[ Closed ] The "woke" discussion thread (Page 2 of 5)

I wasn't claiming anyone here was complaining about race swapping, I stated that these complaints happen a lot and only seem to go in one direction. Changing the race of historical figures was mentioned above and this is a general discussion about "woke", so it's reasonable to bring up general criticisms of it that exist in the discourse. But to your point, race is a group identity, so it does serve as an example of what you claim the issue is, even if it's one that hasn't yet been meaningfully addressed here.

I think it's incorrect to blame ideology for changing something without recognizing it would be ideological to keep it the same. There is no art that is immune to ideology in either it's creation or it's reception. Old stories in their original form are not void of ideology, and retelling them the same way is an ideologically -motivated choice. If you think a creative decision makes a product worse, that's fine, but understand that your impression of it is wholly informed by your ideology and the interpretative lense you are bringing to engage with the material. Nobody and nothing is neutral here. Part of the issue that some are pushing back against is the centering of the dominant culture as neutral or unbiased and any deviation from that as ideologically motivated. It's all ideology.

I don't know much about that show and I've never heard of any of those people. It sounds like normal ups and downs of a show that has been running for a long time in many iterations that is trying to stay fresh while remaining true to the original. I recognize that you seem to think the downs are due to ideological reasons, which is what you complained about others doing previously, but since it's hard for any show to go more than a few seasons without either feeling stale or changing and alienating the early supporters, it doesn't seem like a very strong example of your point. And again, it's not like there wasn't an ideology before and then suddenly they added one, you were likely just unaware of the ideology that infused the earlier versions because it closely matched your own, or even was influential in constructing it.

To say that a well-established phenomenon doesn't hold water seems a bit facile, so I'll assume you meant it isn't an important factor in this case. I would challenge the notion that those entities have gone out of their way to alternate their fanbase. They may have tried to expand their fanbase, and they may have done so clumsily, and they may have failed, and they may indeed have alienated some fans. But as others have pointed out the only ideology those entities subscribe to is capitalism. Their only goal is to make profit for their shareholders. If they read the room incorrectly and lose money they'll change. When I look it up it's clear that those entities are still very profitable, so I don't know where you're getting the notion that they're pushing ideological messages at the expense of viability. There just doesn't seem to be very strong evidence for that. You're free to dislike what some writers or directors have done to franchises you feel connected to, but the assertion that they existed free from ideology before and then had ideology added in specifically to alienate their core consumers and now are paying heavily for it is just factually wrong at every step. They are among the most popular and profitable media companies and franchises in the world.

You can gather anecdotes and construct a narrative, but it's not convincing given the massive popularity of the media industry. If Disney goes bankrupt or Marvel can't find anyone to to star in their movies or whatever then you'll have a case to make, but the current reality is nowhere close to that. A good related example would be to look at movies which are explicitly and unapologetically designed to be ideological propaganda, the Christian movie industry. The very best they can do is equal to a middling level of mainstream success, and that happens few and far between. There's absolutely a case to make that they are alienating most of the culture by focusing on a message more than popularity. I mean, Christianity is still dominant, but the heavy-handedness turns off most moderate Christians. To say the same thing is happening with the most successful franchises in the world just doesn't come across as a sound assertion.

Sorry, I'm not really interested in going through and finding specific examples of all these things, as it's not actually relevant to my point. Those are just descriptions of ways in which changing stories can cause pushback from various groups or subcultures. I don't need to justify why it happens to point out that it does. My assertion is not that these motivations are true and justified, simply that these are some of the reasons that are given by marginalized groups for their pushback. You can disagree with the impact or magnitude of any or all of those examples, but the point is that pushback happens and this whole "woke" thing is simply agents within the dominant culture attempting to prevent that pushback, however clumsily. If it didn't happen then we would not be having this conversation. If you think the cultural pushback is happening for other reasons you're welcome to present some. "Ideology" isn't a reason since it's equally applicable to all sides and all scenarios.

Yeah that is simplistic, and that's what you're doing. You literally started your post by saying "The complaint is about inserting group identity into characters...". You can take all the things I mentioned and reduce them all to "group identity", and then claim that because they're all in the same category then it's a simplistic analysis, but that's just disregarding the complexity of the category. I could say the issue comes down to "culture", and then say that critiquing everything as due to "culture" is simplistic because you're only focusing on "culture" over everything else. See how that's a simplistic analysis? You seem to be the one reducing everything to group identity, while I attempted to show some complexity within the issue, highlighting various ways that choices in media can spur cultural pushback. The broadest category I used was probably the point about power imbalances, but I at least attempted to show the nuances within the category rather than wield it as a blunt instrument.

Yeah again, I didn't accuse anyone. I made a general statement of advice, and included myself in it, for how we can make sure we're choosing our battles appropriately and not creating something out of nothing, so we can effectively challenge similar occurrences when they do cross a line. You may think that these things don't get overstated, but that's a substantive disagreement, not an indication of fallacious reasoning

I didn't claim anything was being "fixed" by movies and shows focusing on group identity. I stated what was likely to cause issues and recieve cultural pushback. It's my assertion that companies are attempting to avoid cultural pushback, and while I agree with you that we should definitely call them out when they do something egregious (which ironically is the very thing many in the "anti-woke" crowd often complain about marginalized communities doing, just from a different perspective - there seems to be a double-standard among some regarding who is entitled to voice opinions on these matters), that actually doesn't happen very often and the complaints around this issue are not being treated seriously because too many people are making mountains out of molehills. The examples you raised didn't appear particularly egregious to me, but rather served as good examples of the very exaggeration I claimed was undermining your position.

Edit: corrected "derivation" to "deviation"

I need to point out something SgtSaint said: "yet its fine to have 100% black shows and even a dedicated "Black Entertainment Television" network"

Maybe you weren't there, but this was started in the '80s(?) on cable TV (i.e. subscription) because of the total dearth of shows which starred/featured black actors and/or communities on mainstream TV. It was amazing and exciting to have shows to relate to! And to have shows in which "the black character" was not a token or the comic relief. Why can't you understand that people want to see themselves represented? To feel comfortable watching a show with familiarity?

The posters here complain about the outrage that would come if a white replaced a non-white or a man replaced a woman, etc. Yes. Because white men are still the default. The concept of "punching up" is real and always has been. It will continue until forever, as far as I can see. You all can comfort yourselves by remembering that punching up confirms that you white men are still on top, able to look down on the rest of us.

This! Well said! the epitome of double standards

Brothers! What we do in life...Echoes in Eternity!

I like that! When I somehow end up watching a very Christian movie trailer, I just sigh and stop watching. No need to rage against Christian movies... to each their own.

I think what a lot of people are describing is more about their idea of double standards and hypocrisy, not "woke".

I describe myself as woke, which, in it's original sense, means being aware of what is going on around you, except, I am not black and understand where it came from and don't need to be woke to the idea that the police will arrest me for nothing, beat me for being black, frame me for a crime I didn't commit, kill me for being their idea of 'the wrong colour'

We have always had white people playing black and brown characters. Robert Downey Jr, Pineapple Express, this century. Every depiction of Jesus, a brown Jewish Semite, portrayed by blue eyed blond ish hair actors. Straight actors playing, and being awarded, for playing LGBTQ+. LBGTQ+ actors playing straight characters.

We have had black and brown people in Europe since, at least, 711, over 13 hundred years, so black actors playing roles based in the middle ages, Robin Hood etc, would not be out of place, or "Woke", plus, pst, there were also LGBTQ+ people, who were left alone until Christianity reared it's ugly head

A lot of what goes on in TV and cinema, is not, as some would believe, a great replacement, it is an artistic interpretation.

Watch it, or not, but please get a grip, none of it will have any kind of effect on your life, other than you getting angry for producers and directors not giving you what you want, rather than what they would like to produce

I agree racists cry foul all the time and often give low reviews to shows without ever watching them.

Thanks for sharing!

It's not woke, it's just plain stupid. Don't know with how big letters you need that explanation, if you are black, go to Russia and find out yourself. It's the most racist hell hole you can imagine, all your American adventures will feel like a walk in a park in comparison. And that's why it's just stupid to show some black guy as a spy handler, because he there on the street is like a neon sign (imagine some Texas KKK village, just whole country minus 5 blocks radius in a few big cities ).  Also all those emigrations are nonsense, in RU black population is bellow 0.1%, statistically insignificant, not even included in official stats. And those who are there, are having time of their lives, can go check their Instagram posts, go to comments and click translate.

Woke tho is to do 1+1=11 and to try to sell flying unicorns in the country which openly and actively despises it. That's also why this woke propaganda in general will never win, because it's in a minority, there are 8 billion people, but a very easy finger math says that this wokeness comes from max 300 million. So, the ratio is 1:27.

I think if you want to watch spy shows it's generally better to not be hypersensitive to things that may be a bit unrealistic. Suspending disbelief is an important part of enjoying fiction of any variety. There are other genres that require a lot more, like fantasy or sci-fi, but the spy genre often requires us to suspend disbelief. I think if you can look past impossible disguises, unrealistic fight scenes, arabesque schemes, fantastical gadgets, ridiculous villans, etc., you can work on looking past having a black guy in Russia that isn't immediately seen as suspicious

I'm quite confident that the overwhelming majority of those 8 billion people would have no idea what you're talking about and would lose interest in 5 seconds if you tried to explain it to them. Most people in the world aren't hyper-online, and don't know or care about american reactionary grievances. The anti-"woke" phenomenon is specific to western imperial nations and maybe a little bit in the areas over which they have some cultural influence. Most people are not engaged in the american culture war and know nothing about american identity politics.

Moral panics are always extremely important to those caught up in them and perplexing to those who aren't. I think americans will look back on this time the same way they look back on the Salem witch trials, the '80s satanic panic, the red scare, etc. As a confluence of grievance, paranoia, projection, and conspiratorial ideation

I'm sorry to hear that. The civil rights movements, women's suffrage then women's rights, labor and wage movements, even men's rights movements - these were/are all "woke" under different names and I don't think they were for nothing. One must be aware of injustice and inequality, prejudice and suppression in order to understand why those movements came about and what still needs to happen. All it takes is to try to imagine how the other person feels and what they may have experienced. If you're capable.

Most of the credit here goes to jays, for keeping a subject that is pretty emotional for most who talk about it academical. Also to the fact that, for once, it isn't something that came up while trying to talk about something else, but what the actual thread is about.

Yeah that's exactly where a common misconception is: you aren't even supposed to keep track of it all.

Teenagers of every generation come up with new lingo all the time, it's little more than play, maybe look things up if you keep hearing them for more than 5 years; that happens sometimes, but not often. The stuff actually related to identity is a bit different, but it's also mostly just experimental still anyways.

All anyone expects from you is not to be dismissive of it and, if you actually meet someone it applies to, to do what you can to be kind. If you ever do need to know something, whoever brings it up should explain it to you. Just make sure your reaction is "oops, my bad". That's it. If somebody demands more from you than that, then that person will probably be pretty much alone with that opinion.

Yep. That's pretty much it. A lot of people have spent the last few decades trying to figure out how to be more kind to each other, and came up with a bunch of ideas, mostly independently. Some stuck, many didn't. A lot of other people are somewhat bothered by the fact that this means that things that used to be normal start being considered rude, which in turn means they keep having to tweak their habits a bit.

Then a whole bunch of politically motivated groups and people figured out that if there's something lots of people are kind of upset about, you can amplify those feelings into anger, and where there's anger, there's power. All you need to do is pretend that all these separate things are actually one thing, and give it a name. That's what "woke" is. A rallying cry, not an actual thing.

Originally, before the usurpation of the term, it referred to black people becoming aware ("awake"/"woke") of the fact that the reason they always seem to accomplish less than their white peers isn't that they are just worse at things.

The only aspect most "woke" things have in common is, indeed, empathy. We have, by now, reached a point where you can usually substitute the word "woke" with "empathy" in 95% of all cases. If you do as you say and do things with empathy, then congrats: you are probably "woke" by most definitions already.