Woke Movies

[Noel]

“For every African Animist bought by a European Christian, there was usually a Arab Muslim broker who did the selling and an African Animist King who captured the slave in tribal warfare. The indigenous tribes of North America not only enslaved each other as spoils of tribal war, but also bought and held African slaves from Europeans.”

And this absolves those past europeans from owning and selling human beings? Because Africans and Arabs themselves sold the human beings Europeans are exempt from the horror of owning and selling and subjecting people to slave hours on end in farms and industry with no recompense? Wow. I am WOKE.

Ever notice how the history’s of the indigenous in the Americas is never present, except in pyramids in South America and artifacts in museums. Any written or documented history is rare and what ever there is left of it is from the viewpoint of Europeans (and considering that the Incas built cities and constructed canals and indoor plumbing you had to believe that they developed some form of written language) There was a reason for that. For following the Catholic churches orders and erasing all of the indigenous history.
When they reached Puerto Rico in 1493 and the indigenous Boriquenos greeted them they were immediately subjugated, made to work in diamond mines, and died from exhaustion, diseases , and, in the journals of a Spaniard Franciscan Monk we learned, torture. There were no Taino’s selling off Taino’s to the highest European bidder thereby absolving those Europeans from the horrors they inflicted on those peace loving people. Because what’s left of their history shows that they were peaceful. Though you couldn’t say the same for their cousins the Caribs who, evidence shows, were cannibals and did capture and sell other Caribbean tribes to Europeans. So there again, Europeans are absolved once more. Man, those Europeans did no wrong. It’s all the Africans and Indigenous fault all this slavery business.

Because Africans themselves sold human beings to Europeans and indigenous enslaved their captors it’s ok. Nothing to see here. A state has a right to fight for it’s people to keep their property. Am I right? States Rights. Isn’t that what the South said was the reason for it’s Civil War? A States right to own human beings. Back in the 1860’s they were fighting to the death, in America, to own human beings.

Listen, when it comes to this shit I am aware, awake, cognizant, what ever you want to label me…Woke. Learning this does not mean that white folk in America today of european dissent bare the responsibility or blame for what their forefathers did. Few people of color say that they are and the only ones who keep repeating this are White Folk.

I’ll give you that though. Africans and Arabs selling off humans to Europeans. So why are Americans fighting so hard to not have that taught in schools? Do German children not learn about Nazi’s and the Holocaust because Germans don’t want them to feel guilty? Why should they? They were not committing atrocities in the name of Nationalism and Hitler. They’re not responsible. Wonder if it’s the same in other countries, not teach history because someone’s feelings will be hurt. Woke.

Happy Sunday!

[_Robert_]

Davis wrote:

It just saddens me that many people here, who are otherwise progressive, tolerant and thoughtful, seem so “hard done by” at the face of demonstrably harmed people speak out about their struggles and are characterised as “woke people” and how they “go wrong”. I play on an ice hockey team in Edinburgh, filled mostly with working class construction workers who are more understanding and supportive.

It’s a forest out there and these “so-called woke” people are just looking at the trees. Myopic strategy. Look how the laws are changing against marginalized groups in the US as they trigger knee-jerk reactions exactly when conservatives control Supreme courts, state legislatures, and the House of Representatives. Just in the past few years, women lost rights they had way before wokeism.  What kind of great “understanding” is that?

Wokeism and fake virtue signaling smells of religion, in that you can’t even suggest it’s not working. Notice how many of the classic liberal atheists speak against the entire ideology.  And here is where they are labelled as evil white males, right? That’s not sexism or racism somehow. I call bullshit.

Here is a reaction the new woke “snow white” movie. I mean holy fuck, just make a different movie already. Find a great ethnic story and retell it. This is doing nothing good.

[TheEncogitationer]

Noel,

All that, and you got me totally wrong.

[Unseen]

@To Whom It May Concern

Someone said basically They are saddened that oppressed people are characterized as “woke” by otherwise progressive members here.

Someone saying that isn’t paying attention to what wokeism is:

Woke is a system of thought and behavior characterized by intolerance of free expression, policing the speech of others, enforcing approved beliefs through boycotts and denunciations, and proving one’s own superiority to oneself by denouncing the supposed dogmatic shortcomings of others. There’s a pernicious doggedness to resisting the notion that there exists more than one way of looking at things which hinders the free exchange of ideas and further divides society.

So, the “woke” are not the oppressed, the “woke” are the self-appointed narcissistic people who inject themselves into a conversation to play a savior role by shaming and guilt-tripping others on behalf of people (the oppressed) who they treat as basically something similar to what Alfred Hitchcock called a “McGuffin.”

Those of us here speaking out against wokeism are not for oppression. Indeed, we speak out against the oppression of the wokeists who destroy people and their careers and attempt to re-engineer society is disastrous ways. Just ask the striking actors and writers who will not get very much of what they want because the wokeists broke the visual entertainment industry’s back by shaming it into producing wokeist propaganda.

I can’t even dignify wokeism as “well-intended” because the wokeists do it not so they can help others, but so they can feel better about themselves.

Wokeism can claim one accomplishment, however. They have jogged people into being less liberal, less progressive. I’m not talking about rational doubt like one runs into here, but the voter on the street who responds entirely from their gut and resents elites wanting to change their minds and their way of life.

Thank you for helping to give us Donald Trump and the MAGA Republican Party. Yes, you did that.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by Unseen.

[Unseen]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

For every African Animist bought by a European Christian, there was usually a Arab Muslim broker who did the selling and an African Animist King who captured the slave in tribal warfare. The indigenous tribes of North America not only enslaved each other as spoils of tribal war, but also bought and held African slaves from Europeans.

So, you’re trotting out the “we were just part of the problem” argument from which it follows that we were part of the problem.

I can even add to your litany of excuses that the volume of slavery which took place in the U.S. was far smaller than that going on in Brazil, for example.

Still, we were voluntarily part of the problem.

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

We–whoever “we” are, Kemosabe–are not part of any problem unless someone living today held someone against their consent without due conviction for a crime against the person or property of another. Only those who did so are the problem.

Still dismissed. ‘Bye!

[Unseen]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen, We–whoever “we” are, Kemosabe–are not part of any problem unless someone living today held someone against their consent without due conviction for a crime against the person or property of another. Only those who did so are the problem. Still dismissed. ‘Bye!

Anyone who can’t see that white America still benefits from slavery today is being dishonest with him/herself. I won’t go so far as to agree with reparation checks because a little mad money won’t fix racism and also, once you go down that road everyone with a grievance will want a check and it will rapidly become absurd.

Still, I can drive a car without worrying about any sort of “driving while white,” to take just one example.

[Unseen]

The critical Drinker returns.

How Disney (which has lately almost specialized in making unwatchable attempts at forced “diversity”) ruined the Indiana Jones franchise.

Of course, this happened after they totally fucked the Star Wars franchise in the ass.

Much of Hollywood* wokeism involves gender or race swapping in various ways. Sometimes it’s a direct swap like Queen Latifah playing The Equalizer and sometimes it’s by introducing a new female character to take over center stage as with the last few Star wars films and the recent Indiana Jones movie which is hardly about Indiana Jones at all.

Cinematic wokeism often involves lazy gender or race swapping. The reboot of the ancient (and brilliant) The Equalizer series, in which a former intelligence agent becomes a vigilante, helping people in need and seeking justice for those who cannot find it through traditional means. Women being stalked, for example.

Someone had the brilliant idea of rebooting the series. Then, they had the pathologically dumb idea of handing the lead role to the obese and clearly unathletic Queen Latifah. That ticked off both the race and gender boxes and maybe a box for chubby people, too, resulting in another unwatchable wokeist bomb. In the movie series based on The Equalizer Denzel Washington, a black man, took on the role, but he was believable in the role and few people except a few of us oldsters even remember Robert Woodward.

But worse was to come. A recent controversy involves the Netflix “documentary” about Cleopatra where Cleo is played by a black actress. You see, Cleo is black because Jada Pinkett Smith, an executive producer of the film, told her that Cleo was a black woman.

The problem is that Cleo was Macedonian. Macedonia is not an African or even Middle Eastern country. Macedonia, officially known as the Republic of North Macedonia, is located in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Kosovo and Serbia to the north. The country was formerly part of Yugoslavia. Cleo was as white as the driven snow.

Swapping in a black actress for a real life white person is clearly a case that might be called “blackwashing.”

Similarly, when Gal Gadot* accepted the lead role in the new movie, Cleopatra, there was an uproar that it was “whitewashing.” This, by people, blithely unaware of the facts recited above.

* Since almost everyone either mispronounces it or wonders how to pronounce it, here is how to pronounce “Gal Gadot”:

Did that help?

 

 

 

[—]

Can’t wait for movies to get even woker, especially since ‘woke’ seems to predominately mean casting actors from broader demographics in mainstream productions. Maybe one day it will normalize and we can stop doubling down on the disproportionate lionization of the personified cis-het, white male hero fantasy.

Sometimes I wonder if people largely just can’t remember movies of the past or if they just can’t accept that it’s impossible to rewatch those movies though the eyes of youth. For example, the 2016 Ghostbusters actually did a fairly decent job capturing the camp and energy of the first movie. But you were never going to be able to watch it the same way as the original (which, despite its charms, was awkward as fuck, especially Murray’s stilted line delivery). It was a Ghostbusters for a younger generation who largely didn’t grow up with the original.

Or Star Wars, Luke vs. Anakin (in ep. 1) or Rey: was Rey a good character? I dunno, but she wasn’t worse than Luke. I mean, he’s a bumbling country bumpkin who gets pulled along into some bizarre destiny where he blows up an unparalleled destroyer ship with inherited space magic that he hardly spent any time actually training. They had to create more movies just to justify the absurdity of it because it was shit story-telling save by charismatic acting, and perhaps the limits of technology holding creators back from eye-bleeding cgi saturation and making worlds that leave insufficient room for the audience’s imagination.

Every generation of film produces its classics and also produces its fair share of shit. Hell, sometimes there is strange overlap between the two—shit movies that become classics. And every era has its social messaging, cultural norms and a certain degree of contrivance for the same of acceptability and conformity.

If contemporary movie-making has a problem, it’s money, not wokeness. The expectation for profit weighed against ballooning production costs means making movies that reach as broad an audience as possible with increasingly unrealistic expectations on production value. We’re in the era of endless remakes or adaptations dominating the box office because production companies want to milk tested materials only. The fact that casting gets updated to remedy some historic issues isn’t what’s sinking movie quality. That’s a load of shit.

[Unseen]

@Autumn

You’re entitled to your opinion even if it’s shared by almost nobody who pays money to see movies, including female moviegoers. Trying to foist one’s preferences and values down an audience that wants something else will always be doomed to failure.

The great numbers of people staying away from Disney’s revisionist woke movies is the primary reason why so many Disney people are standing in the unemployment lines. They’d still have jobs if Disney had simply stuck with a winning formula. Wokeism has its victims and Disney isn’t the only one. Oh…forgot to mention the poor Disney stockholders.

I’m currently watching two female-centered British detective series on Acorn TV (available through Amazon Prime). Both have strong leads.

(BTW, why is it that Hollywood so rarely produces good mystery stories? Thrillers, police procedurals, yes. Classic mysteries, no.)

In Queens of Mystery, a new Police Detective who was raised by her three mystery writer aunts uses logic and evidence to solve crimes with the sometimes dubious help of her aunts. It’s wonderful, with extremely high production value (no CGI whatsoever), and male characters who aren’t idiots but don’t beat her to the solution.

Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries takes place in Australia in the 1960s. In this series, the niece of Phryne Fisher—lead character of the wonderful Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries series—uses her wits and the help of the members of the exceptional women’s club into which she’s been initiated to solve crimes. Once again, the men are not idiots with the exception of the police chief who is also corrupt. Once again, peerless British production values and no CGI.

I suppose some will quibble that Peregrine Fisher is a classic movie ditz, but her ditziness is just a facade, because she is quite sharp underneath a seemingly shallow exterior.

Both series are highly enjoyable with mentally strong and smart female leads.

[_Robert_]

You may be the only one in the theater, Autumn. Contrary to Hollywood’s thinking, the vast majority of women are attracted to tall, dark and handsome and most men still want sexy, beautiful women. A humorless, romantically void, 100 lb stick (yet somehow physically strong) woman who is kicking the hell out of 200 lb bad guys is just never gonna be popular. Hero to no one.

 

[PopeBeanie]

_Robert_ wrote:

A humorless, romantically void, 100 lb stick (yet somehow physically strong) woman who is kicking the hell out of 200 lb bad guys is just never gonna be popular. Hero to no one.

Well then, I give myself permission to describe my taste in physically well trained woman heroes as eclectic, while some people just replace one fad or set of cultural generalizations with an opposing fad/set. Judgmentalism rather than two-way empathy is what starts and maintains these messes.

Break time! About 3 minutes.

[_Robert_]

…physically well trained woman…

“Well trained” maybe, however these new manufactured “woke heros” are typically self-trained. No need for the archetypical elder (especially male) mentor. There are plenty of “strong women” in traditional narrative arcs. They are multi-dimensional, interesting, complicated, flawed, the entire human gamut.

Let’s see more trans women, written into stories not about gender, FFS. Some of my favorite synthesists/composers are trans women. Wendy Carlos, with “Switched on Bach” and the “Clockwork Orange” soundtrack. Talk about influential. Do a story on her and keep the “woke” filmmakers far away, they would ruin it for sure.

[_Robert_]

[PopeBeanie]

Nice, good old days on tape, instantly accessible via YouTube. She was a groundbreaker, indeed. Maybe middle school teachers in Florida (and a few other states) could play a lot like these for their students? 🙂

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