In my Pantheon of the best American series, Breaking Bad reigned at the top, with The Sopranos et Mad Men.
Until I look Yellowstonethe western series with Kevin Costner.
From the first minutes, I was hooked.
For what? What makes this series (which is actually just a telenovela with horses) touches me so much?
THE “SOMEWHERE»
British economist David Goodhart says the world is divided into two distinct clans.
There are the “somewhere» and the “everywhere».
As the name suggests, the everywhere are everywhere. They have no anchor, the world for them is a big hotel, they are the winners of globalization. Their house is their computer.
This is the universe of the series Successionwith its private jets and anonymous glass towers.
While the somewherethey have their feet firmly planted on the ground.
They value their identity, their traditions, and view globalization with concern and suspicion. They are fighting to protect their way of life, and do not know if their culture will still exist in two generations.
The characters of Yellowstone – American cowboys who work on a ranch in Montana, but also their indigenous neighbors – are somewhere.
The whole series is an ode to the earth, to roots. When it comes to politics, we never talk about Washington in this series, but about local politics. The governor of the state, the city's police chief.
GOOD GUYS
Yellowstone pays homage to men.
Those who work hard, who do not shy away from their work, who put their shoulder to the wheel to improve the lot of their family and their community.
You have no idea how good it feels to watch a series like this when you're a man.
No “toxic masculinity” here. Just imperfect guys. And bastards are bastards. They don't represent their gender, they're individuals gone bad, that's all.
In Yellowstoneit's about values that make wokes laugh, but which still mean something to the majority of people.
Honor. Loyalty. The sense of duty. The merit. The effort.
Do you remember these words?
Before everyone and their brother presents themselves as helpless victims?
FREEDOM
The characters of Yellowstone are free as air.
No priests, lecturers, social networks who judge them, insult them, monitor them.
Or “institutional programs” that “re-educate” them.
They have peace. Holy peace.
They are free – and responsible – for their choices.
If they mess up – and God knows they do – they have only themselves to blame.
But if they are free, they are not mercenaries who only think about their own well-being, like the characters in Successionfor example, to talk again about this series which takes place in the world of international finance.
They have a sense of community.
No wonder the series Yellowstone achieved such success.
She speaks of a world that is dear to us.
And which is disappearing before our eyes.
