The scholars behind a Smithsonian exhibition targeted by the Trump administration have built their careers around the same race, gender, sexuality and social-justice themes now fueling accusations of ideological bias at the museum, a Fox News Digital review found.Entertainment Nation, which opened in December 2022, is an ongoing exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History that uses artifacts from music, film, television, theater and sports to examine how popular culture has shaped American life.Every member of the exhibit’s seven-person curatorial team has incorporated themes involving racial injustice, gender inequality, sexuality or other progressive social causes into their academic work, public commentary or prior museum projects.Fox News Digital’s review found praise for communist-linked figures, alignment with progressive activist movements and explicit statements connecting museum work to social justice.TRUMP ORDERS SIGNS OUTSIDE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM AMID ROW OVER ITS DEPICTION OF AMERICAN HISTORYA video playing at the entrance of the National Museum of American History’s Entertainment Nation exhibit features scantily clad women and a clip from the feminist thriller The Handmaid’s Tale.
(Robert Schmad/Fox News Digital)Speaking to Fox News Digital previously, a senior White House official accused Entertainment Nation of promoting "fringe or activist ideologies masquerading as history."John Troutman, the exhibit’s lead curator, told The Washington Post in 2023 that the project was meant to do more than present a conventional history of entertainment, saying it was not intended to serve as "a gallery that provides a history of entertainment," but instead to examine broader social movements reflected in popular culture.Troutman’s colleagues have similarly examined entertainment through themes of racial exclusion, gender stereotypes, homophobia and other social conflicts commonly emphasized by the political left.Curator Kenneth...