants were buying their subscriber numbers - and actual subscribers were 90% lower than the number they claimed.
Lolol they are not ginned uk and Candace is a dumbass
"second most watched livestream in YouTube history"
And it was objective garbage. Heinous, unlistenable pretaped garbage.
The halftime show was the most watched in history, so if that's the game you want to play you'll still lose.
Hahahahahah no it wasn’t! The halftime shoe numbers go down every year and the NFL lost 20 million viewers during the halftime show. Do you just spout mainstream talking points like it’s reality???
Calm down. Social media views, where people actually watch these things now, have him at by far the most viewed.
Are you saying this with a straight face? Lol. The NFL is not something people watch ONLINE. It’s one of the few last things people intentionally watch live. lol. Also watching it on YouTube doesn’t tell you anything about support. Live- the NFL lost HALF their viewers in the middle of the actual broadcast.
Cope harder, I guess.
You are very stupid
No, unlike you I’m just not so partisan that I lose sight of basic application of data and facts. You’re kind of pathetic though.
Easy there Sparky. Don't blow out a brain cell. I wasn't making a statement one way or another on the quality of the programming.... And if you think that's the "game I want to play", maybe try reading the four sentence comment you're responding to? Out loud if that helps?
"I wasn't making a statement one way or another on the quality of the programming"
Yes you were you lying sack of shit for brains.
Again. It's a four sentence comment, not "War and Peace". Cite it.
Or are you confusing my statement on viewership as a statement of quality? Millions of people ate at McDonalds yesterday. That doesn't make it surf and turf, Einstein.
Millions of people eat McDonald's each day because it is highly palatable. Millions tuned into the turning point show because it was an embarrassing spectacle.
You don't realize you are making statements about quality. But that is only because you are very stupid.
I didn't watch either program. I was cooking a fillet and some delicious corn fritters. Therefore, I have no opinion on the quality. That's why I didn't state any opinion on it.
I was describing a relative degree of commercial success, which is enough to prove the existence of a market and refine a product for it. This isn't hard to grasp. Maybe find a grown up to explain it to you?
I gotta agree with South of 10.
And “Goodell has decided that international fans are more valuable than Americans”
And our Democrat Politicians have also decided that foreign entities, far and wide, are more important than Americans.
The Daily Wire has produced some great docs, TV, features. But where do actors not in Nashville or in Mel Gibson's sphere go--those who want to collaborate and audition but the roles are "female identifying" so women compete with men in drag for Lady Macbeth. Or, equally corrosive, all subjected to a land acknowledgement before being cast in some anti-colonial artless piece of propaganda? So we stop auditioning. It's challenging finding our people--the rare, non-woke, non-conforming creative. I've Googled and DuckDuckGo'd for our people. Thank you for any advice. Meanwhile, navigating, praying for a funded Mamet to settle in the swamp. God bless you--I can't wait for your Sowell.
Conservatives recruited Kid Rock to perform their own halftime show, and it certainly wasn’t worse than Bad Bunny with a fraction of the production costs.
There should always be room for smart criticism and this piece would truly sting if you engaged with more of their arguments versus the
blanket dismissal you provided.
It’s why I just don’t watch anything newer than 2007, why my kids only really watch classic Looney Tunes and Disney VHS tapes, why my reading list doesn’t contain much after Tolkien and is now mostly just the Classics.
I’m understanding and teaching my children this truth:
Your imagination is more interesting than anything Hollywood can produce.
I find my enjoyment out of working on my own novel than I am watching anything on TV and I plan to self-publish it. Not because I don’t think it could compete. I know it would but I’m not going to compromise my vision, integrity, and the fruits for people who want to change it and steal money for my work.
That’s why I’m posting it here because I want to show that traditional thinkers are here and they are more creative than anyone the left is producing today. Enjoy and be inspired!
https://open.substack.com/pub/ncollins1985/p/dome-chapter-1?r=lp6f0&utm_medium=ios
Make Reading Great Again 😀
Painful but largely true.
Glad there was an alternative to watching Bad Bunny's repetitious, gross incoherence, but does it have to be all Christian Rock All The Time?
Very talented people, but their appeal is also limited.
When will we have a non-Leftist Prince or Gaga to rock the casbah?
This is like arguing that the Holocaust was the Jews' fault because they didn't make an alternative country without antisemitism. And no, that's not an inappropriate analogy because the Holocaust was much worse than woke policing - the concept is the same even if the magnitude is different.
The analogy actually works extra well because when the Right makes its own stuff it gets hated for it the way the Jewish country does.
There are very few, if any, outlets to share the work of non-leftoids, whoever they may be. The Kennedy Center comes to mind. Or the Olympics.
Voting with our wallets should make our wallets fatter, at least, because woke tendrils have infiltrated every single opportunity to spend on frivolities. So there's that!
Which holocaust. There was no such thing
In fairness, conservatives have been on the defensive in the arts for as long as anyone can remember. The support networks - formed under duress, because the standard networks tend to block them out - are nascent. Getting to a point where the conservative-to-neutral support system catches up with the extant one will take time and evangelism.
This is a tough pill to swallow but unfortunately accurate. To be fair, conservatives are oftentimes more orderly and less creative (speaking in stereotypes) and we are sometimes more unsure of our creative abilities. Back when liberals and conservatives understood that they needed each other, this was a fine arrangement. This is flexing a new muscle for many of us. But I feel challenged and need to focus on creative over consuming
One of the great novelists of the 21 st century, Tom Wolfe was an unabashed conservative.
Irregardless of liking Mr. Duncan's opinion, it did create some great conversation. I agree with some of what he's saying here and also acknowledge that there are conservatives striving to create content (Angel Studios), Prime has "Faith and Family." I've seen a bit more faith based films being made, which is a great thing! I'd love to support artists if I knew there was a avenue to seek them out.
The NFL and most sports is primarily about money and your hard pressed to find a conservative coach or player that is willing to speak out against the machine. Kudos to those that do. I am sure there are many more that lean right (a term I hate) or teeter in the middle, it's an unpopular place to be.
I think it is our job to make conservative views more popular and use our voices and capabilities to be heard. I know many chose not to watch the Superbowl, myself included, but how many did and still complained? It can't work both ways. We do have some power and we chose not to use it in constructive ways. Support the atistry that believes in the things that we do and stop supporting the rest. Money talks, I am just as guilty, we don't want to be inconvenienced or stop watching our favorite show, choosing to overlook that they throw in content to win popularity contests, not because it adds any value to the story line.
It's almost as if we need a movement, someone to stand up and say, "we aren't going to tolerate it any longer," and the rest of us follow, not blindly, but because we want to be heard and we want things to change.
Brilliant. Inspired. Thanks for the shout out to those creating in the headwinds of Prevailing Trends.
Those using Sound of Freedom as a counterexample here are part of the problem. That is a terrible movie despite its message. In a few years even its most passionate defenders will have forgotten it and moved on to the next flashpoint “message movie”. Yet The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars and more will continue to endure for a century.