The Vibe Shift Hits Hollywood

Let’s not talk about Snow White, the Disney artistic dud and box office disappointment. The only interesting thing about the movie is the political conceit that gave it shape, the theory that the American cultural inheritance can be ideologically cannibalized indefinitely, so that a company like Disney can keep getting rich off its own past while making “equity” rather than truth or beauty the measure of all things.

Guess what? It can’t. While Snow White was meeting harsh reviews and audience indifference, my New York Times colleague Ezra Klein was interviewing the Democratic pollster David Shor about the 2024 election, and both were marveling at the indicators that young people are moving right, with Gen Z “becoming potentially the most conservative generation that we’ve experienced maybe in 50 to 60 years.”