The biggest “new” star of Trump 2.0 might be an ’80s sitcom veteran.
Justine Bateman of “Family Ties” fame is back in the spotlight on her own stunning terms. The actress/director, now 58, caught fire on social media with a two-pronged approach to post-election America.
She began posting professional critiques of social media videos, often involving meltdowns over Donald Trump’s electoral victory. The tips are consequential and well-intentioned, hardly a bruising takedown of an amateur’s attempt to go viral.
She uses the hashtag #SocialMediaVideoCritique and is getting plenty of retweets along the way.
#SocialMediaVideoCritique
– This piece is of a genre that is an off-shoot of the #CryingVideo genre. The #CryingOverWork genre is typically a main character publicly crying over a work challenge or disappointment that is already common to millions of people.
– The genre misses… https://t.co/upomZYyxMu— Justine Bateman (@JustineBateman) November 18, 2024
Bateman’s more important postings involve what Elon Musk dubbed “the woke mind virus.” She doesn’t use that term, nor does she deploy other incendiary phrases.
She’s just giddy that the pressure to think a certain way – or else – has faded with the Harris/Walz campaign’s demise. And it started with this viral post which has generated nearly 6 million views to date.
Decompressing from walking on eggshells for the past four years.
— Justine Bateman (@JustineBateman) November 8, 2024
She followed that digital blast with a more full-bodied assessment of where we go from here.
Now, she’s sharing her journey with The Free Press, a remarkable news outlet formed by journalist Bari Weiss. The interview shared when Bateman noticed the culture taking a constrictive turn.
Then came 2020: the pandemic, George Floyd, the riots, the groupthink—“these people necessitating that I think like them, and policing what people say, and what they tweet, and what they like on a social media post.”
She hated the rise of the progressive mob. It was antithetical to everything she believed in. “The only way you get that kind of momentum behind destroying peoples’ lives is when you have a mob mentality,” Bateman said. “I felt like the fact that Trump won cut the momentum of that mob mentality.”
Now, consider all the Hollywood voices who have been silent in recent years on this subject. Tom Hanks. Mark Ruffalo. Jennifer Lawrence. George Clooney. Scarlett Johansson. Oprah Winfrey.
The list is endless.
They saw what Bateman saw. They could have used their clout to strike a blow against speech suppression. They had endless opportunities to do just that. Awards show podiums. Social media pages. Late-night interviews.
And they stayed silent.
Bateman’s voice rings even louder since any Hollywood comeback/revival could be crippled by her common-sense stances. And she apparently doesn’t care.
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Is Bateman conservative? Libertarian? An old-school liberal? She eschews labels, embracing common sense instead.
“Everyone should be able to live their life the way they want to, without infringing on somebody else’s ability to freely live their life the way they want, and that’s the whole thing. You follow that within a society, and you’re golden—you know what I mean? You can’t fail.”
Bateman is back on the cultural stage, but she really never left. She’s been acting intermittently over the years, including a shift to directing with upcoming projects like “Feel” and “Look.” She’s also shopping a sitcom script that reads like “Family Ties” for the modern era.
Hint: It’s not woke.
“I feel like comedy and satire are one of those things in society that kind of keep things in check, and that needs to come back,” she said. “My script can be part of that.”
She’s also battling the rise of A.I. with CREDO 23. The organization supports human-driven art at the expense of digitally created storytelling.
We differentiate ourselves by making very human, very raw, very real films/series, that respect the process of filmmaking.
