A Poorly Written Echo Chamber: Why Are Conservatives So Bad at Storytelling?

[00:00:00]Why are conservatives so bad at storytelling? This is a question that has been in the back of my mind lately and I really wasn't planning on delving into it now. I actually intended for this video just to be solely a review of the book Purple State, which is a romance written by a Fox News host. I got literally like two pages into the sample excerpt on Amazon and my brain just started going in a million different directions, connecting dots I didn't even realize that were there to connect. So with that being said, this video quickly has snowballed into something a little bigger than what I was intending for it to be and [music] no pun intended there with snowball, but I will be talking a little bit about the new Animal Farm film later on as well.

[00:00:47]Going to be talking about a lot of things actually that all relate to the current state of conservative entertainment media, the shady people I would say behind it, and the audiences who consume that kind of media. I'm Maddie and welcome to Salted Latte, a place where I like to dissect and explore popular language and prose. By watching this, you're now considered a cool cat by the way, so congratulations.

[00:01:13]If you are interested in this sort of thing, I'd love it if you liked and subscribed and also comment down below the last book or movie you consumed that you thought was really good, like exceptionally good. That way after we finish with this video, we'll all have some recommendations of entertainment that isn't as mind-numbing and infuriating as what I'm about to get into. I will go first with my recommendation. I finally got around to watching Obsessed the other day and I think it was probably the best horror movie that I've seen in a very, very long time. It does get a little bit gory at the end though, so just a warning if you're sensitive to that kind of stuff.

[00:01:49]But the actors in it were like incredible. All right, let's start with Purple State and then delve deeper from there. Maybe grab a snack or something.

[00:01:58]I have a feeling this is going to be a longer one.

[00:02:05]Purple State is a romance novel written by Dana Perino, who was George Bush's press secretary during his presidency in the early 2000s. And she's also now a Fox News commentator. Some of her previous written works include self-help books and randomly one all about her dog.

[00:02:27]So, I guess she just, you know, does a little bit of everything. Her latest, Purple State, is what we're going to focus on today in this portion of the video. It's about a young liberal woman named Dot, who feels stuck in her career in PR and politics in New York City. As part of her job, she ends up in a small Washington, not Washington, Wisconsin.

[00:02:49]She ends up in a small Wisconsin town to do some campaigning for an upcoming election. What could possibly happen next? If you've seen literally any Hallmark film, you can probably guess.

[00:03:01]She meets a {quote} {unquote} big-hearted truck-driving guy who follows hockey, not headlines. Dana's words, not mine. Just really want to emphasize that, because everyone obviously knows that it's illegal for you to be both a fan of hockey and also sneak a glance at a news article. Duh.

[00:03:19]You get jail time for that, for sure.

[00:03:21]So, oh no, Dot's falling in love with a Republican. What's going to happen? Can love really cross party lines? Who says that two people from opposite sides of the aisle can't eventually walk down one together? That seems a little bit rushed. I feel like if you're thinking about marriage two weeks into knowing this guy, then maybe, just maybe, you were a little more right-leaning than you thought. One of the only promotional videos that Amazon includes for this book is a 30-second TikTok of this woman making fun of the book entirely just as a concept and I it's it's so hilarious.

[00:03:57]I'm going to include some clips here.

[00:03:58]>> the only one that's seen that purple state book that Harper Collins is publishing this year? Basically, it is a romance book where the male main character is a Republican and the woman is a Democrat. And I am just so tired of this fetishization of democratic and liberal women. Like the idea that like all liberal women secretly want to be submissive and they want to have a man and they want to be tamed and that like their yearning for independence is like a facade. This is the cover, by the way.

[00:04:22]At least she has a vote sticker on, I guess.

[00:04:24]>> The video itself is hilarious and the fact that Amazon like put this up as a way to market the book is also hilarious to me. I'm not going to be reading and reviewing the entire book for you. I'm just going to be picking out kind of one or two key parts and we're going to be implementing them in this broader discussion about conservatism and storytelling. And also because like I don't want to give any more money to Amazon than I need to or any more money to Dana, the author. I think they both have enough. And thirdly, I guess, you know, there are already book reviews out there about Purple State online if you're really interested in like a full-fledged synopsis. There's this one by Is it Nikki or Nishi? I'm sorry, JC.

[00:05:09]I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name.

[00:05:11]But I did watch that video and I really enjoyed it. So, I'll I'll link that one below or I'll link their channel down below if you want to check that out. I also read, you know, some summaries of the book. Lots of good reads reviews and of course the first few chapters are available as the free sample. So, that's mostly what I'm going to be referring to in this section. And even in those couple of chapters, like there's there's already enough to to talk at length about, trust me. All of that to say though, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what goes down in this book. I guarantee I'm I would be able to tell you the entire plot from start to finish even if I didn't watch the other videos and I just read these first two chapters because the story is really not that original. And obviously as a disclaimer, you're allowed to have your opinions about Dana and the consequences of her professional life. I certainly do, but you know, I'm not making this as an excuse to go and harass her or send hate to her or anything. So, we don't condone any of you doing that either.

[00:06:13]But okay, let's get into it. Something that surprised me about this book, just in general, is that it's written in the third person. I feel like especially in the romance genre, we don't see that very often anymore. First person has definitely been the popular choice as of late. I even remember, you know, writing workshops that I've taken in college. I had multiple professors encourage me to try writing in the first person POV. I'm sure like the push toward first person could be an entire video in and of itself, probably. So, if you're interested in that, let me know. The main thing that I want to address with Purple State is with regard to the main character Dot and her relationships with men, specifically. First, just in general, Dot reads like a caricature, like what conservatives assume a left-leaning woman is like. If you've read Yesteryear by Carol Claire Burke, I have a review of that up somewhere on my channel. It almost reminds me of that in a way, except so much worse because Yesteryear is intentional satire. And that is not at all what Dana's going for here. Like she's very serious. We can see this even from the first page when Dot's characterized as basically being like a tech girl boss who loves working and Pilates. And that's pretty much it.

[00:07:36]That's her only personality. The first chapter says, quote, she'd been given that coveted private space and office space when she'd been the first to raise her hand to work in the office five days a week. So, she's like very much like a go-getter and overachiever, like really, really into work and her job and her career. She's a big career woman, okay?

[00:07:57]And I don't point that out because I think that's like weird or super significant, but the way that it's written, it's clear that Dana wants you to think that that's that's significant, maybe even a problem of Dot's. Is that she's too career-oriented? I think even the aspect of Dot's secretly failing relationship to a guy that she describes as looking like Harry Styles is also part of this characterization of a quote-unquote left-leaning liberal blue-haired woman, you know, that Dana's going for. Harry Styles is an interesting choice of comparison for Dot's partner because Harry is one of the few fewer male celebrities that's been historically openly more fluid in terms of expression, especially through fashion and dress, in particular, to the point where people have in the past questioned his sexuality or even on the other end of the spectrum, they've accused him of queer baiting as part of marketing for his branding or whatever.

[00:08:56]I think the most significant marker we can see of this is like all the way back in 2020 when he wore that blue dress on the cover of Vogue. I believe he was also the first singular male on the cover of Vogue as well. But, what stirred up the most conversation was the fact that he was wearing a dress. He's even quoted in the Vogue interview as saying, quote, "There is so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I've never thought too much about what it means. It just becomes this extended part in creating something." End quote.

[00:09:28]And the "I've never thought too much about what it means" I think is a reference to the gender that society assigns to certain items of clothing, like skirts and high heels being feminine and like a tie being more masculine. And notably, in this whole discourse, conservative commentator Candace Owens decided to respond to this Vogue article of Harry Styles in a tweet saying, "Quote, there is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows knowsness The East knows this. In the West, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. It's an outright attack.

[00:10:09]Bring back manly men." End quote. I think all of this plays into Dot feeling unfulfilled in her relationship with this Harry Styles look-alike and what that says about how Dana, the author, even Candace Owens, and you know, all the other conservatives that view gender norms and a man's role in a relationship versus a woman's role. Because in Dana's story, girl boss CEO Dot and the soft Harry Styles look-alike, I I'm sorry, I really don't remember his name and I I certainly don't care enough about his character to look it up. You know, they don't work out, those two people. They can't because that would fundamentally go against what these conservatives believe. But finally, by the end of the book, Dana leaves behind everything that she's built for herself in New York City, including the Harry Styles look-alike guy, to be with some rough and tough truck-driving guy from Wisconsin. Dana even makes it a point to add in Dot's boyfriend from the beginning of the book, his character description, that he cannot grow facial hair, which I think is yet another of the many, many ways that Dana chooses to, from her perspective, emasculate this character. It's like she fundamentally cannot believe that a woman could ever actually form like a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with a man who doesn't perform masculinity in a certain way. And so that's the place that she is writing these characters from. And yet, as much as Dina tries to craft what she sees as the like average young liberal couple, she still has them under quite conservative constraints, which I find funny. Like she can't even fully commit to her stereotypes. Dot and her partner have barely been dating for 6 months, and he's already gearing up to propose to her. He has a very, very strict timeline. He wants to be married 28 because that's what his parents did and for literally no other reason. That's all. And Dot has a strict timeline as well. She wants to be married by 32 and have two kids by 36. And she feels like she's trapped and she's running out of time, but she's only like 24 or 25 at this point. She has so much time. The main pain point of this book is such a non-issue in my opinion, or at least it is conflated to matter far more than it actually should. She could break up with this guy and still have plenty of time to find someone else that's a better match for her. It's not like Republicans are the only people out there who get married and have kids and want to do those things. Dot's allowed to want to do those things regardless of her political affiliation. There just seems to be this big emphasis on checking off boxes and making lifelong commitments so young for literally no other reason than this omnipresent, that's just what you're supposed to do kind of vibe.

[00:13:00]Rationale, right thing to do, no pun intended. Again, if this book was intended to be satire or like a commentary, the story would read completely different, but we're going into this knowing that this is genuinely what the author believes women who aren't like her, who don't live the kind of life she believes is best, are like.

[00:13:22]It's a lot of performance for the sake of I don't I don't even know, being woke? But on the inside all the dots in the world I guess are just insecure and unsatisfied, which I do think is a little ironic.

[00:13:40]Ignorance-driven storytelling issues, similar to what I was just mentioning in Purple State. They aren't exclusive to books written by conservative people. We can see them across the board in conservative media, from film to television, even songs. One of the most recent examples that comes to my mind is the latest Animal Farm book to film adaptation. Though I hesitate to call it an adaptation because it seems to stray so so far away from Orwell's original story, and not even in an interesting way, just in a downright confusing way.

[00:14:19]But before we get into the details of Animal Farm, I feel like I should introduce you to the producers of the movie, a group called Angel Studios. And once you learn a little bit more about Angel Studios and who's behind them, I think the way this Animal Farm movie came to be is going to make a whole lot more sense.

[00:14:43]Angel Studios is an American indie media production company based in Utah. So, already a little questionable. How much you want to bet they're Mormon? Oh, you'll be wagering a lot of money because you would be correct. Angel Studios was originally formed in 2014 under the name VidAngel by a few LDS members as a streaming service that {quote} allowed viewers to skip or mute scenes they didn't want to watch from streaming movies and TV shows using a filter system. And they claim to have started this because they wanted to be able to show their kids any movie without worrying about explicit material. Any movie? Look, I don't have kids, so I could be completely wrong, but I feel like if a movie contains themes or scenes you think are too mature for your child, then maybe your child's just not ready to watch the movie yet. Is that so outlandish of a thing to suggest? I just feel like there's a lot of entitlement already just attached to the reasoning why Angel Studios exists, which I guess, you know, makes sense from the specific group of people. I don't just mean Mormons, I mean people who lean more traditionally Christian and or conservative. Not everyone, but, you know, there is there's a lot of historical precedent for wanting everyone to conform to their specific worldview, okay? Let's just say that. And of course, VidAngel inevitably did get sued by quite a few big Hollywood studios like Disney, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, all over copyright laws because they didn't have the licenses for any of the media that they made available on their platform to alter. And if I'm understanding this correctly, the lawsuit contributed to them also going bankrupt. Then in 2021, they did a little rebrand, which is when they came back as Angel Studios, and they now crowdfund to mostly produce their own movies. So, that's why much of the promotion on their website looks like, "With your help, we're able to tell stories that mainstream studios won't."

[00:16:51]And as we'll get to in a moment, there's a lot of good reasons why these {quote} unquote mainstream studios don't want to produce these scripts and these ideas.

[00:17:01]On their website, there's a lot of talk about {quote} unquote "amplifying the light," which I'm pretty sure is their way of getting around the censorship claims that that a lot of critics of the platform have made, myself included, but we'll get to that when we get to that. I do think this is a good place to slot in another little disclaimer though, my typical disclaimer. This video is just for fun. I love reading and writing and dissecting media, and while I do believe that the work I put into these videos, a lot of work minds you, can provide you with a bit of knowledge and some insight. I'm certainly not an expert on any of these things and I would never claim to be. If I get a bit of information wrong, please feel free to kindly correct me in the comments, okay?

[00:17:47]But I am trying my best. Anyways, I found a video interview with Angel Studios co-founder and CEO Neal Harmon, and there are a couple of quotes from that interview I want to share with you.

[00:18:00]I'm not going to play you the whole interview cuz I'm not going to make you sit through that, okay? And I also don't want to sit through that again a second time editing it. But I think these quotes in particular, they're going to be enlightening to the company's greater message than maybe their amplify light slogan ever could be. First, we have quote, "You know when you're watching a show and you decide, oh this is uncomfortable, and you try to jump for the remote and then you try to change the channel or skip past the video, you can just set that in advance and then this does the skip for you." End quote.

[00:18:34]No, Neal, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't close my eyes and plug my ears every time I come across a piece of media that doesn't 100% align with my worldview. If I did, I wouldn't be drudging through this interview right now. Then we have a second quote that says, "The reason that I started VidAngel is because of a very specific movie. Loved the movie Cinderella Man.

[00:18:55]At the time I wanted to share it with my family and I had very young children. I said, 'I love this movie, but the New Yorker language of the boxing coach is just I don't want my 2-year-old and 4-year-old and 6-year-old repeating that to each other. So let's watch this really great story but without them having to repeat those words. And I had never heard of Cinderella Man before, so I did look it up. This movie is PG-13. He wants to show a PG-13 movie to his 2-year-old child. Just let that sink in for a moment, okay? I guess this is a boxing movie, that's what I'm getting. So, it seems pretty violent as well, and I just think it's interesting that Neil was more concerned about his young children being exposed to someone saying "Jesus Christ" in a derogatory manner more so than he was concerned about exposing them to blood and broken bones and, you know, people just beating each other up. Like I said earlier, maybe just maybe, Neil, this isn't the kind of movie for young kids to watch and you should just wait till they get a little bit older instead of creating an entire platform that allegedly censors other people's artwork without their permission. I'm sure that Neil said plenty of other things in this interview that I could comment on, but I did not get through the whole thing. Because once he started blabbering on about how the Islamic community is trying to force Sharia law on everyone across the country and also somehow Hollywood is compliant to China, I did kind of start zoning out, okay? I'm not going to lie.

[00:20:27]I had reached my limit with Neil. I had heard enough. Oh god, he's back. In an interview with Variety, Neil says that by, quote, amplifying light, Angel Studios means focusing on film and TV that is, quote, good, beautiful, and worth sharing. We don't have any problem with what's being made. We are doing what is not being made. Though, it it kind of sounded like you did have a problem with what was being made in the other interview quote we just talked about, but okay, sure, whatever. This Variety article also talks about one of their bigger successes, which is the creation of a movie titled Sound of Freedom. And I do want to touch on Sound of Freedom in a second. But, okay. Okay, this is slightly unrelated, but apparently Neil and his brothers are also the ones behind this Poo-Pourri commercial.

[00:21:17]>> You would not believe the mother lode I just dropped. And that's how I like to keep it, leaving not a trace that I was ever here, let alone that I just birthed a creamy behemoth from my cavernous bowels. But, oh.

[00:21:29]Poo-Pourri. Poo-Pourri is the before-you-go toilet spray that is proven to trap those embarrassing odors at the source and save your relationships.

[00:21:37]>> And the Squatty Potty commercial that I remember seeing all the time as a kid.

[00:21:41]>> This is where your ice cream comes from.

[00:21:43]>> Oh.

[00:21:44]>> The creamy poop of a mystic unicorn.

[00:21:46]Mhm, they're good at pooping. But, you know who sucks at pooping? You do.

[00:21:51]That's cuz when you sit on a porcelain throne, this muscle puts a kink in the hose and stops the Ben & Jerry's from sliding out smoothly.

[00:21:57]>> I just feel like that's so crazy. Like, I don't know where to slot this information in, but I just I felt like you should know that. I don't know what value that's adding to this conversation, but I just feel like I just wonder what happened. Like, how did we get from Poo-Pourri commercial to like mass media censorship? I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to have to think on that.

[00:22:24]>> We almost had to call this podcast off today.

[00:22:26]>> Why? Serious emergency?

[00:22:28]>> I had a serious injury this morning.

[00:22:30]>> I just have a hard time comprehending how the premise for Angel Studios is an oxymoronic. Why are you fighting so hard for the freedom to censor and then watch movies that don't even align with your personal values in the first place? And that question points out, I think, some pretty big issues with Neil and his company. Because it's not actually about sitting down to watch these films. I think it's greater than that. I think it's about having the ability, having the power to change them into oblivion.

[00:23:02]He is attempting to set a precedent for manipulating art and media, which which is incredibly dangerous. There's also an article from Vanity Fair titled Nothing will stop Vid Angel from exercising Hollywood's demons, and it's from way back in 2017. Can't believe 2017's already considered way back, but it was posted around the time that the company was hit with their copyright lawsuit. I did try to find more recent ones, but literally no one's talking about them anymore. Like no media outlet cares about them anymore. I'm working with what I have, okay? And in this article, Neal tries to appeal to an audience outside of the mostly conservative base that his platform has garnered by saying quote about the filtering system, "Maybe the LGBT community will tag for bullying. Maybe a feminist group tags for the objectification of women.

[00:23:56]Whatever the group, we would like to get to the point where it's a cultural thing, and people create their own tags.

[00:24:02]And these tags help people make decisions about what content they want to consume." Hmm, very open-minded of you, Neal. He's speaking as though movies and real life are one in the same. Like yes, if someone, you know, was actively objectifying or harassing a woman on the street, the grocery store, or whatever, like that's not okay. We We need to have less of that, but these quote-unquote bad things can be used as tools to tell what often ends up being a thought-provoking, beautiful, healing story a lot of the times for people who do go through these real-life experiences. And that's what makes an impactful story. It's one that reflects the real human experience, even the parts that you don't like. And he just doesn't seem to get that. Even though Angel Studios now prioritizes marketing their original media over, you know, filtering films that already exist, That doesn't stop them from attempting to bend the truth to fit certain narratives.

[00:25:08]I want to quickly talk about one of Angel Studios' biggest movies before the release of Animal Farm earlier this year. And that is a movie that I mentioned a little bit earlier called Sound of Freedom. And it follows a federal agent on his mission to save children in Colombia from trafficking situations. Sound of Freedom claims to be based on true stories from someone named Tim Ballard, the founder and CEO of Our Rescue, formerly known as Operation Underground Railroad. I didn't recognize any of those names, and so I Googled him. I was shown these videos.

[00:25:44]So, we're already on shaky ground here, Tim. I'm not going to get too much into Tim and his questionable history because that's not the point of this video. I literally I literally just set out to make a silly little booger view, and yet here we are. But, if you are interested in learning more about him, I definitely recommend watching this Fundie Fridays video. I would recommend the Fundie Fridays channel in general if you enjoy the Mormon Christian fundamentalist commentary kind of niche. But, basically, the TDLR for what I'm discussing here is that Tim allegedly has a bit of a white savior complex, and that he actually resigned as CEO of Our Rescue the same year that Sound of Freedom came out, you know, the movie about him, due to multiple allegations from female employees about inappropriate behavior and lots of unwanted advances, if you catch my drift. I don't know what YouTube will allow me to say on here, so I'm hoping that you can catch my drift. And during his time as CEO, there were a lot of claims of embellishment regarding Our Rescue's actual role that they played in helping rescue trafficked individuals.

[00:26:55]Consequently, this questionable blending of truth and fiction inevitably found its way into much of Sound of Freedom, according to a lot of their reviewers.

[00:27:07]One review that I found to be quite poignant was from Joseph Tomastik on Loud and Clear, where he says, "quote, Sound of Freedom is effective and emotional as a portrayal of real-world crimes, but its message is compromised by its own fabrications of the truth."

[00:27:25]According to Joseph, the film's only real stance is that child trafficking is bad, which, okay, that's a good thing to think, but it's not really that grand or revolutionary of a statement to be making. Because Sound of Freedom's message is so simplistic, it lacks a lot of the nuance necessary when touching on these issues in the media. There isn't much scrutiny on the larger systemic problems that enable situations like those shown in Sound of Freedom to continue happening. Instead, it focuses a lot on Tim's character being the hero and rescuing all of these children of color, hence the white savior of it all.

[00:28:03]Like I said earlier, this film was marketed as based on a true story.

[00:28:08]However, Joseph in his review says it contains, "quote, fabrications of the truth." For instance, the main operation of the film had a lot more victims involved, including adults. Children are shown to have been lured into captivity in ways that were apparently never confirmed, and the entire climactic mission never even happened at all. When the story is about something this severe, I see this level of fabrication as an injustice. When the facts become distorted or just plain made up, that throws into question the very statistics that are shown to us and how huge this crisis actually is. You can't play fast and loose with something like this. If you do, people may dismiss the very notion that these kinds of terrible things are happening as frequently as they are. In an attempt to make the thrill of the story feel more grandiose, Angel Studios ended up downplaying the seriousness of the subject, which can definitely be seen as disrespectful, not just to actual victims, but also to the viewers who are promised something real.

[00:29:09]These weren't changes made for the sake of adapting the story to a different medium, you know, like adapting to a film or a TV show, for example. These were changes made for the purposes of warping the story to squeeze it into a specific point of view, a specific conservative-leaning point of view.

[00:29:34]Now, let's get into Angel Studios' most recent film adaptation, Animal Farm. Of course, the original Animal Farm was written by George Orwell and is a satirical response to the Russian Revolution, Stalin's dictatorship, and the Soviet Union. It's not communism equals bad, it's a warning about dictatorships and totalitarian Yep, exactly. That's exactly what it's warning about. I hope you could understand that. It's a warning about dictatorships and totalitarian-style governments. Why did Angel Studios think it would be a good idea to adapt this book into a PG-style kids film anyways?

[00:30:14]I don't know. The writing style in George Orwell's book is simplistic, yes, but it's certainly not a book meant for children, especially young children. It is incredibly dark and violent. It's literally about a dictatorship and the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union.

[00:30:31]When you take all of that out of the story, what story even is there anymore?

[00:30:35]You're removing the entire historical context, you're removing the whole point of why the story was even being made.

[00:30:41]And the movie does end up removing a lot of this historical context. It removes the very important character of Old Major, who is the one in the beginning of the book that has that big speech telling the other animals they need to revolt and that they need to wish for a better life and a better life is possible. And they don't replace Old Major at all, even though his speech is literally why the animals are so committed to Animal Farm and why so much of what happens in the story happens at all. Angel Studios just gets rid of it and they never address it. In Animal Farm, Old Major is theorized to represent the likes of Lenin and the USSR. So, they just kind of like erased Lenin. They They erased a lot of things, actually. In Orwell's book, the character Snowball the pig originally is the one that convinces the rest of the farm to help to help build a windmill so that the farm can create better resources like electricity and it's going to make their lives so much easier. It's going to streamline a lot of things, which is in the book a reference to a lot of the promises that were associated with the industrialization sort of era and all of that machinery and innovation that happened then. In the film, however, Snowball makes Boxer the horse and a random character created for this movie called Lucky the pig to build an entire water wheel not windmill, water wheel all on their own without telling anybody. And because Snowball keeps this a secret for whatever reason, it's not really clear why, Napoleon uses that as a way to get the rest of the farm animals to turn on Snowball. Even though the water wheel literally is it's already built at this point and workable in the span of like two to four business days, Snowball still has to leave the farm. Snowball is still kicked out just because Napoleon says like that's kind of a boring idea.

[00:32:38]Snowball's kind of boring like she should leave. And everyone just like, "Yeah, okay. Bye, Snowball." Like it doesn't make any sense. And just like Old Major's character, this windmill is an integral part of Animal Farm. It takes them a lot of time and effort to build it in the book, which in turn meant that a lot of other farm life necessities were neglected in the process. And that neglection alongside Napoleon's aggression that grows is ultimately what gets Snowball kicked out of the farm, which is way more meaningful than "Snowball's kind of boring. She should just go." Like what?

[00:33:15]And then apparently the big crisis of the movie is when the {quote} {unquote} villain character, Pilkington, what a name, wants to buy Animal Farm to bulldoze and build an electric dam over it. Also, just as a side note, like they did cast The cast of this like I don't There's so many people that I'm like, "Why did you agree to do this movie?"

[00:33:36]Like do you have self-respect? No offense, but But they did cast Seth Rogen to play the other sort of villainous character of Napoleon. So they essentially turned Napoleon in this movie into some bumbling, kind of silly, goofy, stupid guy that all the other animals just agree with for some reason.

[00:33:57]Hey, that kind of reminds me of someone.

[00:33:59]Anyways, the director showed up to the premiere in a MAGA-inspired hat. But I'm sure that's like completely unrelated.

[00:34:07]But silly, goofy, bumbling kind of guy is just That's what Seth Rogen plays in every single movie. He's not even good at being a bad guy like the original Napoleon in the book. So why did you even choose him to be Napoleon? It doesn't make sense. Feel like I just keep ending all of these points with it doesn't make sense, but that's because it really doesn't. And the moral of the film adaptation of Animal Farm ends up being, "Well, Napoleon and Snowball were both bad. We should just all be friends.

[00:34:35]The end. Like like what? I honestly couldn't think of a more conservative quote unquote moral to the story than both sides are bad, so you should be nice to me. Cuz that's essentially what they did. Somehow they managed to make a non-political version of one of the most political books ever, and that's why the movie is so bad. And I'm really not surprised that a production company like Angel Studios, who has so many censorship sort of allegations, and you know, has their production company built off of this filtering system, would sanitize Animal Farm the way that they did. Just reminds me of how a lot of conservatives use the point of quote unquote protecting the children as a way to sanitize the parts of history and art that they don't like. Because correct me if I'm wrong, but that's essentially what they've done with Animal Farm here is they've taken this very clearly political book with a lot of depth, and they said, "Let's have Seth Rogen voice act a pig and take all of the politics out of it. And also have a an Old MacDonald rap song, because that needed to be added."

[00:35:53]Throughout my time delving into Angel Studios and their films, I discovered other creators on YouTube like Andy King, who posts a lot of videos watching and reviewing Christian and conservative produced movies like The Unbreakable Boy that I am not going to cover in depth here, but it is yet another conservative based on true events story that really strays far from reality. Kurtis Conner also has quite a few commentary videos posted poking fun at some conservative Christmas-themed films, of which there are many. That's like the one movie genre I expect to be a little bit religious given that, you know, the holiday is about Jesus. And I did watch several of those videos, and the one that stuck out to me the most was the one that he did about Jingle Smells.

[00:36:44]Because conceptually, the amount of cognitive dissonance that it takes for this movie to even exist truly astounds me. It's backed and produced by conservative political commentator Sean Hannity of The Sean Hannity Show. And if you never heard of him before this moment, consider yourself lucky.

[00:37:02]Basically, the synopsis for Jingle Smells is a war vet named Nick returns home, and he's having some trouble getting his footing. He's maybe not making the best of choices right now.

[00:37:13]His dad is a cop who repeatedly bails his adult son out of situations, but even eventually his dad is like, "Okay, Nick, like, you need to get your life together." So, he ends up getting Nick a job as a garbage man. Also, around this time, there is a TV star getting canceled for wearing camo and saying support our troops. Yep, you heard that right. This movie is all about defeating the big evil cancel culture. So, the TV star's action figure line gets canceled, and for some reason, Nick, a random garbage man, is tasked with disposing of all the toys. Nick doesn't do that, though. Instead, he takes on the identity of Jingle Smells and gives the action figures as gifts to a bunch of sick children. Because nothing says Christmas like handing out propaganda to minors in vulnerable positions.

[00:38:01]Eventually, Nick gets caught by the authorities, but the town bands together to save him from being held accountable for his actions. I'm laughing cuz I'm scared. And also, that TV star is now magically uncancelled. The end. The reviews for Jingle Smells are terrible, and they're terribly funny. They're terribly entertaining. This one in particular, it says, quote, "Every year we have an annual bad Christmas movie competition. This was my submission, and it's definitely a strong contender. My hollies are unjollied, my bells are severely unjingled. Christmas is canceled." It certainly has a Tubi classic vibe to it, from the acting to the attempt at comedy to the rather jarring camera work. I do not believe the writers have ever actually talked to someone with more liberal views before.

[00:38:48]There is a rather unintentionally terrifying moment that I think was supposed to be fun and wholesome, where a pair of twin children appear out of nowhere posing as elves and speaking in unison. There is a rather massive plot hole, leaving viewers questioning, "Why do the villains of this story even care if the toys weren't thrown away?" I can only hope that, since at this time the movie has no reviews, that the writers will see this review and hopefully never write another movie again. There is one scene in this movie in particular that really bothered me, and I I to unpack it a little bit, because I think if we do, it's quite telling. So, Nick gets into an argument with one of his coworkers about the possibility of him being Jingle Smells. He gets really defensive and says, quote, "Just because you're happy living in the dump being nothing doesn't mean I have to be." Then he storms off and goes to sit in a church and begs for help sitting in the pews in front of a cross. Another guy appears standing across from him, who is supposed to represent Santa Claus, and Nick talks to Santa about his time serving in the army. He is clearly very traumatized by the violence that he witnessed and took part in, and Santa responds by saying, quote, "I hate to break it to you, son, but that's just life." Half of this movie is about a war veteran who is struggling to reacclimate to everyday life, and the other half is about someone who got canceled for saying, "Protect our troops." But you'd think you would think that they would try and come across as more pro-veteran than they are for this film, but what I think is in a lot of conservative circles, pro-veteran and pro-military get conflated. Jingle Smells is a pro-military movie trying and failing to masquerade as pro-veteran. They victimize themselves by creating imaginary scenarios in which people get socially shunned and punished for saying something like support our troops. And yet, they don't even understand what that phrase means fundamentally. They have manipulated it to be an excuse to shovel even more of our tax dollars to fund war and destruction that doesn't even need to happen. But, what about when those troops come home? What about the millions of veterans that rely on SNAP and other social services to survive that the government is currently cutting funding for? What about access to mental health resources and professionals they're also cutting funding for? What about all the veterans on disability?

[00:41:10]And this is what I mean when I say that Jingle Smells contains so much cognitive dissonance. Because, how can you make a movie on the basis of someone getting canceled for voicing his support for US troops and then at the same time have Santa of all people, Santa Claus, the Santa Claus, dismiss a struggling veteran's PTSD by telling him to just get over it because that's life.

[00:41:39]Okay, I think I've done a fair enough job at establishing that across genres in general, conservatives, they aren't the best storytellers. But, we still haven't answered the why. Why are conservatives bad storytellers? And to answer that, we're going to have to take a closer look at their audience, other conservatives. And honestly, that last sentence sort of answered the question itself. Conservatives are telling stories to primarily other conservatives. It's an echo chamber. And there are actually a lot of studies that back this up too, like this one from USC Annenberg. In this study, they surveyed over 3,000 people to learn more about, quote, the relationship between our storytelling preferences >> [music] >> and the values and convictions that shape our understanding of the world. In essence, how does the entertainment we consume align with our personal and political beliefs? Out of all the people interviewed, three groups were identified: the blues, Democrat-leaning; the purples, somewhere in the middle; and the reds, who were Republican-leaning. For our purposes, we're mostly just going to focus on the reds. The reds are defined as the group that holds conservative views on most issues, including positive attitudes toward police and skepticism about affirmative action, immigrants, and Islam. This is also the group, coincidentally, with the highest proportion of senior citizens. USC Annenberg also conducted the same exact study about prior in 2008, and I thought something interesting to note was that in the most recent 2018 edition, the red group actually shrunk by about 8%, and the blue group grew by about I think this is a really cool study to read through, and it is also pretty easy to follow along with, so I'll leave it linked below for anyone to check out.

[00:43:33]But basically, what the study found out about the red group and their entertainment media consumption is this.

[00:43:40]Most reds watch TV news daily, usually Fox News, or at least once a week. Reds tend to be the least familiar with the 50 entertainment TV shows on our list, as they watch entertainment TV far less than the other groups, with 18% reporting less than 2 hours per week.

[00:43:57]When they do watch TV or films, reds prefer action-adventure. They dislike talk shows more than the other groups.

[00:44:03]Compared to blues and purples, fewer reds enjoy a show for its ability to inspire. They are also least likely to enjoy moments of sadness and poignancy in the stories they watch. And they tend to not watch shows in order to experience feelings that are difficult to allow in everyday life. Reds are less interested in seeking out diverse entertainment options, including entertainment that originates outside the US or that reflects taste or values different from their own. They're least likely to say they have learned about politics and social issues from fictional movies or TV. In fact, they had the highest proportion of people in any group saying they never do so. Reds are the least likely to use shows to stimulate discussion or provide new insight. So, that definitely backs up my suspicions about echo chambers. It also gives us some insight into why the target audiences for many conservative created stories are so quick to rally behind that piece of media, even in instances where it's been embellished and or lacking a lot of depth.

[00:45:05]Conservative audiences aren't typically seeking out depth in their entertainment media. They aren't looking for nuance.

[00:45:12]They aren't even necessarily seeking out a truth in what they're consuming. They are searching for their truth to be reinforced. Being curious or challenged isn't their priority, and so conservative storytellers create accordingly. I also found another study from 2009 titled The Irony of Satire, Political Ideology, and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report. looked at the way different people interpreted the satire in The Colbert Report, which was Stephen Colbert's news show, where his intention was to parody the conservative talk shows on channels like Fox News. What it found was that, depending on a person's political affiliation, they interpreted Colbert's skits in drastically different ways. Most people across the board thought what Colbert was doing was funny. On one hand, liberals were more likely to understand the satire and they also understood that Colbert was not being serious with anything political that he said. However, conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert was only pretending to be joking and that he genuinely meant what he said in terms of the political statements. And on top of that, conservatives were also more likely to think that Colbert actually didn't like liberals at all. A lot of them completely missed the point even though it was right in front of them. All they had to do was think hard enough to break through their confirmation bias bubble. This actually reminds me of a personal experience that I had as a child. It had to have been like around 2013 because Hozier's song "Take Me to Church" had just come out and it was early enough into the release of that song that there were some people that still hadn't connected the dots that the song was about the LGBT community and the Catholic Church. My mother was one of those people who hadn't connected the dots quite yet. I still to this day don't know if she actually knows what that song means, but she's pretty religious and would almost exclusively play Christian music in the car on the way to school and stuff. And then I remember there was like a stretch of time where she would also play this Hozier song and sing along with it. Only the parts that mentioned church and worship, but still I found it so bizarre because my then, you know, chronically online Tumblr using self knew exactly what the song stood for, which was not anything that she agrees with. But I genuinely think because the song had church in the title, she thought it was a religious song exclusively about worshipping Jesus. Like she knew what a lot of the lyrics were, too, but she just couldn't for the life of her piece it together. To wrap up this extremely long video, I do want to circle back to where we began, which is with books. Not a poorly written conservative romance, don't worry, but rather a book about reading between the lines. I know I've referenced how to read literature like a professor multiple times on this channel already. And guess what? I'm going to do it again. You can't stop me. As a little palate cleanser while working on this video, I felt spiritually called to revisit the two chapters in this book that are all about symbolism and about politics in stories. Of course, all stories are political whether we like it or not, but you probably already knew that. Something you might not know, however, is that symbols and symbolism in stories are not as cut and dry as you might have been taught in your high school English class. The Great Gatsby's green light, for example, what does that represent? Wealth and status, the hope of the American dream, Gatsby's love for Daisy, something alluring yet ultimately unattainable, Gatsby's optimism, a second chance, a little bit of all of that, or none of that at all? Yes, to every single one of those possibilities.

[00:48:57]It depends on how you, with your unique perspective, identity, and experience, interpret that within the story. That, I fear, is another matter. We want it to mean something, don't we? The author, Thomas C. Foster, writes, "More than that, we want it to mean something, one thing for all of us and for all time.

[00:49:16]That would be easy, convenient, and manageable for us. But that handiness would result in a net loss. The novel would cease to be what it is, a network of meanings and significations that permits a nearly limitless range of possible interpretations. The meaning isn't lying on the surface of the novel.

[00:49:35]Rather, it waits somewhere deeper, and part of what it requires of us is to bring something of ourselves to the encounter." I think we're at a point in time in general, political affiliation aside, where it is convenient to prefer convenience. We want everything streamlined and optimized, and we want it fast. We want it now, even to the detriment of the experience of the story itself. But, I also wonder if that simplicity is heightened in conservative entertainment media because of the monolithic quality inherent to the conservative movement. That rigidity makes it difficult for people to engage with a text, period, but especially one that isn't 100% aligned with that person's beliefs. And that unwillingness to engage with something too different to you, it reveals a lot about what conservatism does not value.

[00:50:28]Open-mindedness, patience, and curiosity, all of which, curiosity especially, are inherent to good storytelling. Purple Stage was not born out of a genuine wonderment for how different women navigate high-stakes careers alongside aspirations of romantic relationships. It was written to reaffirm what the author already believed, and to convince the reader of it as well. That can be said with The Sound of Freedom and the Animal Farm remake, even Jingle Smells. And that creates quite a blurry line between what is story and what is propaganda. I'd love it if you liked and subscribed to the channel, and also hype this video.

[00:51:10]That's a new thing YouTube is doing now, I guess. That would help give this video a little boost in the algorithm. Like I said at the beginning of this video, over here at Salted Latte, I love to dive into and dissect language and prose through all kinds of mediums, anything I'm interested in, really. Let me know if you enjoyed this one, or if you have any suggestions for future videos. I'm all ears. I do also have an ASMR channel you can check out if you're into that.

[00:51:37]I'll have it linked below, along with my Patreon, if you'd like to support me that way as well. All of these videos and my ASMR videos are posted over there early and ad-free. And as this channel grows, I'll try to figure out some bonus content over there that relates to this so we'd all enjoy as well. But that is all I have to say for now. I'll talk to you all soon. Goodbye.