Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday to promote the latest season of his Netflix series The Ranch, actor Ashton Kutcher touted the show as one that reflected the “slightly conservative values” of “hard work” in the “middle of the country.”
The celebrity told the hosts of the morning show: “I wanted to do something different and I sat down with the writers....we wanted to do something that wasn’t on TV.” Noting that he was raised “in the middle of America in Iowa,” Kutcher lamented: “I was looking on TV and there was nothing that represented the way that I grew up in like middle of the country, slightly conservative values. You know, hard work...”
Explaining his motivation for creating and starring in The Ranch, Kutcher declared:
And so, we built this show around that idea that there’s a misunderstanding of what the middle of America represents and what those values actually are. And I think we’re sort of seeing it now, since we’ve made the show, and what’s happening politically in the world. But I think the show’s about really connecting those ideas and values and gaining a better understanding of what they are and why they are the way they are and that these issues aren’t black and white. They’re gray, all the time.
True to that description, an episode during the newly-released season dealt with abortion and actually promoted a pro-life story line.
It was ironic that Kutcher was telling the folks at ABC that there were no shows on television with a conservative perspective, given the network’s decision to cancel one of the few programs that did – Tim Allen’s sitcom Last Man Standing.
Appearing on NBC’s Today last year, Kutcher similarly promoted his show offering viewers a “conservative point of view.”
Here is a transcript of the June 21 exchange:
8:36 AM ET
(...)
ROBIN ROBERTS: Congratulations, it's a fun, fun series that you’ve got going on.
ASHTON KUTCHER: Thank you.
ROBERTS: The Ranch.
KUTCHER: Yeah, I’m in love with it. I finished Two and a Half Men and I wanted to do something different and I sat down with the writers, I sat down Danny Masterson, who was my co-star on That 70s Show. And we’ve been talking about working together again since we did the show, and we wanted to do something that wasn’t on TV.
And when I was a kid, I had the Roseanne show. And I was like in the middle of America in Iowa and it was this family that I could relate to that felt like my family, where they were going through financial troubles and the children weren’t treated like gold, like they’d beat them up a little bit and it was like – It just felt like my family and was like really relatable.
And I was looking on TV and there was nothing that represented the way that I grew up in like middle of the country, slightly conservative values. You know, hard work, dust, you know, shake it off. And so, we built this show around that idea that there’s a misunderstanding of what the middle of America represents and what those values actually are. And I think we’re sort of seeing it now, since we’ve made the show, and what’s happening politically in the world. But I think the show’s about really connecting those ideas and values and gaining a better understanding of what they are and why they are the way they are and that these issues aren’t black and white. They’re gray, all the time.
(...)
