Is Entertainment Moving to the Right?
The Sam Sanders Show
KCRW & Sam Sanders
4.9 • 711 Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How is entertainment changing with our current political moment?
Hollywood networks are scrapping trans storylines, DEI pipelines set up after 2020 are shutting down, and the conservative universe is thriving online. Are big studios chasing Donald Trump voters like the last time he was elected? Or is the chokehold of social media influencing how everyone else does business? Sam unpacks it all with two journalistic all-stars, Taylor Lorenz of User Mag and Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw.
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The Sam Sanders Show is a production of KCRW and Sam Sanders Productions.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey listeners, it is the season of giving. Get that warm, fuzzy feeling. Make a donation, |
| 0:06.2 | pick out some cozy KCRW merch, or send meals to local food banks. Donate now at kCRW.com |
| 0:13.6 | slash give. Hey y'all, it's the Sam Sanders show from KCRW. This week we get political. |
| 0:23.3 | Because if you look around, there are a few recent examples of politics affecting entertainment. Hollywood studios may be giving up DEI, |
| 0:30.4 | certain types of shows or storylines being axed altogether for being political. How big is this |
| 0:36.7 | trend and how much will it affect what we consume? |
| 0:40.4 | I brought on two media journalists to answer this question, Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg and the |
| 0:45.1 | Screen Time newsletter, and Taylor Lorenz. She writes the UserMag newsletter on Substack. |
| 0:51.2 | All right, let's get into it. |
| 0:59.0 | This is the big question that I want to frame this whole episode by. Entertainment with a big E, and I'm broad here, TV, movies, YouTube, streaming, etc. |
| 1:05.0 | I feel like some of it is either quietly or very loudly, moving to right or becoming less, quote, unquote, progressive in this current moment. |
| 1:17.4 | Would you all agree? Or is it more complicated than a yes or no answer? |
| 1:21.1 | I think it's more complicated than a yes or no answer. I think it has been moving for a couple of years. I don't think it is a response to Trump winning. |
| 1:29.2 | I think that entertainment tends to reflect what people are interested in and what they want to watch. |
| 1:36.3 | I don't think for the most part, there are exceptions to this. I don't think that Hollywood studios or |
| 1:42.1 | video game companies or content creators say, I need to present X political viewpoint. I think that Hollywood studios or video game companies or content creators say, I need to present |
| 1:46.5 | X political viewpoint. I think that they respond to what their viewers or listeners want, and that |
| 1:52.5 | if they see that they are interested in something and there has been a little bit of a right-word |
| 1:56.3 | shift in our politics over the last couple of years, they then satisfy that. |
| 1:59.8 | Same question for you, Taylor. |
| 2:01.6 | A lot of your work focuses on YouTube and entertainment there. |
| 2:05.6 | Has entertainment on YouTube and that platform seemed to shift rightward in your view? |
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