What the TV shows we watch tell us about the difference between liberals and conservatives
The New York Times made some great maps of where in America each TV show is most popular. This is fun, since TV preferences divide in a similar way to politics, for some of the same reasons.
Some of our TV choices are predictable from stereotypes — the show that correlated best with being a Trump voter was Duck Dynasty and the best match for Clinton was Family Guy. Some of the other divisions were unexpected for me — I was surprised to see that Game of Thrones tends to only be popular in big cities, while Walking Dead is widely popular among rural viewers.
I guess I’ve always thought of these as similar shows, since they’re both violent, escapist serials, and I like both of them (or rather, I liked Walking Dead until Negan showed up in season 7).
What makes Game Of Thrones a show for liberals and The Walking Dead a show for conservatives?
You’ve probably seen a voting map like this:
We talk about red states and blue states, but really the divide is between urban and rural areas. White Americans in big cities tend to vote for Democrats, while rural whites vote for Republicans.
That map makes it look like liberals are vastly outnumbered, small blue islands in a sea of red. Cities are denser, though, and that makes up for the difference. We can redraw the map in 3d, so that height conveys the population in each county:
Our political divides represent average differences in personality and morality. Cause and effect here isn’t clear, it could be that the landscapes and regional cultures shape us, it could be that people sort themselves to the areas they prefer. Psychologists sometimes consider personality with a five factor model (if you’re not familiar, take a few minutes to test yourself and see where you rank on these five). Of those personality factors, the one that relates best to politics is a trait called “Openness to Experience”. Highly open people are more interested in art and aesthetics, more eager to have novel and varied experiences, while less open people tend to prefer a sense of safety and familiarity.
The OkCupid blog once posted a list of the best questions to ask your date, to find how compatible you were. Rather than talking politics on a first date, they suggested asking, “do you prefer the people in your life to be simple or complex?”. People that prefer complexity are mostly liberals and those that prefer simplicity are mostly conservatives.
For some types of TV, we have similar shows that are marketed to either side of the cultural divide. So You Think You Can Dance is watched in liberal areas, while Dancing with the Stars is watched in conservative ones. So You Think You Can Dance features some unusual and complex routines:
A wide variety of dance styles:
and some edgier routines:
Dancing With The Stars is watched in conservative areas, and the dance styles play more to the familiar or uncomplicated. The show features things like Rick Perry stiffly strutting around the stage to “God Bless Texas”.
Conservatives also have a different sense of morality, tending to see the world more strictly in terms of “good vs. evil”. They prefer shows like Supernatural, which play to this view. In some sense, you might think this is just an extension of being less open to complicated ideas, but conservative morality may come from deeper psychological differences.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt tries to divide morality into 5 separate factors, and finds that liberals care primarily about fairness and the reduction of harm. Conservatives do care about these same things, but also consider other moral concerns — they care about respect for authority, care more about the well-being of their ingroup, and are concerned about maintaining purity.
You can test yourself, to see how your sense of morality compares (with the second test, the “moral foundations questionnaire”).
Conservative values can be seen as survival values. In unsafe times, open people often become more conservative, more concerned with kin than with helping strangers. Conservatives care about respect for authority because of the predictable and safe society this creates, while liberals often see society as safe and worry more about how we can make it fairer for all.
Brain scanning experiments suggest that conservatives react more strongly to threatening images than liberals do. The difference is even more pronounced with disgusting images, which conservatives respond especially strongly to. Conservatives may be more opposed to immigration out of a sense of scarcity, there’s a zero-sum mindset where they think that bringing other groups into the country will rob their group of wealth. At some primitive level, though, racism and fear of immigrants might also be traced to a subconscious fear of disease. People given a description of a dangerous foreign disease and then queried on their political views will shortly after become more opposed to immigration.
It’s no wonder then, that gun-loving conservatives with survivalist values are fond of The Walking Dead. Psychiatrist and blogger Scott Alexander writes that the best way for liberals to understand conservative values is actually to imagine the zombie apocalypse:
“I propose that the best way for leftists to get themselves in a rightist frame of mind is to imagine there is a zombie apocalypse tomorrow. It is a very big zombie apocalypse and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be one of those ones where a plucky band just has to keep themselves alive until the cavalry ride in and restore order. This is going to be one of your long-term zombie apocalypses. What are you going to want?
First and most important, guns. Lots and lots of guns.
Second, you’re going to have a deep and abiding affection for the military and the police. You’re going to hope that the government has given them a lot of funding over the past few years.
Third, you’re going to start praying. Really hard. If someone looks like they’re doing something that might offend God, you’re going to very vehemently ask them to stop. However few or many atheists there may be in foxholes, there are probably fewer when those foxholes are surrounded by zombies.
Fourth, you’re going to be extremely suspicious of outsiders. It’s not just that they could be infected. There are probably going to be all sorts of desperate people around, looking to steal your supplies, your guns, your ammo. You trust your friends, you trust your neighbors, and if someone who looks different than you and seems a bit shifty comes up to you, you turn them away or just kill them before they kill you.
Fifth, you’re going to want hierarchy and conformity. When the leader says run, everyone runs. If someone is constantly slowing the group down, questioning the group, causing trouble, causing dissent, they’re a troublemaker and they can either shut up or take their chances on their own. There’s a reason all modern militaries work on a hierarchical system that tries to maximize group coherence.
Sixth, you are not going to be sentimental. If someone gets bitten by the zombies, they get shot. Doesn’t matter if it’s really sad, doesn’t matter if it wasn’t their own fault. If someone breaks the rules and steals supplies for themselves, they get punished. If someone refuses to pull their weight, they get left behind. Harsh? Yes. But there’s no room for people who don’t contribute in a sleek urban postapocalyptic zombie-fighting machine.
Seventh, you want to maximize wealth. Whatever gets you the supplies you need, you’re going to do. If that means forcing people to work jobs they don’t like, that’s the sacrifice they’ve got to make. If your raid on a grocery store leaves less behind for everyone else, well, that’s too bad but you need the food. Are woodland animals going to go extinct as more and more survivors retreat to the woods and rely on them for food? That’s not the kind of thing you’re worried about when you’re half-starved and only a few hours ahead of the zombie horde.
Eighth, strong purity/contamination ethics. We know that purity/contamination ethics are an evolutionary defense against sickness: disgusting things like urine, feces, dirt, blood, insects, and rotting corpses are all vectors of infection; creepy animals like spiders, snakes, and centipedes are all vectors for poisoning. Maybe right now you don’t worry too much about this. But in a world where the hospitals are all overrun by zombies and you need to outrun a ravenous horde at a moment’s notice, this becomes a much bigger deal. Not to mention that anything you catch might be the dreaded Zombie Virus.
Ninth, an emphasis on practical skills rather than book learning. That eggheaded Professor of Critical Studies? Can’t use a gun, isn’t studying a subject you can use to invent bigger guns, not a useful ally. Probably would just get in the way. Big masculine men who can build shelters and fight with weapons are useful. So are fertile women who can help breed the next generation of humans. Anyone else is just another mouth to feed.
Tenth, extreme black and white thinking. It’s not useful to wonder whether or not the zombies are only fulfilling a biological drive and suffer terribly when you kill them despite not being morally in the wrong. It’s useful to believe they’re the hellish undead and it’s your sacred duty to fight them by any means necessary.
In other words, “take actions that would be beneficial to survival in case of a zombie apocalypse” seems to get us rightist positions on a lot of issues. We can generalize from zombie apocalypses to any desperate conditions in which you’re not sure that you’re going to make it and need to succeed at any cost.”
It occurs to me how few Hispanic characters there are on “The Walking Dead”. Do rural Americans think about immigrants a bit like they might think about a zombie invasion?
“They’re bringing down society. They’re causing crime. They’re eating brains. And some, I assume, are good zombies.”
Note that the key thing that makes The Walking Dead appeal to conservatives isn’t the zombies, it’s the survival values. There are other zombie shows that embody liberal values. iZombie portrays a world where zombies are just like the rest of us, except for the craving for brains. By season 3, the lead character has started to compassionately turn people into zombies to cure them of life threatening illnesses. Game of Thrones also has a fight against the undead, but the show appeals to a liberal audience.
It’s less obvious to me why conservatives dislike Game of Thrones. I suppose that rural viewers might just not be paying for HBO, but it may also come down to values.
Game of Thrones features nudity, some homosexuality, and fictitious religions. The show challenges traditional gender roles by putting two strong women at the head of the conflict for control of the world. The show has a generally more imaginative setting. Openness to experience may make some people better at imagining elaborate fantasy worlds, or more eager to imagine them. There is a fantasy show that is more popular with conservatives: Once Upon a Time. However, Once Upon a Time re-uses familiar fantasy characters that (mostly) conform to conservative gender roles.
Game of Thrones doesn’t typically display a black and white sense of morality, but a complicated struggle between many people vying for power. Characters are more complex than in The Walking Dead. There are no moral absolutes. Jaime Lannister is willing to break an oath and kill a king. He also has a complex sense of honor that leaves him allied with Brienne and also unable to understand his sister’s lies. Tyrion ultimately comes across as virtuous, despite being an alcoholic who frequents prostitutes. He murders his own father and conspires against his kin but does so in an aim to do a greater good. Cersei is portrayed as ruthlessly evil, but is still seen as wanting the best for her children. Daenerys is portrayed as mostly good, but willing to murder any group that stands in her way.
Game of Thrones, despite all the loss that its characters face, presents a sense of optimism. Daenerys aims to conquer the world but does so with a purpose — “We’re going to leave the world better than we found it”. Rick Grimes aims merely to keep his family alive through hell for a bit longer.
Finally, Game of Thrones teaches us the liberal message that walls aren’t effective at stopping immigration:
