Uploaded January 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
The age of Trumpian film is upon us.
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Music by Kevin MacLeod (Chill & Dub Feral)
If there's one thing we've learnt from the history of the entertainment industry, it's that ART REFLECTS SOCIETY, so what does this mean for Hollywood and the Trump regime?
C3PO Immunization PSA: youtube.com/watch?v=b8ZD9RcC8P0
Back to the Future Pizza Hut Commercial: youtube.com/watch?v=s_EFGMyfYoc
___
He's in! Trump’s in. He's the president. President Trump. President of the world.
Look, to be honest I don't want to take a specific stance on the matter, I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly political person and even if I was, what would it matter? Why would you care?
What I am interested in however, is movies and/or television, and regardless how you personally feel about Trump, his time as president does have some pretty fascinating implications for the upcoming trends and genres of cop pulture. Culp Polture. Cop… pop.. pop culture.
If you look at the history of the entertainment industry and it's common subject matter, you'll see that art has always reflected society.
Plenty of bloggers and vloggers have pointed this kind of thing out before, we saw a rise in technological thrillers during the last few years because everyone was afraid of the NSA spying on them, similarly The X-Files ended its original run after 9/11, when America desperately wanted to trust their government instead of suspecting it of hiding conspiracies. Film noir lived and died by the life and recovery of a post world war 2 malaise, Godzilla and other giant monster films were created out of a post-atomic bombed Japan, and zombie films, like the original Dawn of the Dead entered the mainstream during the 70s and 80s, with many commentators seeing the zombie as a scathing metaphor for a blind conservative voter. Links to all of these theories in the description.
If you took media studies in high school, all of this will probably sound pretty familiar to you: genre reflects society. So what kinds of films and TV shows are the next 4-8 years gonna give us under Trump’s administration? What about Trump frightens or influences society?
Well that's the thing, I would say, at least in the mainstream blockbuster world, we already have two Trumpian era movies: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Both of these movies deal with similar totalitarian themes, such as evil and power, for example. Rogue One focuses on a rebellion, fighting the power, fighting for freedom from a crippling regime.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them focuses quite a lot on minorities and immigrants, their importance and place in our society, and the inherent dangers of unfounded discrimination. Almost every character in this film is a marginalized individual, wizards who are hated by humans, humans who are hated by wizards, kids who are hated by their parents. Even the villain’s overall plan is to rule over a sect of society which he thinks are scum.
You get what I'm saying? Ya feel me? Like I said, I don't want to take sides, but you can't deny these are the issues that those who don't support Trump worry or think about. That doesn't make these commentaries true! It doesn't make them false either. These are just what a huge portion of society see in Trump’s character, and therefore.. what they want to see reflected on film.
Now I know obviously Rogue One and Fantastic Beasts went into production well before Trump won the election, but this sort of re-enforces this idea even more, see as genre reflects society, so too does society reflect genre…. like a snake eating its own tail… I think… I never really understood that metaphor.
As much as these films are a product of current western culture and opinion, Trump himself could be a product of these ideas as well, only when these movies went into production, we weren't able to assign his name to these fears. But these fears were still in the collective consciousness, and inspired the creation of these movies, and maybe inspired Trump to run for office in the first place.
One thing is for certain, there are going to be a lot more movies and TV shows that will deal with government paranoia, oppressive regimes and minorities surviving and overcoming discrimination, the idea of keeping certain types of people out. Hell, there are already two movies floating around at the moment with the word “wall” in the title. That was a joke.
So there it is! My 2 cents worth, just another youtube film buff with a polytechnic qualification which means I think I can talk about movies. Maybe I can't, maybe I'm an idiot and the next few years won't see a rise in films dealing with social fears of Trump. Maybe I know nothing about politics.
Maybe I should run for president?
The age of Trumpian film is upon us.
LIKE US ON FACEBOOK ► goo.gl/9EFEIa
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER ► goo.gl/tuixnW
FOLLOW US ON SOUNDCLOUD ► goo.gl/YGC7oK
EMAIL US AT ► cultpopturemedia@gmail.com
Music by Kevin MacLeod (Chill & Dub Feral)
If there's one thing we've learnt from the history of the entertainment industry, it's that ART REFLECTS SOCIETY, so what does this mean for Hollywood and the Trump regime?
C3PO Immunization PSA: youtube.com/watch?v=b8ZD9RcC8P0
Back to the Future Pizza Hut Commercial: youtube.com/watch?v=s_EFGMyfYoc
___
He's in! Trump’s in. He's the president. President Trump. President of the world.
Look, to be honest I don't want to take a specific stance on the matter, I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly political person and even if I was, what would it matter? Why would you care?
What I am interested in however, is movies and/or television, and regardless how you personally feel about Trump, his time as president does have some pretty fascinating implications for the upcoming trends and genres of cop pulture. Culp Polture. Cop… pop.. pop culture.
If you look at the history of the entertainment industry and it's common subject matter, you'll see that art has always reflected society.
Plenty of bloggers and vloggers have pointed this kind of thing out before, we saw a rise in technological thrillers during the last few years because everyone was afraid of the NSA spying on them, similarly The X-Files ended its original run after 9/11, when America desperately wanted to trust their government instead of suspecting it of hiding conspiracies. Film noir lived and died by the life and recovery of a post world war 2 malaise, Godzilla and other giant monster films were created out of a post-atomic bombed Japan, and zombie films, like the original Dawn of the Dead entered the mainstream during the 70s and 80s, with many commentators seeing the zombie as a scathing metaphor for a blind conservative voter. Links to all of these theories in the description.
If you took media studies in high school, all of this will probably sound pretty familiar to you: genre reflects society. So what kinds of films and TV shows are the next 4-8 years gonna give us under Trump’s administration? What about Trump frightens or influences society?
Well that's the thing, I would say, at least in the mainstream blockbuster world, we already have two Trumpian era movies: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Both of these movies deal with similar totalitarian themes, such as evil and power, for example. Rogue One focuses on a rebellion, fighting the power, fighting for freedom from a crippling regime.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them focuses quite a lot on minorities and immigrants, their importance and place in our society, and the inherent dangers of unfounded discrimination. Almost every character in this film is a marginalized individual, wizards who are hated by humans, humans who are hated by wizards, kids who are hated by their parents. Even the villain’s overall plan is to rule over a sect of society which he thinks are scum.
You get what I'm saying? Ya feel me? Like I said, I don't want to take sides, but you can't deny these are the issues that those who don't support Trump worry or think about. That doesn't make these commentaries true! It doesn't make them false either. These are just what a huge portion of society see in Trump’s character, and therefore.. what they want to see reflected on film.
Now I know obviously Rogue One and Fantastic Beasts went into production well before Trump won the election, but this sort of re-enforces this idea even more, see as genre reflects society, so too does society reflect genre…. like a snake eating its own tail… I think… I never really understood that metaphor.
As much as these films are a product of current western culture and opinion, Trump himself could be a product of these ideas as well, only when these movies went into production, we weren't able to assign his name to these fears. But these fears were still in the collective consciousness, and inspired the creation of these movies, and maybe inspired Trump to run for office in the first place.
One thing is for certain, there are going to be a lot more movies and TV shows that will deal with government paranoia, oppressive regimes and minorities surviving and overcoming discrimination, the idea of keeping certain types of people out. Hell, there are already two movies floating around at the moment with the word “wall” in the title. That was a joke.
So there it is! My 2 cents worth, just another youtube film buff with a polytechnic qualification which means I think I can talk about movies. Maybe I can't, maybe I'm an idiot and the next few years won't see a rise in films dealing with social fears of Trump. Maybe I know nothing about politics.
Maybe I should run for president?
