Another example, let's say you have a standard 90's action type of movie that is pure 90's cheese despite being released today. It has action, adventure and a white male lead who has hot love interest. Now here's the twist, the love interest is a trans woman. Her being trans is not the focus of her character and is only brought up once and naturally in dialogue. She herself is a badass and presented just as awesome as the leading man who is not even slightly bothered by her being trans.hammerofglass wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 6:39 pm "Woke" just means "contains stuff conservative Culture Warriors complain about". They've appropriated it so thoroughly that nobody else uses it unironically anymore. Give somebody who isn't a straight white Christian cis man a speaking role and it's "woke".
Headlines make much ado about this awesome trans lead and her fantastic chemistry with the hero of the story and how this is a great step forward for trans representation. However, the film being well liked by critics and movie goers the film doesn't break any records and in many ways, under performs at the box office.
And than here comes the anti-woke culture with them saying the reason this film bombed was because the film was forcing it's political agenda on viewers and that if the film just had a cisgender female lead it would have been fine because most people going to see films aren't into trans women, even though, again, it wasn't treated as a big deal by the film itself. And the reason the film didn't do to well was more of a result of poor marketing and being released to few to no theaters but again, that's not what matters to these people, what matters is it bombed and there for is another example of how being "Woke" is bad.
And I know this would be the reaction because I've seen this sort of argument used again the 2012 film Dredd. Because gave the Anderson equal screen time to Dredd and gave her more development but ultaimtely bombed it was assumed by a SMALL majority that she was the reason to blame for it failing. No one took the idea of that seriously because the whole Woke thing wasn't really a thing but if released today and if it bombed like it did before, would be surprised if that opinion was given more attention?
The thing about Woke is it's a scapegoat. TDST didn't do well, that's because it had a diverse cast with a female lead and not because it was a poorly executed mess of a Trilogy that fell apart because everyone kept trying to ignore what came before. Voyager wasn't as good as TNG, that's because it had a female captain and not because the show kept hitting the reset button and had weak characters and a wasted premise. Dragon Age 2 wasn't as good as DAO that's because most of everyone was bi and not because it was rushed through development so the flaws of the work couldn't be worked out.
And those later two examples are indicative of opinions by critics and fans at the time not people coming in to add to the argument later. The reason Woke dominates so many conversations is because it's a fad of sorts, one that is held by loud minorities NOT the majority and only gained the attention it did thanks to the 2016 Ghostbusters film and TDST and a few others.
Contrary to what clearspira may say every story I listed in our argument WAS a success to one degree or another and all were Woke as it did just the thing you said
Which manages to be vague enough to apply to anything but will be ignored if the work is well received by the vast majority. To go back to She-Ra that show is as woke as one can get and is loved by pretty much anyone. It was given 5 full season deal and was able to see that deal through to the end and it's still talked about a lot 3 years after it's release.Give somebody who isn't a straight white Christian cis man a speaking role and it's "woke".
Or, just look at clearspira's arguments against SOME of the stories I brought up. Those aren't woke, they're as far from Woke as you can get. Even though, again, woke is counted as anything that does not resolve solely around white American cis men AND cannot include anything political. Red Dwarf is woke by that very argument because the it has two white men both of whom would be regarded as "bad" by anti-woker because they're not super awesome and the show delves into some serious subjects with mixed race lead at it's center. But the show is a pop-culture icon that's loved by millions so it's not woke despite ticking off every woke box because Shut Up.
