Shows deal with Trump’s America
Entertainment industry redraws narratives
Los Angeles — Shortly after Donald Trump was elected president, the executive producer of the CW series “Jane the Virgin” decided to make a few changes: She nixed the Ivanka Trump shoes from wardrobe and urged the show’s writers to make a key character zealous about registering Latinos to vote.
Trump’s victory is redrawing many narratives and story lines across the country, including those at the center of the entertainment industry. In addition to the new activism and footwear, “Jane the Virgin,” a family saga of a young Latina in Miami, will be recalibrated in other ways to address America’s unsettling cultural and political climate.
“The writers and I talked about it a lot, about how we should and can approach it most effectively within our storytelling,” said creator and show-runner Jennie Snyder Urman. “I think our show has to live in this world.”
Those sentiments echo across town. Trump may be a colossus of Hollywood’s own making — it was “The Apprentice,” not real estate, that made him a household name — but his defeat of Hillary Clinton was a stinging repudiation of the political correctness, diversity and liberalism celebrated by much of the entertainment business at a time of bitter argument over the nation’s ideals.
The question now is how will Hollywood, which for years has nudged gay rights and other contentious social issues into the mainstream, speak to Trump’s America. Will we see more insightful TV shows about working-class lives, such as the 1990s hit “Roseanne,” or will we encounter an uptick in artistic defiance, as when the cast of “Hamilton” briefed Vice President-elect Mike Pence on multiculturalism?
Trump’s furious response to that incident could provoke a chilling effect, but conversations with Hollywood creators suggest they will remain resolute in advancing civil rights and artistic freedom while also moving toward programming that seeks common ground. A top ABC executive acknowledged last week that the network could do more to illuminate working-class lives.
“With our dramas, we have a lot of shows that feature very well-to-do, very well-educated people . . . . They all drive very nice cars and live in extremely nice places,” Channing Dungey, president of ABC Entertainment, was quoted as saying at a media summit in London. “We have not, in recent history, paid enough attention to some of the true realities of what life is like in a day in and day out way for everyday Americans in some of our dramas.”
The fear of “the other” that Trump leveraged during his campaign is starting to reshape certain story lines. Like “Jane the Virgin,” “Fresh Off the Boat,” the ABC comedy about an Asian-American immigrant family, recently took on immigration, in this case against the backdrop of the 1996 race between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Viewers learn that Jessica Huang, the matriarch of the family played by Constance Wu, has a green card, but she never applied for U.S. citizenship because she felt intimidated by the process.
“With the results of the election, it just sort of confirmed to us that this is a dialogue that needs to happen,” said executive producer Nahnatchka Khan, who plans to continue lacing the comedy with current themes. “These are issues that, even though the show takes place 20 years ago, are still so relevant — even more so now, with the heightened level of fear and anxiety that people are feeling.”
She added: “You can either retreat and cower away from tackling those issues or you can embrace it. I think we’re going to see a lot of art trending toward not being afraid.”