![]() The entire Dutton family lives in perpetual fear. For Yellowstone goes far beyond libertarian ideals if anything, it shows the chaos when institutions are subverted to individual needs (no branch of Montana’s state government is above corruption) and the consequences for all lives – the family’s included – when violence in defence of property becomes the norm. If Yellowstone is holding a mirror up to red-state America, then red-state America must be spectacularly deluded. Whereas in Yellowstone, it is only the fact that John Dutton is played by Costner that leads us to any assumption of goodness, for Dutton himself is psychopathic, no matter how undemonstrative he is (cowboys on the ranch are branded with hot irons, to show that they are owned). But in Let Him Go – rescuing his grandson from psychopaths – he is unequivocally good. In both, Costner is a man who is stepping away from his life’s work, and in both he is unafraid of violence in support of his beliefs. Both are neo-westerns, albeit Let Him Go was set 60 years ago. There are notable contrasts between Costner’s most recent movie lead, in Let Him Go, and Yellowstone. And leading men are heroes, even when their characters are painted in shades of grey. Whereas Brian Cox, Succession’s patriarch, has always been an actor, Costner has long been a leading man. I suspect Costner’s presence is the reason for the moral ambiguity of Yellowstone. But as the former Reagan and Bush Sr speechwriter John Podhoretz wrote in the New York Post: “While the stakes in Succession are the kind nobody outside the media could ever really care about – is there any reason to care which of the rotten people we watch will get to run the Roy empire? – the central conflict in Yellowstone is nothing less than who owns America.” And also because of the suspicion that it is at heart a rightwing show (it’s a common notion that it is Succession for Trump voters). Both posit their familial unit as the notional heroes of the show, if only by making the opponents of their empire just as revolting.īut Yellowstone is seen, somehow, as the idiot child next to Succession, perhaps because its characters are not media elites who drive commentary on culture. ![]() Both have a hapless sidekick from outside the central family. Both have a shockingly ruthless redheaded daughter among their offspring. Both are about patriarchs ruthlessly protecting their empires (in Yellowstone, it is Kevin Costner, as John Dutton, owner of the largest ranch in the US), while their adult children revel in mutual hatred. ![]() That contrast is instructive, because it is to Succession that Yellowstone has become a point of critical comparison. ![]()
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