Art has always been a first line of defense against far right extremism, but when art goes in a conservative direction, morality and culture shifts in the wrong direction as well. Sadly, that seems to be happening in the entertainment industry.

Before the election of 2016, entertainment was headed in a forward, progressive direction. It was becoming commonplace for all ages media to depict queer families and stories, and I was very hopeful that this would lead into the big studios like Disney taking on explicitly queer stories in their mainstream films, but since 2016, we've slowly been heading backwards. The rise of the trump right is unfortunately normalizing the silence of progressive art, but it's picked up intense steam since the pigs won again in 2024. I see us sadly headed into a second satanic panic, and then some. Here's why.

If political lobbyists working for trump can pressure major studios into scrapping queer stories to appease evangelicals, we're in a real pickle. When pixar scrapped a trans character's story in favor of a Christian character, that set off many red flags for me. Did lobbyists from the right force them to do this? Was Disney's leadership right leaning to begin with and were they suddenly emboldened by a trump win to scrap the queer character's story? Was there foul play at hand by evangelicals to pressure Disney or was this disneys own choice? Whatever happened, it's not a good sign for where art is headed. If there wasn't a Christian character in Win or Lose, I wouldn't be as concerned, but there is, and I'm not saying "Christianity bad", not at all, I'm simply saying because the right has perverted that religion and uses it as their big talking point, when you see queer characters erased and replaced by Christian characters, it's worrying because art is essentially communicating "we're going in a right leaning direction, we're heading backwards".

The rise of Angel Studios is also a sign of art slipping backwards. This is a studio with obvious ties to the right and to focus on the family. When they released sound of freedom, I laughed them off as a silly trumpy competitor to real studios creating real art, but since the election, they've been gaining massive strength in the film industry. Angel Studios is explicitly right leaning, but recently, their films have been getting bigger, and big names have been taking part in them, even some prominent A list democrats have taken part in their movies. This isn't like veggietales, it's not some people having fun with their church buddies and making silly parody's of Bible stories for laughs, this is a focus on the family ally hellbent on indoctrinating people, especially kids, intentionally manipulating them to think red, not just Christian, but think republican. I'm not saying that films with a religious angle are bad, there's many that are lovely, prince of Egypt, anything veggietales, the small one short, it's not the fact that Angel Studios is producing religious media, it's the intent behind it. Prince of Egypt isn't out to convert your kids to Judaism, nor is it telling the audience to vote for anyone, but movies like sound of freedom are indoctrinating people to be evangelical conspiracy theorists, to vote for the trump right.

The less queer mainstream studios get, the less queer the arts get, the less moral the arts become and the right gains a foothold in something that we desperately need as a line of defense. That's why I encourage everyone here to not give in, to make explicitly queer art, to be that moral voice that this world needs, because evangelicals sure aren't that voice. Let's keep the arts inclusive for all, we cannot let the arts fall backwards.