Will Hollywood turn to bland escapism under Trump?

Back in 2016, when Donald Trump first shocked political pundits and pollsters by beating Hillary Clinton to become US president, it sparked a cultural backlash. American artists, a mostly left-leaning bunch, turned their creative tools into weapons of resistance to attack Trump and his worldview.

Alec Baldwin playacted Trump on TV sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" and won an Emmy for it. Another Emmy went to "The Handmaid's Tale," a TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel about a dystopian takeover of the US by the Christian far right, a story that suddenly felt scarily prescient.

There were exhibits of Trump-critical work by female artists with titles like "Uprise / Angry Women" and "One Year of Resistance." Art seemed to feed on, as well as fuel, the progressive political movements of the time, particularly #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter.

This time, however, it may be different.

Trump's victory over Kamala Harris on November 5 was so clear — a landslide in the Electoral College, where he took every swing state, and winning the popular vote, the first Republican candidate to do so since George W. Bush in 2004 — that outright condemning him and his supporters feels like condemning the entire concept of American democracy.

Fears of slashed funding and retribution

Doing so would also limit your market. Hollywood, in particular, has been reluctant to make art that could alienate the huge swaths of the country that voted for the once and future president. The film and TV industry, which was battered by the COVID pandemic, disrupted by strikes and fears annihilation by artificial intelligence, is unlikely to want to take such a financial risk now.

In his first term, President Trump repeatedly tried to defund federal support for the arts. Both his 2018 and 2021 budgets included proposals (eventually dropped) to slash the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — in 2021 Trump suggested instead of the $445 million (€412 million today) allotted to the organization, which supports NPR, PBS and small and midsized television stations, Congress should set aside just $30 million — and entirely scrap the National Endowment for the Arts.

There is also a real fear of retribution. Many in the US media worry Trump will follow through on threats made during the campaign that he would bring the Federal Communications Commission under his personal control and revoke the broadcasting licenses for TV networks who have critical of him.

"This is a man who unabashedly talks about vengeance, and Hollywood has not been kind to him, in his eyes," said Dean Devlin, the producer of blockbusters like "Independence Day," "The Patriot" and the 1998 version of "Godzilla." "If he could, I think he would enact his revenge."

The election also showed the limitations of artist activism when it comes to swaying voters. Harris easily won the backing of the creatives class, with her roster of celebrity backers including Scarlett Johansson and George Clooney, Madonna and Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen and the irresistible force that is Taylor Swift. Trump's artistic support was decidedly C-list: Hulk Hogan and Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Quaid, Kid Rock and YouTuber Jake Paul. But Trump won anyway.

American audiences, left and right, red and blue, appear to have had enough of political cinema. Ali Abbasi's "The Apprentice," a recent making-of-Trump biopic about his rise to prominence in the New York real estate scene in the 1970s and '80s, and his tutelage under notorious dirty tricks lawyer Roy Cohn, was a colossal flop.

Controversial movie becomes box office hit

All this suggests that Hollywood, this time, might go easy on the Trump bashing.

Seeing the size of the MAGA audience, the studios may lean into movies and series that play to that crowd, such as Taylor Sheridan's series "Yellowstone," a neo-Western about tough men on the American frontier, starring Kevin Costner. Or films like "Sound of Freedom," a 2023 thriller about child trafficking. It was criticized for playing into Trumpist right-wing conspiracy theories but became a huge hit, earning more than $184 million (€171 million) at the US box office.

There are still plenty of creative people fighting the MAGA wave. Posting on Instagram after Tuesday's results were confirmed, actress Jamie Lee Curtis said Trump's victory "means a sure return to a more restrictive, some fear draconian time." But the 65-year-old called on Americans to "wake up and fight. Fight for women and our children and their futures and fight against tyranny, one day at a time."

But the strongest inclination for American stars this time around may be simply to turn away from politics and produce more bland, lowest-common denominator entertainment that's less likely to offend.

If Trump's first term as president was marked by a surge in political message movies and social activist series, his second era could prove more escapist, with creators unwilling to directly criticize him or his politics for fear of alienating (more than) half of the country.

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier