Liberals like to call themselves “pro-choice.” Yet the only choice they support are those of which they personally approve. Likewise they call say they support diversity, whatever that may mean. Again while they trout diversity, the go apoplectic over any non-conforming point of view, from State, via Townhall:
Hallmark Channel, owned by the Kansas City, Missouri-based greeting-card giant, has boomed since Trump began campaigning. In 2016, Hallmark was the only top-15 entertainment channel with double-digit ratings growth, and viewership has jumped another 16 percent this year. Meanwhile, Hallmark’s Christmas programming, which this year began before Halloween, generates more than 30 percent of its annual ad revenue and has helped Hallmark become the season’s highest-rated cable network among women aged 25-54. More than 70 million Americans watched Hallmark Channel Christmas movies last year.
The network has already approached that number in 2017, with three weeks and five premieres remaining. And the network’s strongholds map to Trump’s Electoral College victories.
After watching a few of Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas films, the network’s burgeoning red-state appeal comes into focus. As much as these movies offer giddy, predictable escapes from Trumpian chaos, they all depict a fantasy world in which America has been Made Great Again. Real and fictional heartland small towns with names such as Evergreen and Cookie Jar are as thriving as their own small businesses, and even a high school art teacher (played by Trump supporter and the face of Hallmark, Candace Cameron Bure) can afford a lavishly renovated Colonial home. They brim with white heterosexuals who exclusively, emphatically, and endlessly bellow “Merry Christmas” to every lumberjack and labradoodle they pass. They’re centered on beauty-pageant heroines and strong-jawed heroes with white-nationalist haircuts. There are occasional sightings of Christmas sweater-wearing black people, but they exist only to cheer on the dreams of the white leads, and everyone on Trump’s naughty list—Muslims, gay people, feminists—has never crossed the snowcapped green-screen mountains to taint these quaint Christmas villages. “Santa Just Is White” seems to be etched into every Hallmark movie’s town seal.
Points:
- Hallmark is an entertainment, not a news channel. As such they have no obligation to be balanced.
- Finding an under served market and catering to it is marketing. Heck it works for Lifetime, Harley-Davidson and WWE.
- So Hallmark appeals to the red states. Hollywood certainly does not. If Hollywood actually practiced diversity, Hallmark would not have the market all to herself.
- So Hallmark markets fantasy. That is what made Walt Disney rich.
As Cecile Richards might saw, if don’t like the Hallmark Channel, don’t watch it.
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