Posted on 01/31/2018 3:35:34 AM PST by markomalley
From “The President Show” to “Our Cartoon President,” the laundry list of TV shows targeting President Trump is getting longer. But with still more projects poised to flood the small screen landscape, is there a danger for the entertainment industry in greenlighting so much anti-Trump fare?
“It feels like there are two Americas out there under one border,” says GOP strategist Ron Bonjean. “You have the anti-Trump crowd and then, of course, pro-Trump voters.”
Comedy Central premiered “The President Show” last year, with Trump impersonator Anthony Atamanuik sporting a wig and power suit to yuk it up as the executive mansion resident each week. Atamanuik said ahead of the show’s debut, “Laughing at the president is a proud American tradition and we hope not to disappoint anyone in that department. But our political system is too broken for us to be content joking about one man, even though he is a disastrous silly little toddler boy.”
Another Trump parody, “Our Cartoon President,” will premiere on Showtime on Feb. 11. The animated satire, co-executive produced by “Late Show” host and fierce Trump critic Stephen Colbert, will follow the “tru-ish misadventures of the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, and his merry band of advisors and family members,” according to the network.
Colbert has seen his ratings soar over the last year as he’s skewered Trump almost nightly on his CBS show. Cable news networks have also enjoyed a ratings spike since the election, covering all things Trump.
Even in typically left-leaning Hollywood, Steve Ross, a University of Southern California history professor and author of “Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics,” says he can’t recall a time that so many shows mocked a sitting president.
“I can’t think of it, but then again we’ve never had a president like Trump,” says Ross. “He’s our first celebrity president. He’s our first media-generated president.”
Jon Macks, a veteran comedy writer and Democratic political consultant, says with all the Trump bashing going on, the challenge for TV pros is “how do you differentiate yourself and what you’re doing, other than the form, to what is, in one sense, a cut-off base?”
“You have one topic with a lot of very smart people rising to the challenge to express it,” says Macks. “But in the end, it’s still Johnny One Note. It’s still just Donald Trump.”
Earlier this month, Endeavor Content announced it had bought the film and television rights to Michael Wolff’s controversial book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” with plans to adapt the White House tell-all into a TV series.
“I feel like they’re dipping their toe in very dangerous waters,” Bonjean says. “These could have a real tendency to backfire.”
“Look at what happened in the NFL and the controversy over kneeling during the national anthem and how attendance was lacking over the last half of the season,” adds the Rokk Solutions partner. “What really matters is quality entertainment, and if these shows have blatant anti-Trump messages, they can turn people off and cause Trump voters to go elsewhere to look for their entertainment.”
“If all they do is dump on Trump, I think you’re going to get people both turning off and being offended,” Ross tells ITK.
“If these shows are done cleverly,” in the vein of Charlie Chaplin — who “skewered everyone in authority” with his “tramp” persona, says Ross — “they can turn audiences against Trump. If they’re not done cleverly, they can simply turn off audiences.”
But Macks says with the popularity of Netflix, Hulu and other ways to be entertained, the days of networks trying to appeal to as broad an audience as possible may be over.
“We’re narrowcasting now, we’re not broadcasting as much,” he says.
Bonjean says when it comes to Trump, many viewers are likely already over their saturation point: “There is a real desire also among people to unplug from all the action, to unplug from the intensity.”
Macks, who worked as a top writer for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” for more than two decades, says, “We used to watch late-night news or late-night comedy and shows like these to get our mind off the news of the day.”
Now, television “doesn’t make us forget the news. It makes us more worried,” says the “Monologue: What Makes America Laugh Before Bed” author. “What you see in late-night and whatever, I think just amplifies the things that scare the majority of people.”
So with plenty of anti-Trump TV to choose from, is it only a matter of time before a pro-Trump sitcom hits the airwaves?
“Just remember, Hollywood is first and foremost in the money-making business, not the conscientious-raising business,” says Ross. “So if there’s a show, if there’s a network or cable outlet that thinks it can make money by going against the tide of anti-Trump, they’re going to do it.”
I'll believe it when I see it.
I have given up TV because the constant barrage of multi-cult, anti-Americanism, and anti- me! I don’t need the entertainment enough to feel like an unwanted foreigner in my own country.
I cut the cable/satellite cord years ago. Been much happier ever since, and I *know* that I’m contributing to the delinquency of Communists.
Our first media generated president?
Obviously and unfortunately that was Barack Obama.
Heh. Hollywood and the press will always work to undermine Trump. The only debate between them is how to do so. Blatant or subtle?
If these shows are done cleverly, in the vein of Charlie Chaplin -- who skewered everyone in authority with his "tramp" persona -- they can turn audiences against Trump.Press headlines offered by Google news aggregator this morning ...
Could Trump be the president who finishes off the State of the Union address? - Washington PostHere's what Trump ignored in his State of the Union - New York Daily News
The State of the Union Is Unrecognizable - The Atlantic
Trump Can Sell an Improved Economy, but Not Himself - New York Times
Yeah. Remember all those “dump on obama” tv shows?
Good times! /s
Yep
“Laughing at the president is a proud American tradition...
“Atamanuik said ahead of the show’s debut, “Laughing at the president is a proud American tradition”
Except for the years between that cartoon they did about Bush and this one, where ODDLY ENOUGH there was no time to laugh at the president.
Maybe they weren’t proud of Obama.
The average American is starting to see the “anti-Trump crowd” are an “anti-American crowd” and boy oh boy did they show it last night.
Redundant.
Remember the rodeo clown wearing the Obama mask and the “outrage” and the shrieks of racism that happened, to the point where the RINO governor getting involved and the rodeo clown was fired and banned for life from ever working rodeos again? What he did is something the left does to Trump 1000 times over every single day, and not only is nobody fired, they are celebrated for it.
https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/12/politics/missouri-obama-rodeo/index.html
Media is a method for influencing people. That is why they sell ad space.
So when you see something on TV, they are trying to get you to do something.
First “media-generated president”?
Any producer, director, actor who participates in a pro-Trump show will be told in no uncertain terms “you will never work in this town again”.
Kim Ding Dong is the only hammer that can fix the Hollywood nail.
We just finished watching 4 seasons of WHEN CALLS THE HEART on Netflix & recommend it. It takes place on the Canadian frontier in 1910. Check it out for the entire family.
Streaming has put an end to our television viewing.
And CNN ran fact check stories saying that most of what Trump said was either misleading or false, and added that it was the worst received SOTU in history.
Obviously CNN and ABC need to get together and reconcile their stories.
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