
By Brandon Smith
We’ve all heard the argument before – “Liberals are the ‘creatives’ in western culture and conservatives have no imagination”. And, if you only use venues like the Hollywood film industry or maybe the New York art and literature scenes as examples, then this claim might appear to have validity. After all, the vast majority of filmmakers, writers, actors and artists today are rabidly progressive. It’s hard to find a single conservative among them.
Of course, the argument falls apart when we look back to the artists and musical geniuses of the Renaissance, or the great writers and poets of the early industrial age. In fact, for centuries the creative world was dominated by conservative and Christian powerhouses. It wasn’t until the quiet leftist invasion of media starting in the 1940s (which was stalled by McCarthy) and the eventual takeover in the 1970s that “art” became the exclusive domain of progressives.
How did this happen? How did conservatives get pushed out of the creative world?
Well, they’re still around; thousands upon thousands of them. However, the art world and the realm of entertainment are largely dictated by corporate dollars. Wealthy benefactors used to PAY conservative artists and commissioned great works. Now, they don’t. Whoever gets the money gets the exposure, and liberal artists get the money. It’s not about merit, it’s about ideology and politics.
Try to be a new talent with openly conservative views in mainstream film, television, fiction writing, comic books, painting, music, etc. Watch how quickly you are added to the blacklist and how quickly you disappear regardless of how brilliant your work is. It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s observable fact.
There are numerous case studies of conservatives in Hollywood being buried by the industry. In literature the progressives learned how to control the bottleneck – Nearly all literary agencies are run by leftists (and women), and if you can’t get representation for your book then it won’t get nationally published.
A common argument among leftists (or idiots) is that women simply read far more and so books that cater to female consumers get the green light. It’s the “free market” – Don’t you support the free market?
In reality, the woke takeover of literature came first. And, now that books are rarely written by men for men, male readers have no market to tap into. The problem has become so epidemic that a literary company in Britain called Conduit Books announced that they are going to focus on male writers for the foreseeable future. And guess what happened? Mobs of leftists and the corporate media attacked them, arguing that men had their time and now is the time for women to “have a voice”.
In other words, male writers (let alone male conservative writers) aren’t even allowed to have ONE company that supports their work.
As the Gamergate movement exposed, woke activists hijacked gaming by extorting companies with threats of cancellation. They then organized “consultation” groups (like Sweet Baby Inc.) that invaded the industry and injected woke narratives into every new product. Conservatives are persona non grata in the AAA game development space.
Comic books have been utterly destroyed by the political left. An army of feminists and LGBT activists now control every aspect of the comic industry and American comics no longer sell because of woke politics. Did the market die? No, customers simply moved on to the alternatives. Japanese Manga dominates the comic market today with sales that dwarf American comics. In 2021, total US comic sales hit $2.07 billion, with $1.47 billion of that being manga.
These are just a few examples of how leftists act as gatekeepers in creative markets. For decades they have dictated who gets exposure and who doesn’t. And you know whose fault it is? It’s ours.
For many years I have listened to conservatives dismiss pop culture as “kids stuff” and not important compared to politics. Meanwhile, woke saboteurs were slithering into every corner of the entertainment world and planting their degenerate notions into every movie, every show, every song, every book, everywhere you look their cultism is rampant. You can’t get away from it and we allowed this to happen because we weren’t paying attention.
Luckily, a counter-movement has formed and the vast effort to stop wokeness in media has been largely successful in organizing boycotts. In the past few years nearly every entertainment platform that produces woke material is dying.
In movies, production companies are forced to reduce or completely cut out woke messaging in order to draw an audience. The problem is, the leftists still stand guard at the gates. Conservatives still aren’t getting access to media markets, which means all we are going to get for years to come is progressive slop, or productions that avoid wokeness but remain mediocre.
My fear is that audiences will simply settle for mediocre as a replacement for woke; that people will throw up their hands and give up on quality in art and entertainment as long as they’re no longer bombarded with DEI. It basically means the the death of creativity in the west.
So what’s the solution?
It seems so obvious to me that it’s painful, but maybe conservative creators are so despondent that they’ve given up. The internet and social media offer immense opportunities for independent content creation, but this is not enough. Audiences and investors need to put cash and support behind the alternative content industry.
Just as great Christian artists were once given the ability to conjure historic works of grandeur because of commissions, there needs to be a movement to focus production and distribution back into conservative hands.
The crisis in liberal entertainment cannot be allowed to go to waste. Never before has the progressive media juggernaut been as weak as it has been in the last few years. Now is the time to take the culture back. Not necessarily by forcing conservative politics into movies and books, but by creating meaningful and powerful art again; art that removes the stains of wokeness.
Films and short form fictional content are incredibly cheap to make and distribute compared to 20 years ago. I have always loved the artform of film but when I started writing in the early 2000s the field was prohibitively expensive and digital cameras were in their infancy. Even making a short film could bankrupt the average twenty-something artist with a tight budget.
Today, you can get near Hollywood quality digital cameras, lighting, editing, sound, etc, for well under $10,000. Maybe half that price if you buy used. All you need is a good idea and the will to make it happen. Price is no longer a factor like it once was.
I will say, though, that conservative filmmakers need some kind of venue to tap into – Maybe a yearly short film contest or a screenplay competition. Someone needs to step up and provide an arena where conservative creators can compete for greater opportunities beyond some cash from YouTube.
In literature I suspect the crusade will be much more difficult, unless companies with weight and money step in to launch a conservative renaissance in fiction. Self publishing is definitely an option but reach without marketing is limited. The most successful creators will be those with a preexisting audience. A lot of brilliant writers will fall by the wayside because they don’t already have an online presence.
Indie video games are in the wild west phase and there are some incredible success stories out there. As the technology becomes more accessible I suspect leftists will lose their hold on development. It may take another few years, though.
I believe comic books is one area that is BEGGING for revitalization and new blood. As noted, the market is huge. American readers are hungry for good stories, they just aren’t finding them at Marvel and DC because of the woke takeover. No one wants to buy leftist drivel.
American comic creators like Eric July have proved that the industry can be saved. His libertarian/conservative “Rippaverse” project has garnered a lot of attention (and a lot of hate) for offering non-woke comic books and he has shown that there is a steady audience for this kind of content.
I’m adding my own limited contribution to the fight with my action/horror graphic novel ‘Mountain Hollow’ which is now in print. A story about a survivalist who fights a guerrilla war against an interdimensional evil. Here’s a promo video for my book:
Anyone interested in purchasing a copy can BUY ONE HERE.
I think most people accept the prevailing theory that the political left, with the help of NGOs and even governments, has steamrolled into the cultural zeitgeist with the goal of saturating our media with as much propaganda as possible. Perhaps they thought we would be so overwhelmed that we would give up and embrace their ideology as the “new normal”.
However, I would suggest that this was only part of their plan. Their secondary goal was to deconstruct western pop-culture should they fail to control it. In other words, if they can’t have it, they would rather burn it all down to the ground so that no one else can have it. And I have to admit that they are winning when it comes to destroying what remains of our entertainment. The options today look bleak.
Stories and art are not simply about fantasy and escapism – They are the catalyst by which a civilization passes on its principles, its ideas, its dreams, its lessons and its morals. Leftists understand this all too well. For some reason conservatives are late to the party. There is still time to save our culture from being cast into the pit of despair.
We only require an organized effort that provides support to conservative art; a new Renaissance which resurrects the values of merit, talent, hard work and conscience.
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Hey Brandon, great article. I previously purchase a copy of your comic book and I’m excited about its release.
Thanks for the support! All the backers of Mountain Hollow should be receiving their copies shortly. I’m a one-man show on the shipping so it will take a little time to go through the whole list, but keep an eye out for an email with the tracking number for your book.
This was a fantastic article! I plan on checking out your graphic novel as well. I have been a life long comic book fan and still am. I also have a good deal of ideas for content but sadly I have had little ambition to bring them to fruition. This article makes me think as Christian conservative writers we could play a significant role in filling this existing content void. Thank you for the inspiration!
It’s important for creators (which we all are) to get our points-of-view out into the public space and the Public Mind in whatever form we choose so that certain giant media and tech and government and corporate manipulators do not completely seize the Spirit of Our Times and the precious minds of people.
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Whether it’s a graphic novel or a book or video or just an internet post…
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It’s our job – each of us – to get our message and perspective out there into mass consciousness. Once that’s done, we’ve done our job. It is the job of others to decide what if anything our message means to them personally. If we do not work diligently to share our message with others then fault lies with us for not giving people a chance to hear and digest and grow and accept or dismiss what we have to say. We each have a gift of thoughts to share. This is all part of Personal Agency that belongs to each of us and which is our birthright.
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I recently shared a deeply personal message on another forum from a perfectly legitimate and justified point-of-view… and I was quickly criticized and roasted for it. That’s OK. While I believe the reaction was unfair and uncalled for – that again is the right of personal agency for others to react as they choose. In this case, since an influential poster quickly criticized what I had to say… others just followed along either in agreement without much actual consideration or just to gain favor with the influential one. Either way, I did my job. And they did there’s.
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Persons should not share points-of-view seeking approval or Likes. That is dishonest. Speak exactly what your heart and mind is telling you. If your message does resonate with others that’s fine. But sometimes it’s by NOT resonating with others (due to mass-level mind warping) and voicing an unpopular view that’s what’s really being called for. You follow your heart and mind and speak to what you are compelled to share.
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Speak with good intent. Speak from your heart. Don’t be afraid to rock the boat. That is what living authentically is all about.
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FInd your message and your method of delivery. That’s what having a Voice really means…
I totally agree with the points raised in this article. For too long our culture has been trapped in a morass of mediocre, if not blatantly gross content. Many just dismiss art as “useless entertainment” but the reality is that art defines how we see things. And if our eyes and minds are corrupted by only seeing corrupted art then we end up leading corrupted lives. Most if not all the disordered behavior and beliefs we suffer under today were first spelled out in art and entertainment: porn, broken marriages, violence, drug use, alcoholism… These things were all glorified by the media first. Culture is important, it informs our world and teaches us how to navigate reality. It is absolutely imperative that Christian moral values literally take center stage again and that we recapture what we have lost. It is both incumbent on the artist as well as the institutions that support them to reclaim the cultural high ground. You can see my art at http://www.belove.art
Here’s an idea I came up with last night while sitting on my sailboat foredeck looking out over the moonlit treasure coast where thousands of ships met their doom on the reefs of the Florida keys. Perhaps it might inspire ideas of your own?
In 1622 267 fascinating people boarded the treasure galleon Atocha departing from Havana to Spain, the day after they left they were hit by a hurricane and only 5 survived. Who were these people? The Spanish kept detailed records, enough to bring them and their time back to life. This I think is the real treasure worth more than the billion dollar cargo they carried.
Unfortunately Hollywood couldn’t tell their story without injecting modern absurdities like lgbtp themes and commentaries on the evils of slavery or traditional culture. Once the captain lost control of the ship after a desperate attempt to anchor their fate was sealed and within mere hours most would perish. What were these final hours like?
These people came from central and South America, the Pacific, North America and the Caribbean. Explore their adventurous backgrounds in a historical fiction so we can learn about our past rather than be propagandized. Slavery is evil, but in 1622 it was seen as normal. Today we ignore the things we don’t like and never develop the ability to understand.
Okay, okay. I’m working on finishing my book and getting it out there. Gosh!
Seriously, though, this is a space we must get back into. The arts is upstream of politics and can have a deep and wide ranging impact.
This article is extremely important, Brandon. Let’s both resurrect past authors and put out content of our own, from minds unsoiled by DEI etc..
And Jeremiah: excellent! Let us know when it’s finished, please.
“Twelve publishers rejected the manuscript before an editor at the Bobbs-Merrill Company risked his job to get it published.”
– Wikipedia entry for _The Fountainhead_ (1943)
The indie animation scene’s also been steadily growing over the years. And I’ve seen a lot of really good stuff from indie animators both on YouTube and Newgrounds. I even know a guy that’s made animated shorts using nothing more than his Toon Boom program and himself, his girlfriend and some online friends for VA’s and music. And then there are the fan-made stuff that could easily pass for the official thing. Sadly, a lot of these indie projects are stuck in the pilot stage for the time being as they’re almost entirely reliant on Patreon and crowdfunding for financial support.
Besides Eric July’s Rippaverse some other success indie producers include Iconic Comics with their Kamen America, Soulfinder and U.S.A GI series, Vivid Publishing with their graphic novel series Dream Keepers. The also act as a publisher for the Cloudscratcher series whose creator is a conservative.
I too had a strong interest in film and actually tried to “make it” in Hollywood in the early 2000s, after a career in business and engineering. It was during that time that Hollywood went from merely left to ultra-woke. Depressing to say the least. But there is hope on the horizon – a great silver lining in the otherwise dark horse of AI video generation. Just look at what Google Veo 3 and other such tools can create TODAY and compare that to two years ago. We are now just on the verge of ANYBODY being able to create theatrical quality motion pictures on a budget of $500-1,000. And even those costs will come down to almost nothing over the next 10 years. What’s missing in AI movies is of course the human element. But even that is an easy fix. You can film your actors in your kitchen against an ad-hoc green screen and the AI will transpose them into whatever environment you want – even modify their performances as per your instructions. In 20 years, we might not need actors at all. Again, Veo 3 shorts *already* look quite convincing in short clips, including the acting. Of course, using human actors will likely be the secret sauce to make AI films truly great. But I can also forsee some cash-strapped “filmmakers” going 100% AI and still producing fanstastic quality work that is close enough. The future of filmmaking will be truly democratic and essentially peer-to-peer.
Agreed. Indie is the future of entertainment going forward.
Thank you Brandon, for your dedication in sharing the truth through creative media.
Would love to read more of your work and be able to discuss more about it!
Your approach in both art and storytelling evokes thoughts of the great Will Eisner, and his The Spirit series of crime novels featuring Denny Colt… with Commissioner Dolan, and his daughter Ellen. A moving picture with a moral and a message.
Then there’s the classic geographical Green Arrow comic book set featuring Oliver Queen, about the wreck of the Argon Valdez, accurately describing the real life Exxon Valdez disaster in some detail.
These story lines and potential themes are just ideas for you to think about and enjoy.
If we were considering a new run of Turok Son of Stone, you would do a super job.
Wow, being compared to Will Eisner in any sense is a major compliment and I appreciate it. I would be happy to write on a book for another comic group if anyone is looking.
Brandon, regarding your Batman article and the psyche-political influences so rampant in today’s world, and the societal outcomes in the US and all around, one recalls a science fiction serial classic published in the UK Look and Learn magazine in the early 1970s, The Trigan Empire, and featuring the protagonist Trigo who rises to become emperor, and at some time encounters a digital device which fits over the head and creates a virtual reality world in which the person wearing the device enters into a virtual Westworld-Romanworld, detached from reality, and eventually becomes ensnared by and dependent on the influence of this AI type device. This series is worth downloading and reviewing in light of today’s technology and influences on reality.