The Patriot Post® · In Brief: Barbie and the Conservative Outrage Machine
Our Emmy Griffin offered her measured review of the new “Barbie” movie on Monday. There were hilarious and fun aspects of the film, she said, but there’s an unmistakable feminist message. It is that latter part that has led to all manner of angry denunciations among conservative commentators. Ian Haworth at the Washington Examiner considers this phenomenon and what it sometimes represents.
He begins with the maxim that “politics is downstream from culture,” noting that conservative media has found a large measure of success — culturally sometimes but always financially — because of it. He then observes:
Unfortunately, we have now reached a point in which both sides of the political and cultural divide have found an easy recipe for success. This is no longer a zero-sum game. Both sides can win.
Here’s how the cycle works: The American cultural Left creates some form of arguably controversial content, whether that be Sam Smith doing his best tomato impression while gyrating as a low-budget devil, Lizzo playing Russian roulette with physics by twerking onstage, or, most recently, the Barbie movie’s use of phrases such as (gasp) “patriarchy.”
Next, the conservative media outrage machine gets to work, providing the latest expression of cultural wokeism with exactly what it wants: wall-to-wall attention. By furiously churning out content, conservative social media becomes alight with the very content conservatives supposedly abhor.
And then the pendulum swings back, with those on the Left seeing conservative outrage as evidence that the content is worthwhile, only fueling their support and the reactive outrage.
Both sides get attention, and both sides reap the financial rewards. Nothing changes, and then it’s on to the next target of outrage as both sides get the attention (and money) they want.
To be sure, Haworth says we can’t give up fighting for culture just because of this odd dynamic. But, he asks:
Have we crossed the line from calling out specific and serious ideological assaults on our culture to piggybacking financially on every viral story that comes across our path? Especially when we remember the financial incentive of modern political commentary: Clicks are king.
Measured with this lens, even the most innocuous acts of supposed wokeism are fair game if they provide commentators with the parasitic opportunity to feed off the notoriety of someone else’s work. Unfortunately, that’s how most political commentary now works: identify viral moments and find a way to get a piece of the action. …
The truth is that both sides need each other. Those on the Left need the conservative media outrage machine to provide them with millions of dollars of free advertising, and those on the Right need the Left’s cultural machine to provide them with fodder for reactive clickbait.
We’ll take a moment to toot our own horn here because we are donor supported, not ad supported. That means clicks don’t matter, and we don’t write things to generate them. We focus on what matters.