Excited about not having to watch content that is in-your-face woke for once? Well, Yellowstone‘s show creator Taylor Sheridan doesn’t like people claiming his show is “conservative” or the “red-state” version of Game of Thrones.
“They refer to it as ‘the conservative show’ or ‘the Republican show’ or ‘the red-state Game of Thrones,’ and I just sit back laughing,” Sheridan (pictured, left) told The Atlantic.
“I’m like, ‘Really?’ The show’s talking about the displacement of Native Americans and the way Native American women were treated and about corporate greed and the gentrification of the West, and land-grabbing. That’s a red-state show?” he added.
Despite viewers finding the popular Western series to be anti-woke content, Sheridan insists that Yellowstone is not a “red-state show.”
Sheridan’s remarks come after Paramount Network’s Yellowstone received a grand total of zero Emmy nominations, which reportedly prompted a story in the Daily Mail claiming the show is too “anti-woke” to win favor with Emmy voters.
While the Western series has never won an Emmy, its New York media-focused competitor, Succession — which also debuted around the same time Yellowstone did — has garnered 48 nominations and won 13 times. In September, the show won Outstanding Drama Series for a second time, the Atlantic notes.
Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner, follows the lives of the Dutton family who own the largest ranch in Montana. Costner plays the family patriarch, with his grown children played by Luke Grimes, Wes Bentley, and Kelly Reilly.
Despite the show’s avoidance of woke politics and progressive moralizing, some Yellowstone fans have pushed back at the last two seasons, which featured subplots about vegan protestors and accusations of land theft from Native American tribes.
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