Published on January 8th, 2024 - From: Vehicles
Dodge Dakota 2002
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As fanfare blares, female sprinters at the starting line suspiciously eye a man in a wig. A hulking, goateed wrestler slams a woman half his size to the mat. An ominous voiceover intones that women’s sports are being “trans-formed.”
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No, this isn’t the beginning of a classic cross-dressing comedy. It’s the trailer for “Lady Ballers,” a new right-wing movie that farcically depicts cisgendered men claiming to be women in order to dominate women’s sports.
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At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss the movie as yet another example of the meme that conservatives only have one joke, repeated ad nauseam, mocking liberal views on gender identity.
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But my own research has explored the vast network of conservative comedy that bolsters right-wing political efforts.
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Now, in addition to comedy, U.S. conservatives are using action films, dramas, and even kids’ cartoons to build their own alternative entertainment industry, one shielded from the alleged liberal biases of Hollywood.
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The most prominent recent efforts are two streaming entertainment platforms from right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro and “Lady Ballers” star Jeremy Boreing.
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DailyWire+ offers documentaries, Westerns, and faith-based fantasy series. Its companion streaming platform, Bentkey, which launched in October 2023, specializes in children’s programming.
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To be sure, these streamers have miles to go before challenging Netflix and Disney+. But by strategically targeting their politically engaged audiences, the platforms have been successful — and could have more staying power than prior attempts at making music and movies for conservatives.
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Swings, misses — and a few hits U.S. conservatives have successfully launched and steered a number of news outlets. They have a spottier record when it comes to entertainment, whether it’s feature films, pop songs, or kids’ shows.
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In 2013, former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum became the CEO of EchoLight Studios, which produced several faith-based films in the 2010s. Similarly, the pundit and documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza has had a few modest box office hits centered on right-wing conspiracy theories. These efforts saw limited success because their niche political appeal was mismatched with theatrical movies’ wide distribution.
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Other forms of conservative entertainment have briefly gone viral, before all but disappearing — perhaps because they’re too closely aligned with current events to have staying power. Kid Rock’s “We the People” bemoaned COVID-19 restrictions and “Bidenomics,” while Jason Aldean’s “Try That In a Small Town” tried to harness conservative resentment toward Black Lives Matter protests a few years too late.