I'm not sure the methodology is good on this. There's a difference between inclusiveness (having fair representation, proportion, and voice) and being woke (having outsized proportion, mocking the normies, and giving undue credit for competence or accomplishment).
But you're not the first to point out that audiences have no hatred for boundary testing; just for bad writing that tries to make them feel bad for being themselves or force audiences to agree with the pet philosophies of the writers.
Audiences will definitely punish this, and they'll definitely punish writers who try to rewrite canon or push a franchise out of its original niche with a heavy hand (see the MCU).
Of course no sooner then i say hollyywood is just producing crap. I stumbled into a very good movie "The Most Relluctant Convert. the untold story of C.S. Lewis" no "action" very intellectual, almost a one man show, but very well done imho. Unfortunatly the film is not a product of hollywood. Maybe that's why it is good 😅
good writing Katherine but even you can't put lipstick on a pig and make it pretty.
Hollywood is going broke because even the stuff they produce that isn't sanctimonious and preachy (a cery rare occurance now days) still is garbage and nobody wants to spend $$ to be preached at or tortured by a ridiculous plot line written badly.
I left Netflix for quite a while because of it. There seemed to be a gratis woke theme tossed into any plot that appeared (to me) to be an attempt to normalize certain behaviors. Just about everyone who isn't a Liberal elitist can point them out, I don't intend to start pointing them out here.
There is a big difference between movies with empathetic political content, versus movies that adhere to the fundamentalist progressivist doctrine. Woke refers to the latter.
It depends on your working definition of "woke", I suppose. You're correct, though. I was honestly able to laugh at Velma when I gave it a chance. The show is overtly woke, not subtle at all, but so overtly so that I came to love to hate most of the main characters. Whether Mindy Kaling intended it so or not, the characters are so blatantly, insufferably, pretentiously woke that it's a fairly accurate slice of life comedy about woke people, even if I don't believe I'll ever see it as a worthy addition to the Scooby-Doo mythos. It is what it is, and taken as such, it can be... enjoyable, I guess. I use that word begrudgingly, lol.
But for all the pretentiousness of the characters, it isn't a woke moral crusade. Therefore I can laugh at it, if with a bit of a sneer, and avoid wasting any energy pointlessly hating on it.
The Woman King starring John Boyega and Viola Davis, on the other hand, is nothing short of contemptible. Even here, that might not be the case if not for the use of historical characters and the "Woke" distortion of real world history. In reality, Gezo of Dahomey was a demon-worshiping tyrant. I'm not even saying this from a position of Christocentrism; it's just a fact. Vodun, his people's variant of the parent religion that also gave rise to what we in the New World know as Voodoo or Voudou, was centered around conquest, domination of one's enemies, and slavery. Gezo gained power among his people by ousting his older brother from the throne with the help of a Brazilian slave trader, and spent over sixty years selling his own people as well as people from the surrounding conquered tribes to white slave traders. This is not remotely the story told in the movie, which is why an actress with family connections to some of his victims refused to take any part in it.
The movie doesn't just tell history from a woke perspective, emphasizing things that agree with the writer's perspective while minimizing others. It deliberately inverts history. Historical revisionism of the worst order that makes this tyrant out to be a misunderstood king who made tough choices in the face of a bad situation.
I understand the sort of definition you're giving the "Woke" term in your article. It's a kind one, and that's fine. At the same time, I recognize places where it's more than just annoying and/or "cringe" and goes into the territory of being damaging. That particular movie promotes an understanding of history that isn't just inaccurate, but flies in the face of the facts.
I think you're right that it's how things are worked into the story: it needs to be subtle sub-text and not an explicit focus, which feels like spoon-feeding and sermonizing.
The original show in the US that had a ton of racial and gender diversity before anyone else did is Sesame Street. Sesame Street never made it an explicit topic though, they just showed that everyone is a human regardless of immutable identity groupings. I have been rewatching some of the earliest seasons of it from the early 70s.
It's not unique to our time to bludgeon audiences sometimes with messages like this, either. I recently read a biography of Mark Twain, and while some of his works were masterpieces of subtle messaging, like Huck Finn, other less known works of his that weren't as good had some overt politicizing in them, and this is likely what made these works less successful too.
It's about authenticity, and it's also about preserving the fourth wall: when things are too overt, you can no longer suspend disbelief and remain immersed in a story because you can picture the 30-year-old writer in Burbank who wrote it and is trying to tell you their politics.
It is about authenticity, but you don't have to sneak anything by the viewer, if you do it honestly. There's nothing subtle or subtext about Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, for example.
A deep dive you might be interested in: https://open.substack.com/pub/cultureshock/p/stop-trying-to-save-hollywood
It’s fine to tell “your story”. But if you want others to engage and listen it has to be their story too
A story that says “let me bring you in a journey” will be loved while one that says “your role is to listen to me” will not.
I'm not sure the methodology is good on this. There's a difference between inclusiveness (having fair representation, proportion, and voice) and being woke (having outsized proportion, mocking the normies, and giving undue credit for competence or accomplishment).
But you're not the first to point out that audiences have no hatred for boundary testing; just for bad writing that tries to make them feel bad for being themselves or force audiences to agree with the pet philosophies of the writers.
Audiences will definitely punish this, and they'll definitely punish writers who try to rewrite canon or push a franchise out of its original niche with a heavy hand (see the MCU).
Of course no sooner then i say hollyywood is just producing crap. I stumbled into a very good movie "The Most Relluctant Convert. the untold story of C.S. Lewis" no "action" very intellectual, almost a one man show, but very well done imho. Unfortunatly the film is not a product of hollywood. Maybe that's why it is good 😅
Don’t yank me out of the story. Don’t overtly guide me to a ‘better’ way of being.
I won’t come back if you do that.
Great
Thanks 😊
good writing Katherine but even you can't put lipstick on a pig and make it pretty.
Hollywood is going broke because even the stuff they produce that isn't sanctimonious and preachy (a cery rare occurance now days) still is garbage and nobody wants to spend $$ to be preached at or tortured by a ridiculous plot line written badly.
I left Netflix for quite a while because of it. There seemed to be a gratis woke theme tossed into any plot that appeared (to me) to be an attempt to normalize certain behaviors. Just about everyone who isn't a Liberal elitist can point them out, I don't intend to start pointing them out here.
There is a big difference between movies with empathetic political content, versus movies that adhere to the fundamentalist progressivist doctrine. Woke refers to the latter.
It depends on your working definition of "woke", I suppose. You're correct, though. I was honestly able to laugh at Velma when I gave it a chance. The show is overtly woke, not subtle at all, but so overtly so that I came to love to hate most of the main characters. Whether Mindy Kaling intended it so or not, the characters are so blatantly, insufferably, pretentiously woke that it's a fairly accurate slice of life comedy about woke people, even if I don't believe I'll ever see it as a worthy addition to the Scooby-Doo mythos. It is what it is, and taken as such, it can be... enjoyable, I guess. I use that word begrudgingly, lol.
But for all the pretentiousness of the characters, it isn't a woke moral crusade. Therefore I can laugh at it, if with a bit of a sneer, and avoid wasting any energy pointlessly hating on it.
The Woman King starring John Boyega and Viola Davis, on the other hand, is nothing short of contemptible. Even here, that might not be the case if not for the use of historical characters and the "Woke" distortion of real world history. In reality, Gezo of Dahomey was a demon-worshiping tyrant. I'm not even saying this from a position of Christocentrism; it's just a fact. Vodun, his people's variant of the parent religion that also gave rise to what we in the New World know as Voodoo or Voudou, was centered around conquest, domination of one's enemies, and slavery. Gezo gained power among his people by ousting his older brother from the throne with the help of a Brazilian slave trader, and spent over sixty years selling his own people as well as people from the surrounding conquered tribes to white slave traders. This is not remotely the story told in the movie, which is why an actress with family connections to some of his victims refused to take any part in it.
The movie doesn't just tell history from a woke perspective, emphasizing things that agree with the writer's perspective while minimizing others. It deliberately inverts history. Historical revisionism of the worst order that makes this tyrant out to be a misunderstood king who made tough choices in the face of a bad situation.
https://youtu.be/TxcKroo5U4k?si=o1sEIkvpG_GZ0jqI
I understand the sort of definition you're giving the "Woke" term in your article. It's a kind one, and that's fine. At the same time, I recognize places where it's more than just annoying and/or "cringe" and goes into the territory of being damaging. That particular movie promotes an understanding of history that isn't just inaccurate, but flies in the face of the facts.
I think you're right that it's how things are worked into the story: it needs to be subtle sub-text and not an explicit focus, which feels like spoon-feeding and sermonizing.
The original show in the US that had a ton of racial and gender diversity before anyone else did is Sesame Street. Sesame Street never made it an explicit topic though, they just showed that everyone is a human regardless of immutable identity groupings. I have been rewatching some of the earliest seasons of it from the early 70s.
It's not unique to our time to bludgeon audiences sometimes with messages like this, either. I recently read a biography of Mark Twain, and while some of his works were masterpieces of subtle messaging, like Huck Finn, other less known works of his that weren't as good had some overt politicizing in them, and this is likely what made these works less successful too.
It's about authenticity, and it's also about preserving the fourth wall: when things are too overt, you can no longer suspend disbelief and remain immersed in a story because you can picture the 30-year-old writer in Burbank who wrote it and is trying to tell you their politics.
It is about authenticity, but you don't have to sneak anything by the viewer, if you do it honestly. There's nothing subtle or subtext about Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, for example.
Where have you been?