Real Reason Taylor Sheridan Used Yellowstone to Troll Critics: “I have a lot of opportunities to poke fun”

After years of being in the industry, Taylor Sheridan finally made his presence known to people worldwide through Yellowstone, which became an instant hit among fans as soon as it was released. And yet, despite being one of the actor cum director’s best-ever projects to date, the series still seemingly faces the wrath of critics, as Sheridan himself admitted it.

That said, the 54-year-old cowboy never hesitated to respond back to all of those critics either. In fact, if anything, he used that very star-studded Kevin Costner-led series to troll critics as a response to their critical reviews on the same. And now, the Wind River helmer seems to have finally revealed the real reason behind just why his genius decided to take this approach.

Taylor Sheridan Shares Why He Uses Yellowstone to Poke Fun at Critics

As fans of the Western genre would already admit, Yellowstone is one of the best series ever created in that respective field, with enough drama to continue to entertain fans for decades. And yet, the series has received nothing short of a lackluster critical reception when it comes to the way critics react to it.

During his recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, showrunner Sheridan admitted to the same as he said:

[Critics hate it and are] confounded by its success. They can’t get their heads around why it’s so [successful]. There’s been New York Times, it’s got multiple, multiple articles where they’re doing, like, this essay on how is this sh-t so popular.

At the same time, Taylor Sheridan also admitted how he uses the show to troll critics by designing it in a way “for them to hate.”

Explaining about his fan-favorite saga, he said:

It has no plot, really. ‘Don’t take my land,’ ‘I want your land.’ [Laughs] In that, I have a lot of opportunities to poke fun, but also kind of point out different points of views, and kind of really study a way of life and a world. There’s a lot of defiance in the way I do it.

As can be understood from his statement, critics indeed do tend to be a bit too rigid in their ways of judging a project, and the Kevin Costner-led series, for one, isn’t conventional enough to fall within the parameters pre-set within Hollywood by all of those critics.

That being said, even though his shows fail to stand up to multiple parameters set by critics many times, like the ones he mentioned himself, they still end up becoming hits among the general audiences, eventually wounding up as a slap to the critics’ faces.

As Sheridan himself continued to say about how he has designed Yellowstone:

It’s not surprising that critics hate it because it’s designed for them to hate.

All of this being said, Sheridan also shared his “holy grail” as a storyteller that he follows every time while developing his projects, further explaining just why his pieces get such brutal criticism from critics despite being loved by fans.

Taylor Sheridan Shares His “Holy Grail” as a Storyteller

During the same episode of JRE, the 1923 helmer continued to explain his perspective to Joe Rogan on how the critics land their judgments on multiple projects, saying:

I think, also, that critics — and I don’t know why, but — seem to feel a need to judge any project by how is it looking at the lens through today’s new question morality. What should we be making movies about.

At the same time, he also cleared out that his job as a storyteller isn’t to adhere to the parameters set by critics, but rather, to develop such a project that it leaves the viewers so mesmerized that they end up wondering about it even after being done with it.

As Sheridan continued to say while expressing how following critics is “not my job”:

My job as a storyteller is to pick a world and look through the window. Not judge it and go, ‘Hey, here’s what it was. And here’s the decision some people made.’ For me, the holy grail as a storyteller is: Entertain, educate, and enlighten. Don’t give anybody answers; just lots of questions to think about. That’s my job.

Needless to say, this entire explanation only further proves why Taylor Sheridan is the mastermind that he is widely regarded by his fans, with works that go against critics and still manage to result in smash-hit successes.

You can stream Yellowstone on Peacock.