The Yellowstone Fantasy is a world evoked by dreams of a time, place, and people that never existed, in the real world. Yellowstone is a TV series (yes, I came late to) about a man, John Dutton, his family, and cattle ranch in Montana in contemporary America. (They have cell phones, etc.) The show is the most popular of dramas on TV today. I love it! However, much depicted in the series is not close to true, or the way things are.
Recently my son came here for a visit. (He spent his formative years 1983-2002 living in the mountains west of Denver.) Jake has friends who still live and work there. He reported to me, via his friend, that most of the wealthy people who now live there imagine themselves Yellowstone-like folk. Their mountain homes are now “ranches”. Moreover, the liquor stores can’t keep Coors beer on the shelves.
I get it
because I’m infected, too. I wear my cowboy boots and leather vest when I go in for a session with psych-girl. Sometimes I spin yarns about the way it used to be – back-in-the-day – when men were men and could hold their whiskey and fight their way out of any situation.
Some of which is true. Somewhat.
However, nobody ever got shot. (Animals? yes.) Additionally, there were bar fights. And yes, I was married to a woman who might be diagnosed as borderline and alcoholic. [Not Jake’s mother.]
As is Beth in Yellowstone. There is a history of women going crazy/nuts due to the isolation of living in the mountains, in the wilderness. Back-in-the-day. That is true. It’s also true that men are often attracted to ‘crazy’.
Then again, who knows what causes what? That’s a shrink question.
Which brings us back to Yellowstone. Specifically, Season Five-episode five. Wherein bi-polar Beth, John Dutton’s daughter, persuades eco-feminist, Summer, to step outside for a girl-on-girl (woman-on-woman) slug fest. Not to mention that Beth just got released from jail because of a bar fight in Bozeman, wherein she destroyed a tourist girl for hitting on her cowboy husband!
[Shit like this did happen – back-in-the-day. Trust me.]
Except for the gun play and murder. Of which the Governor of the state, John Dutton (= Kevin Costner), has committed. As well as his cowboy employees. And, he delivers some of the best lines in TV [fake] history. Of which I happen to agree with:
“It’s survival of the unfitest.”
Or, as I repeatedly say in my book, Election 2016, “Reverse Darwinism.” This is the state of affairs wherein political correctness (now known as postmodernism, intersectionality, DEI, or ‘wokeism’) dominates cultural and popular discourse and behavior. At least in “well-educated” domains.
The Yellowstone Fantasy
rejects this. Which is why, I think, the show is so popular. It portrays a way of life that many people wish the real world was. Wish they were free to do. It is a back-door way of Freud’s Id, via wish fulfillment, to find satisfaction. In other words, The Yellowstone Fantasy relieves some of the pressure from today’s insane world.
Remember the song Where Have All the Cowboys Gone? (1997) Paula Cole, the author and singer of the song, insists it was misunderstood. That the song was satire. That it was really a feminist complaint.
I don’t know. That’s really a shrink question.
In the show we have beautiful, majestic scenery joined with Celtic-like sad, mournful music. Those two film “props” enhance the feeling that we are losing something. And John Dutton, the callous, strong, independent rancher is fighting against all odds to save it. He’s fighting for us! He’s fighting for America. For freedom.
Beth, his unstable, borderline daughter whispers in his ear, “They want the land, Dad, that’s all you need to understand.” Which transfers perfectly to the real world. The way it’s always been. It’s The Territorial Imperative. That imperative is older than we are. (see Chimp Empire.)
In Conclusion.
Should you watch this show? Is always the question. It’s only on PEACOCK. And it’s not finished. Season five has been suspended. Because of COVID and other conflicts. However, it is scheduled to begin again in November 2024. I highly recommend it. The show fits my style. And to a degree – a life I used to know.
In ways it is like Ken Kesey’s novel Sometimes A Great Notion.
I think it scores high marks on five of the six elements of a story. Falling short only on “voice” – which reflects the writer’s idea of how the characters would speak. That is often over-the-top, in my opinion. There is a little too much of forced, political positions inserted into the dialogue. It borders on cringe.
However, that cringe is soon forgotten with the element of setting – the stunning vistas and music.
The characterization and acting is superb. Costner plays John Dutton III, the domineering patriarch, perfectly. And Kelly Reilly portrays the borderline personality very well, too. Cole Hauser, as loyal enforcer, Rip, perfect. Piper Perabo as young, naive eco-feminist
(and Dutton’s lover)? Nailed it.
Lilli Kay, as Clara, Governor Dutton’s “Girl Friday”? Bingo.
The plots are tense, conflict ridden, and dramatic.
The theme, or big idea, is relevant to the world today. Which is to say – in conflict over values. In other words, tradition versus modernity and progress. In fact, Dutton’s campaign slug is “Stop Progress, elect John Dutton.”
The title? Perfect. Yellowstone – Sometimes a great notion. A fantasy. A wish fulfillment.
Regarding Paula Cole & her ’97 song ‘where have all the cowboys gone’ – if you can, watch the live version on YouTube, and compare it to the official video. Like i said, “It’s a shrink question” as to what’s going on inside of her. As with most of us.
So good to read your thoughtful writing, Mark. Thanks.
Thanks, Beverly. Yeah, I draw upon my living in north park, Colorado. Wherein there is still cattle ranching going on. And but so complicated.
Now, even the ‘cowboys’ are imported.
~ Damn.
I swear I saw a wolf running there before wolfs were officially reintroduced in Colorado.
~anyway. It, YELLOWSTONE is a great show. Because of all the Freudian shit. Yeah.
~ Peace
Just got back from my grocery run. [The costs keep rising. It’s a new skill – keeping the food budget under control.] Anyway, there’s a magazine devoted to YELLOWSTONE! Lots of pictures with season and episode summaries. However, the analysis isn’t very deep. Lots of quotes from the characters. Beth says she “breaks therapists”. I’d love to see a session with her. 😉
Have you watched the show? What do you think?
I finished the unfinished season five and went back to the beginning (2016). We learn the cause of Beth’s borderline personality. Perhaps the cause. It’s implied, anyway.
We are also informed of the driving theme of attachment to the land. But whose land is it? really?
Chief Rainwater says it’s his people’s and that Dutton and the white man stole it from him. Dutton’s fighting against “progress”; and white men developer, Dan Jenkins, trying to get rich off of the land, along with all the other usual suspects.
And then there’s Dutton’s middle son Kayce, a soldier, who married an Indian girl, Monica, and is caught between the two tribes and cultures. All of this cascades down upon their son, Dutton’s grandson and heir to the ranch.
It’s a complex tapestry about fundamental, basic, first principles of psychological tribalism and territorial “rights” to the land. To the extreme.
Good stuff.
I’ve seen promotional snippets of this show. It seems intriguing.
It’s got a lot going for it. Not to mention conflict between Costner and the creator about how it wraps up. Costner quit; but rumor is he’s back now.
There are also two prequel series.
It’s fascinating- on and off the screen.
Not to put a wrap on this discussion (it might be worthy of more posts); however, I looked back to January 1994. Then, I took a class in “Multicultural Art History”. Wherein I kept a journal about my adventures into the art and culture of “native americans” in the American Southwest. Wow!
~ Back-in-the-day higher education was worth something! What discourse my professor and I had regarding art and culture as it impacts people in the world was fantastic!
~ Probably not possible today. Maybe I’ll look her up. Not possible then. So there is that.
I did find her. Still highly invested in primitive art and its reflection of peoples’ hopes and fears. She’s at another university east of here. She re’d my “hello”, though I doubt she remembers me.
Last night I saw an updated Paula Cole “official” video of her big hit song, ‘Where have all the cowboys gone’. Made six years ago, 21 years after the she first performed it. This time she seems down with the whole cowboy thing. No satire. She’s middle aged and into a younger cowboy. It’s a short-movie like production. It seems right out of the themes of the show, though made a couple years before. So yeah, definitely a shrink question going on.
Cowboy up.