Art, Media, and The Woke Mind Virus

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#woke

[Nixx]

I think part of that "woke" speaches adleast in the movies is the hypocrisy of big studios. Changing character sex or skin colour is suppose to persuade everybody they aren't racist or sexist, but how about creating a new character. We're apparently getting a female version of Three Musketeers nobody wants, but there still aren't movies anout Julie D'Aubigny who was a real and badass bisexual dualist fron Luis XIV times, that's the movies I would like to see! Or one about Jean de Clisson, a pirat queen from Brittany, well make one about Grace O'Malley when you're at it. After we got new wersion of his son's creations why not make a movie about General Dumas. But no, women and people not being Caucasian can only be shadows of white male characters, that's so patronising. Luckily it's much better in books and comics. Sorry I jus got a bit pissed. I really want a movie about Julie, she was badass.

[mikecaetano]

"The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude." --George Orwell, "Why I Write" (1946)

[roma-teclea]

Argentina is having this same issue. Woke this, woke that, and in the face of the biggest transfer of wealth from the lower class to the upper class. All people that engage in the woke outrage are just falling for a red herring. Woke was nobody's problem. Not even arguing if woke or no woke. Whatever art displays and how it does doesn't affect your material wellbeing. Gosh. People just hate the fact that somebody's pointing out their biggotry. And people got too confortable saying they don't want to watch black or queer people.

[niccc]

can't even enjoy my gay little books anymore, because of woke

but seriously, this argument is incredibly ridiculous. when people say "keep politics out of books/games/etc." i just laugh at them.

[localabsurdist]

I thought we were over this when people stopped using sjw… now we have the same old hateful rhetoric but with a different word

[StarlightGumiho]

WOKE!!!1111 🤣 That line delivery just made me spit out my tea!

[danielaweberdani]

well said, there's no way to
argue with selfish unwoke
people, and their certainty
that nobody wants/needs
art to be political for me
is the cherry on top. 🍒

[RoundSeal]

Shaun mentioned!!! I loved the video you mentioned; it so cleanly dissected and broke down all of the 'arguments' that the people make.

It is so boggling to me that people can't (or, more likely, won't) engage with what they're consuming. That anything that confuses them, makes them uncomfortable because they're starting to _think_ about it, must be wrong and therefore It stresses me out that these people don't thirst for self-betterment by engaging with things that fall outside of their current sphere. What kind of life is that? Who can bear the thought of remaining totally static throughout their entire life?

[shalryma]

I really appreciate your take on it! It baffles me the lengths some people will go to defend themselves from any piece of media that could show them a world even slightly different than their own.

What annoys me is that "anti-woke" crowd fails to recognize the real reason why some media are bad and getting worse is actually corporate greed, not "wokeness".

That series you're trying to watch is not bad because there are gay characters of colour in it. It's bad because the streaming platform is trying to get away with paying as little as possible to to the writing team; using AI to generate some of the dialogue; and making entire experience more "second screen".

The video game you're trying to play is not bad because it has gender identity options in the character creator alongside many skin colours. It's bad because the devs are forced to stretch the time it'll take you to finish the game by watering down the story (or using AI to generate it), making gameplay tedious, adding a bunch of thoughtless side quests and finding increasingly more predatory ways to monetize on the experience beyond the original price tag. As someone who has been working in the games industry for a very long time, I know gender identity options take low effort to include -it's not like you would get a completely differently game with many more story beats if the option to choose pronouns, boob size, beard and bulge size for every character wasn't there 🤷‍♀

The movie you're trying to watch is bad not because it has a female character of colour in it as a main character. It's bad, because production company behind it only wants to shoot it using green screen, slap a known IP name on it and make the bulk of the money on merch people will buy cause of the known name.

[FormerBiped]

I was born in 1957. I'm trying to remember what the slurs were before "woke" and "politically correct". I suppose calling someone a commie would qualify. It goes back forever, as long as there were people opposed to change and having to think.

[giannanicole]

It’s very sad to see ppl limit their own horizon by rejecting everything that is not conforming to their views..and where does all the anger come from? Why are they mad? We are just minding our business exploring ideas and concepts..aren’t they curious about others and other ways of life at all? Isn’t that why we read books and watch movies? Experiencing another life, a different story from ours, expand your knowledge about the world and cultures ..

[SweetLemonGirl]

Off topic: I like your Edward Elric figure in the background 😊

[natcatsbookishcafe]

Me peacefully doing my work 😌
You: WOKE 🗣️🗣️
Me: 🤯😱🫣😮‍💨😂

[imorca]

I've been fighting this fight for decades. I'm so sick of people not being able to even say with any clarity why they feel "attacked" by art or entertainment. If you can't explain yourself, how have you earned any respect? Why WOULDN'T everyone call you out all the time? I once had a college frosh tell me that she "earned" everything she had - because she had to basically do chores, got money from her family for good grades, because she had the luxury of time available to volunteer without sacrifice, etc. Or there was the student who tried to slough off his discomfort with anti-racism discussion with a slur about LGBT+ folks. I think what has come to be the worst cultural condition in the US is that so few people are genuinely committed to doing anything by repeating endlessly the position they already have - when they don't even know where it came from. They are trying their damndest to "making fetch a thing" - saying something enough that other people think it must be real.

[badfaithu]

I loved it when you screamed Woke. That was hilarious.

[ticktock]

100% agree. I judge books as I read them. It is very rare that, by the end, I am still at that first judgment stage. To be capricious about it, I would posit that most people I hear dropping the woke word have not read a book front to back, and made their own minds, as opposed to what they've been told to think about it.

[buckocean]

This well thought out, and intelligently presented vid, that eviscerates the shallowness of this Anti Woke™ crowd (and they are legion) just got you a subscription from this 72 year old white, straight, feminist, old time liberal. Whether you wanted it or not. 😀

[StitchandWitch]

Where did you get the skeleton glasses chain?

[EduardoRodriguez-duvd]

I suppose that empathy can be painful, and some people choose not to suffer for others. If one does not look at the injustices that others endure, one can be more comfortable.

[impastomusic]

Wait until they find out about Shakespeare, transing the youth for over 400 years. WOKE!!