“Woke” as used by the right is a straw man. To that end, when called upon to cite examples of “woke” in the wild, they will naturally look to the Hollywood caricatures of progressiveness for said straw. Added bonus as doing so has the potential to lead to a schism as some people will insist that Disney, say, inserting superficially gay characters into Beauty and the Beast is really progressive and something we should applaud, while other (myself for example) will be put off by how flimsy the representation is, and cannot help take note of the fact the studio is comfortable with removing the momentary representation from some markets.
The right needs straw to troll the left and center, and the token representation that passes as “woke” to some provides it. But "woke"ness, whether included out of a genuine desire to advance progressive ideals or as a cash gab, isn’t really the issue. Bad writing is.
“Woke” basically is reminding the bigots that there are other people than them in the world. And that these people are just normal people that do normal things. Like eat cereal, and go to theme parks.
Welcome to toxic fandom. Star Wars has suffered from it, at least as far back as 1999, when fanboys had a fit over The Phantom Menace not being as good as they had wanted it to be, had silly characters, and otherwise “ruined their childhood memories.” Having read and seen way too many of their diatribes, they seem to feel that they are somehow “owed” content which meets their expectations of what Star Wars should be.
I was disgusted by the reactions of SW fans over the recent Sequel trilogy. Their treatment of the Ray and Finn characters, as mentioned above, was horrid, as well as how they treated Rose – the actress, Kelly Marie Tran, was not only of Asian descent, but she wasn’t built like a waif, and she was mercilessly trolled online. And, now, they are behaving the same way about Moses Ingram, the black actress who plays one of the Inquisitors.
I can see “wokeness” being a topic at bars or parties, but it just seems weird that public figures, in public, complain about it like it’s a negative thing.
Hollywood and bad writing go together like the right and straw men. It’s built into their DNA.
While true, it’s missing the point. I haven’t seen Top Gun, but all accounts mention an ensemble cast including people of color and !horrors! women pilots, which the right apparently thinks is a Hollywood woke fabrication, although they’ve only been around for three decades. Yet the marketing for the movie has been Tom Cruise 162% of the time, so the studio is hardly making their wokeness clear or intending to profit by any controversy. Just the opposite: their claim is that the studio is doing right in several senses by emphasizing American patriotism, military toughness, and white heroes.
See this is a weird historical revisionist take I’m seeing pop up more and more lately despite the fact we lived all through it, that it was only “Star Wars fanboys” that hated the prequels and bullied the Anakin Skywalker and Jar Jar Binks actors.
EVERYBODY hated the prequels. They were Late Night talk show fodder, the Simpsons and Family Guy both made fun of the prequels at the time. They were the rare pop culture touchstone where basically everyone agreed those movies were hot garbage at the time. The mainstream hated Jar Jar Binks more than actual Star Wars fan.
I didn’t say (nor did I mean to imply) that it was only the fanboys who hated the Prequels (which, as you noted, were simply not good filmmaking). But, it was a subset of rabid fanboys who were unable to shut up about it, and were vocal in their sentiment that they somehow “deserved” better movies than those.
I honestly don’t think that it was the mainstream (who likely said, “yup, bad movies, moving on now”) who bullied Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best; I think it was much more likely to have been those aggrieved fanboys.
You’re conflating “people who didn’t like the prequels,” with “people who bullied Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best.” The Simpsons made fun of the movies, but I don’t recall Bart telling Jake Lloyd to go kill himself. kenobi is clearly talking about the latter group, and that group consisted almost entirely of self-identified Star Wars fans.
When the teasers for Villeneuve’s Dune revealed that Kynes was going to be played by a black woman, the “OMG it’s ruined! Woke casting! It must fail!” crowd piped up right away.
The film did just fine and the role made no point around it being a black woman. Kynes was played as Kynes with Kynes’ expected lines.
I’d even go so far as to posit that “Hollywood” and “the right” often are the same thing, particularly when it comes to studio executives and some of the more notorious bad directors (Zack Snyder and Michael Bay for example). That is, the same people who misrepresent progressive values and are guilty of tokenism are the sort of people who would decry "woke"ness. It’s a cynical cash grab.
So while on the one hand, I will happily defend the performances given by the diverse cast in the new Star Wars trilogy, I will not defend the movies themselves because the writing was garbage. That their cast was so talented and did so well with what little they were given only further underscores the subpar nature of the writing. And it kind of pisses me off that the same studio that is putting on this “woke” caricature of progressive values is not itself truly committed to progressive values. It’s a cynical cooption of the values.
Heaven forfend a person of color or a woman or anybody else but a straight white male hero defeat a straight white male antagonist! Might give people funny ideas!
I did notice they changed Kynes from Chani’s father to her aunt. I guess mother would have stretched credulity?
Having Paul and Chani both lose a parent to the Harkonnens was maybe a missed opportunity in terms of character development but ultimately not that important in the grand scheme.
Movies, like most business enterprises, are fantastically conservative. If you were in charge of spending hundreds of millions of dollars of other people’s money, wouldn’t you be conservative?
Still tough, I noticed that the right wing in the past having an issue of the gayness of that shirtless beach volleyball scene in the original Top Gun.
Was it? Now you’re making an assumption. Was it Star Wars fanboys who also tracked down Star Wars Kid of viral video fame and told him to kill himself too? Or the type of people who bully and harass people regardless of their stakes in Star Wars?
There’s nothing gay about homoeroticism! We’re looking at manly men being manly! It’s all about men at their highest level of testosterone! Like the Kenny Loggin’s “Playing with the Boys” soundtrack for the beach volleyball scene in the original!
It’s a strange combination
Knock knock knockin on wood
Bodies working overtime
It’s man against man
And all that ever matters is, baby, who’s ahead in the game
What could possibly be gay about that you woke monster?
You’re not wrong, but it’s nice to be at a place in society where catering to queer people makes more money than catering to homophobes. I don’t mistake Disney for any sort of actual ally, but they’re a great canary for gauging who’s in the lead in the culture war.
Yeah, I mean, I’ve been on the receiving end of it myself (not that I make movies, but I have fans). I’ve had people tell me not to include things like visual trigger warnings for flashing lights because I’m being ‘too soft on weak people’, or complain about my choice not to use a term that is a borderline slur. A little while ago, someone called me ‘woke’ because I mentioned in passing that I dislike wasting food.
The complaint is always paired with ‘I love your stuff, but…’ - so yeah, toxic fandom. The notion that being a fan gives you some sort of right to exert control over the thing you say you like.
