Why understanding Yellowstone might be the key to understanding the U.S. today

The United States isn't just divided into red versus blue; pop culture is polarized, too. 

But good TV has the power to unite us all, or at the very least help us to see "the other side," whatever that may be. Yellowstone is just one such show — and with Season 5 premiering this week on Paramount+ in Canada, it may be more timely than ever.

Yellowstone follows the Dutton family as they try to preserve their generations-old family ranch in Montana. But, there are all different kinds of forces that are trying to take their land — some benevolent, and some outright evil. The show stars Kevin Costner as John Dutton, and has inspired spin-off series like 1883, starring Sam Elliott, and 1923, starring Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford.

Today on Commotion, culture critics Johnnie Jae, Karolina Waclawiak and Brooks Barnes join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to look ahead at the new episodes dropping this weekend, and what one of TV's most-watched shows can tell us about America today.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Karolina, you're the reason for my obsession with Yellowstone. You did this to me. You got me into the show. Two years ago I was working with you at BuzzFeed, and we had so many conversations. You were haranguing me to watch Yellowstone. What came out of that is this piece that I wrote, that you edited, and basically the thesis of that piece was this is maybe not the best show on television, but it is a show that is willing to tangle with some of the existential crises of America over land, power, money, over class in ways that are just not reflected in other TV shows — and that makes it the most important show on TV. Does that thesis still hold up now? 

Karolina: For sure…. Originally I would say Yellowstone had soft conservative politics. But Season 5 in particular became very overt with those conservative politics. You have John Dutton and various members of the Dutton family saying, "Don't California my Montana." These things that you're hearing in politics today are showing up on that show, and it very much mirrors the issues with capitalism, the fight for the American life, the turning back the clock, which is what John Dutton sort of campaigned on, which we're seeing very much happening in Republican politics. So, yeah, I think now more than ever, this show can explain how we got here. 

Elamin: Brooks, you grew up in Montana. This week you wrote in The New York Times that the show fills "a red state void." Can you talk a little bit about what that means? 

Brooks: Sure. My perspective comes from, I call myself a "Montanan in exile" here in Los Angeles. My entire family is still in Montana. What I was really thinking is, I wrote about how my brother really felt like Hollywood got something right for the first time ever.

Elamin: Your brother in Montana. 

Brooks: Yes. Just to share the personal story, my great-great-great grandparents homesteaded there, had a large ranch, and over the decades parts have been sold off, development — it's like the story of the Dutton ranch in a very tiny, non-billionaire way. And that has hurt, in some ways. Especially my brother, who now makes a living off of that land. And so I think that that is part of what he really responded to.

Also, the whole idea of the family fighting like hell to not let this happen. I think there's a powerlessness that people feel, and obviously, hopefully, they don't go to the extremes that the Duttons go to — murdering, scheming, all of that. But that gives a relief, I think, in some ways…. And I think that ties in directly to the strongman idea of Trump. People overlook a lot of things about this man that— I'll stop there. But the idea of protection really runs deep in his message, and it resonated obviously on Tuesday.

Elamin: I would say that is the throughline of the entirety of Yellowstone: this constant tension of, how do we protect this land? How do we keep this ranch inside this family, against all of these forces that are trying to take it from us? And these forces include the Indigenous people who have a legitimate claim to the land. But they also include the tourism board that says they're going to put an airport here and John Dutton's like, "Like hell you are going to do that."

Nobody's represented as particularly good, Johnnie, which is kind of interesting to me. It's just like, this is just the volatility of all of these competitions. But Johnnie, do you read John Dutton as a proxy for Donald Trump?

Johnnie: I kind of do. He's kind of like colonization personified, right? Because this whole show is about the self-victimization that settler colonialism portrays and perpetuates, because this is native land. And yet you have this guy who's bragging that he's got seven generations. And for natives it's like, oh whoop-de-do, we've been here since time immemorial. And it's not protecting the land; it's exploiting the land, right? And so you see this dynamic playing out.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.