When discussing Hollywood, Donald Trump often sounds like a man of his age and time — rooted in a gauzy past, much like that older relative who, whenever the subject of movies and TV arises, tends to complain, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.”
Listening to the new president, and seeing what cultural artifacts and personalties attract his attention (and wrath), reveals the fairly familiar preoccupations of a 78-year-old man, one who still sees the major broadcast networks as the biggest force in television — despite their sharp ratings decline from the days of “Who Shot J.R.?” and “Roots” — while lamenting that movie stars lack the gravitas and glamour they once possessed.
Indeed, the decline in star power, almost surely motivated in part by the sense most major talent doesn’t politically approve of him, has been a recurring theme for Trump. Nor should it be lost that the three actors he designated as his “ambassadors” to Hollywood on Jan. 16 — 86-year-old Trump super-fan Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone (78) and Mel Gibson (69) — carry a combined 233 years, or on average, roughly the same age as the president himself.
“His entire world is bathed in amber forevermore,” Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of the biography “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald” and executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion, told TheWrap. “He is forever living in and trapped by old cultural references that make him comfortable but make him blind to the diversity of the world beyond him.”
Whether it’s TV, movies or music (remember when Trump spent more than 30 minutes listening to music at one of his rallies?), the chasm between Trump’s tastes and what’s “hot” in pop culture feels particularly wide. At a time when the entertainment industry is awash in young stars, Trump’s points of reference remain far from the cast of “Euphoria,” and even older than past iterations of that, like the “Brat Pack” of the 1980s.
As Vanity Fair asked in a piece last June, “Trump’s Politics Aside, Do We Want a President With Pop-Culture References This Old?”
Based on the election results, enough of “us” did. But Trump’s interactions with and mentions of Hollywood, music and other forms of pop culture (pro wrestling among them) reflect a mentality seemingly tethered to the 1980s and ‘90s, when the major TV networks still held sway over television, Hulk Hogan was in his heyday and “The Silence of the Lambs” popularized the combination of fava beans and Chianti.
During his campaign, Trump frequently dropped somewhat-puzzling asides about Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer immortalized by Anthony Hopkins in the Oscar-winning 1991 film, amid his digressions about the dangerous nature of undocumented immigrants. That theme also prompted him to veer into a discussion of the manly qualities, or lack thereof, of the current generation of movie stars.
In a Pennsylvania speech in September, for example, Trump compared the “vicious” undocumented immigrants invading the U.S. to Hollywood actors, finding the latter collectively lacking.
“If you wanted to do a movie, there’s no actor in Hollywood that could play the role” of the immigrants, Trump told the crowd. “They bring in a big actor and you look and you go, ‘Oh, he’s got no muscle content. He’s got no muscle, we need a little muscle.’ They bring in another one: ‘But he’s got a weak face.’ Now these guys got the whole package.”
Those riffs usually lack specifics, but they reflect a general hostility toward the entertainment industry ostensibly driven by Trump’s overt acknowledgement that he generally likes people who act as if they like him, while lashing out at those who don’t.
O’Brien also pointed to Trump’s fondness for older movies, like “Citizen Kane” and “Sunset Boulevard,” and his admiration for Clint Eastwood as a signature “movie star,” suggesting that Trump’s stern-looking pose in pictures — including his Georgia mug shot — is modeled after Eastwood’s Man With No Name from the 1960s Westerns in which he starred.
Citing the current occupants of late night, Trump said during the campaign, “They’re all dying. Where is Johnny Carson? Bring back Johnny. It made you appreciate the greatness of Johnny Carson. These three guys are so bad.”
Trump has expressed a similarly ‘80s-centric view of late night television, pining for the days of former “The Tonight Show” host Carson, whose 30-year reign as the “king of late night” ended in 1992.
The comments prompted some of Trump’s critics to note that Carson died in 2005. “Maybe we could have a séance for him,” “The View” co-host Joy Behar joked.
Trump played TV critic again this month, posting on Truth Social that MSNBC, the progressive cable network, “shouldn’t even have the right to broadcast.” But “broadcasting” is a specific term that applies to the channel’s sister network, NBC, and not cable.
Deciphering Trump can be a challenge, but the cumulative weight of his comments reinforce his habit of simultaneously deriding Hollywood and yearning for an earlier era, an attribute that was equally evident during his first term as president.
He thinks very cinematically about himself … He is constantly directing, writing and starring in his own movie about his life.” – Timothy O’Brien, Trump expert
As O’Brien noted, given the pivotal role NBC’s “The Apprentice” occupied in helping establish Trump’s image as a titan of industry with the masses, “He’s aware of the force and power of Hollywood.”
“He thinks very cinematically about himself,” O’Brien added. “It’s one of his primary lenses about the world. He is constantly directing, writing and starring in his own movie about his life.”
Long before he entered politics and even before “The Apprentice,” Trump was a celebrity in his own right. Yet his 20th-century-based window into pop culture (allowing for a few more recent detours, like his tweets about the relationship between Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart) stands in stark contrast to his first-term predecessor, Barack Obama.
The 44th president easily interacted with stars, drawn to his “cool” factor. In addition to his output through a production deal for Netflix, Obama has also exhibited a healthy appetite for everything from books and music to movies and television, putting out his own eclectic annual “best” lists that always feel of the moment.
Seeing much of Hollywood as an enemy has also prompted Trump to revel in its failures. When ratings dropped sharply for the 2018 Academy Awards, Trump gloated on social media, “Lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY. Problem is, we don’t have Stars anymore — except your President (just kidding, of course)!”
As president-elect in 2017, Trump also used that platform to bash the much-honored Meryl Streep, calling her “overrated” after she criticized him while accepting the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for her storied career.
Notably, Streep never actually uttered Trump’s name, but her intent was clear, as she spoke about “one performance this year that stunned me,” alluding to Trump’s behavior mocking a disabled reporter. “When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose,” she said, while calling the various constituencies represented in the room — Hollywood, foreigners and the press — “the most vilified segments in American society right now.”
As the recipient of Oscars (for “Kramer vs. Kramer” and “Sophie’s Choice”) and seven nominations in the 1980s alone, Streep — unlike the “Euphoria” cast — falls squarely within Trump’s cinematic wheelhouse, which likely explains why she would elicit such a response.
Trump has always campaigned on nostalgia, which is baked into his slogan “Make America Great Again.” Like Archie Bunker of “All in the Family,” “those were the days” serves as a recurring theme.
Because of that perspective, Trump likely gives Hollywood too much credit (and blame) in these fragmented times. That’s because he still adheres to the belief “there are these gatekeepers for the public dialogue and culture,” O’Brien said. “I think his comfort zone is decades old.”
