Is “Landman” a Conservative Show, or Just a Masculine One?

by Ted Kluck

I was first clued into the controversy vis-à-vis Taylor Sheridan’s “Landman” by the omnipresent group of “leaning-progressive-at-a-conservative-school” students whom you can set your watch by if you work at a school like mine. It’s always fun to “zag” at a place like this, persona-wise, and students have lots of reasons for doing that. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with this (people can think what they want). But groups of students like this almost always feel as though they were the first to ever think of leaning left at (pick your Christian University) although a decade-plus in this business would suggest otherwise[1].

Anyway, I first heard of “Landman” – a Paramount series – while listening to a mainstream and traditionally-pretty-liberal media podcast[2] (Bill Simmons’ show on The Ringer) where the hosts raved about its storytelling, character work, and watchability. They didn’t mention anything about being a shill for Trumpism or anything about conservative views on renewable energy. They simply presented it as an addictively-watchable show, set in the Permian basin, and that it may be Billy Bob Thornton’s greatest performance to date. To be clear, this podcast featured a sports guy (Simmons) and a film-school-type (Chris Ryan), neither of whom are above a semi-regular jab at Trump and conservatives.

The students at my school indicated that they’re watching the show “ironically,” which seems like a rather large investment of time and resources in something that you’re just hoping to snicker-at and be-too-smart-for, collectively. But I assent to the idea that this is part of the entertainment cocktail, circa 2025.

Being that I grew up watching television in the 1980s and 1990s, there was really no such thing as a show that scanned as “conservative” or “liberal.” Until the conversation with my students I’d never thought of that as a “thing.” I mean if a show was about drag queens or gay interior designers trying to make it in the city, I just kind of mentally categorized it as a show I probably wouldn’t enjoy.

And moreover, I’ve never needed a show to completely cohere with my worldview in order to like it. I mean, my favorite show of all time, “Cheers,” was about an alcoholic (Norm) and a sexually irresponsible (at best) bartender (Sam). Jerry Seinfeld, as presented in “Seinfeld,” was maybe an emotionless sociopath who regularly used and discarded women. They were still great shows, beloved by people on both sides of the aisle. A show like “30 Rock” in the early-2000s made its money by viciously (and hilariously) lampooning people on both sides of the aisle in ways that would scan as “problematic” just a few years later.

But about “Landman.” Being that it’s a show about oil roughnecks in Texas, it probably isn’t going to include a lot of nuanced discussions of intersectionality or the complicated views on women that are held by roughnecks in the Permian basin. It’s basically a show about how dangerous and lucrative it can be to get oil out of the ground, which is something I didn’t know I’d find interesting. It’s a show about power and legacy, but also about fist-fighting and banging on pipes with wrenches. If you don’t find any of that interesting, you’ll probably not enjoy it. And that’s ok. If you don’t like certain portrayals of masculinity, maybe don’t watch a show about dudes who work on oil rigs for a living. There are plenty of other options.

I don’t know much about Taylor Sheridan’s politics or personal life, and I really don’t care. The idea of caring about a show-runner’s personal life and background is also pretty new, as is the idea of a show’s writer/creator becoming some kind of a metabolized celebrity him or herself.

But the runway between “‘Landman is prestige TV and we love it!’” and “’Landman’ is actually terrible because of its cis-heteronormativity, masculinity, and Pro-Americanness!” was almost immediate. It was probably a three-week turnaround. I’ve never seen media hipsters whiplash on a show this quickly, and the whiplash makes for an interesting study in how we consume and talk about media in 2025.

But far from romanticizing the oil business, “Landman” could also read as a cautionary satire. Its main characters are routinely dying and being hospitalized for their greed, and if you enjoy a show where a conservative main character (in this case, Billy Bob Thornton’s) is routinely beaten within an inch of his life, this seems to happen every couple of episodes. This certainly isn’t “Dallas.”

And it certainly isn’t Christian. “Landman” may not be a great show for me to watch, and it certainly doesn’t need me to defend it. It almost certainly isn’t defensible per Philippians 4:8, which reads, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

I think it is excellent and true writing about people, and about the world. It certainly seems true about how hard it is to get oil out of the ground, and then make money on it which, to be fair, I’ve never done myself. It certainly falls short of being honorable and pure, but then again, so did “Seinfeld.”

But I want to live in a world where I can enjoy a show that is a reflection of what its creator wanted to say, without exactly being what I would say. In the same way that news is completely bifurcated politically, I don’t want entertainment to follow suit, if only because of the insufferability it will lead to in viewers and critics. Myself included.

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[1] This was even a “thing” in the 1990s, when I went to a school like this…but well before people were wearing their political “uniform” 24/7.

[2] Podcasts or shows wearing a political uniform is also a fairly new thing. I listen to this show every week and really like it.