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Author Topic: Is Woke media always dreary?  (Read 6288 times)

S'mon

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #30 on: January 26, 2022, 03:04:51 PM »
The plot is about a girl rescuing her baby brother from a fairy king representing her ideals of men, who she defeats by rejecting his advances. Her stepmother isn't wicked, and in fact encourages her to grow up and become her own person. She rejects infantilization in favor of growing up, while at the same time not discarding her dreams. These are deliberate rejections of fairy tale archetypes intended to maintain patriarchy. If that isn't feminist, then I don't know what is.

I've only ever seen 'growing up is a bad thing' in 20th century authors like CS Lewis and JM Barrie. I don't think that is a Fairy Tale trope at all. Traditional Fairy Tales are all "The world is a terrible place, kids - you better get ready for it!"

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.


https://poets.org/poem/stolen-child - My dad loves that poem. There was a certain sort of mid 20th century post-Empire post-boarding school culture that really wanted to hide from the world.

S'mon

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #31 on: January 26, 2022, 03:08:26 PM »
The main source of wokeness for Into the Spider-verse comes from it following the woke trope of killing off the white male character only to have him replaced by a "diverse" character that is better in every way.

I didn't see that in Into the Spiderverse. Peter Parker is presented as highly competent. Miles Morales seems to struggle with the role thrust onto him. It didn't feel much like Luke and Rey to me.

I do agree that killing off the white male hero to make way for the Diverse new version is frequently a Woke trope, and I remember feeling iffy about the film pre-viewing for that reason. But the film lacked the hostility I associate with genuine Woke media.

Omega

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #32 on: January 26, 2022, 03:10:12 PM »
Yup.

Older stories like Jim Henson’s Labyrinth are much better written and genuinely feminist than modern drek. In those films the heroines actually go thru arcs.

Thing is. Labyrinth is not a feminist tale at all. They might claim it is. But its very not.

Having a female protagonist does not make a show feminist.

Well, then we get into the definition of Feminism, which has so many definitions as to almost be a useless term.

Of course. Because for these nuts eventually everything they advocate or revile becomes "everything on earth".

Banjo Destructo

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #33 on: January 26, 2022, 03:15:45 PM »
Catching up with and/or ignoring most comments by answering the question in the subject.
Yes i think woke media is always dreary because they take things too seriously to have fun and to make things that are fun.

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #34 on: January 26, 2022, 03:17:16 PM »
The wokest part of Fury Road wasn't Furiosa, it was the pack of old women that murder and eat any man they come across and yet they are portrayed as the good guys.

If the vast majority of the men they encountered were like Immortan Joe and his ilk, and I got the pretty clear impression that was the case, it's kinda hard to fault them for that.
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

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Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #35 on: January 26, 2022, 03:20:34 PM »
I've only ever seen 'growing up is a bad thing' in 20th century authors like CS Lewis and JM Barrie.

And even Lewis and Barrie didn't condemn growing up, they only condemned growing up the wrong way -- becoming fixated on a specific concept of "adulthood" and abandoning the dreams and enthusiasms of childhood that appear to interfere with that, even if they were the things that kept faith and joy alive.
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

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oggsmash

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #36 on: January 26, 2022, 05:01:55 PM »
Beyond race swapping spider man (which honestly, given the nature of the multiverse, not even sure it is race swapping) what made Spider man into the spider verse woke?  I am starting to think maybe woke gets tossed around a bit loosely.

Maybe it isn't woke to you. I felt it had a lot of liberal themes. Miles doesn't just happen to have brown colored skin. He's an inner-city kid from Brooklyn who's into tagging, street art, and hip hop - whose uncle is in a gang (but who eventually betrays his white crime boss). Miles' co-star is Spider-Gwen, from a comic that is a feminist reaction to Gwen Stacy's death in the main timeline. Peter Parker is overweight, divorced, and depressed - though ultimately still heroic in helping Miles. It also features a female Doc Ock as the brilliant scientist who heads the evil corporation. And it has a community theme of bringing a multicultural group together to succeed.
First of all liberal != woke. They're polar opposites, not the same thing.

And Sweet Christmas, your description of Miles is 100% old stereotypes, and completely unrelated to anything woke. Gwen isn't woke, or even particularly feminist. And Parker is given respect and a character arc. Doc Ock is a gender flip, but so? That's been a trope for decades. They do combine to make for a vague multicultural feel, but it's a multidimensional patchwork, so it's a natural consequence of the core plot -- there's an anime girl with a mecha and a talking pig, after all.

You just sound like a bigot who thinks everybody who isn't Woke is from the 1930s and loves the Klan.

  This was the feeling I was getting from the odd interpretation that a liberal concept/idea is some how automatically woke.  I guess if I had grown up in what was essentially an echo chamber of uber liberal thinking, I would be inclined to be as jhkim, and assume the rest of country is a bunch of inbred red necks who can not wait to off some coloreds. 

jhkim

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #37 on: January 26, 2022, 05:32:55 PM »
  This was the feeling I was getting from the odd interpretation that a liberal concept/idea is some how automatically woke.  I guess if I had grown up in what was essentially an echo chamber of uber liberal thinking, I would be inclined to be as jhkim, and assume the rest of country is a bunch of inbred red necks who can not wait to off some coloreds.

So, hedgehobbit at least agrees with me that "Into the Spider-verse" and "Fury Road" are woke. Over on the main RPG forums, GeekyBugle expressed similar sentiments:

As fot the Tom Holland movies: I fucking hate them, I'm done with the gender bending/race swaping, fuck them.

Into the Spiderverse, tokenized Spider-Man... Hard Pass.

While you may disagree with us, I don't think hedgehobbit and GeekyBugle are the products of liberal echo chambers. As for living in an echo chamber -- I've been an active member of this forum for over 15 years, and read plenty of conservative media, and engage with conservative family and acquaintances in other walks of life.

jhkim

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #38 on: January 26, 2022, 06:06:35 PM »
Are we at least agreed that Fury Road is feminist? That seems like a no-brainer to me. There's the old women that hedgehobbit notes, and the plot of rescuing an enslaved harem from a crazed dictator.

As for _Into the Spider-Verse_...

And Sweet Christmas, your description of Miles is 100% old stereotypes, and completely unrelated to anything woke. Gwen isn't woke, or even particularly feminist. And Parker is given respect and a character arc. Doc Ock is a gender flip, but so? That's been a trope for decades. They do combine to make for a vague multicultural feel, but it's a multidimensional patchwork, so it's a natural consequence of the core plot -- there's an anime girl with a mecha and a talking pig, after all.

That was my impression. I didn't see* any Woke/neo-Marxist elements in the film. Woke is about hate, not 'let's all work together, we're all equally valuable!'

Saying "woke is about hate" seems close to making the original question tautological -- i.e. if it isn't dreary and hateful, then by definition, it isn't Woke. For example, it seems common to call things "woke" if they're full of touchy-feely coming together of minority, female, and/or LGBT heroes with flowers and participation prizes. It doesn't require hate being shown to call such works "woke". Actually, that description reminds me of the Steven Universe series, which I would call woke.

A theme of "let's all work together, we're all equally valuable" isn't by definition woke - but combined with enough other markers, I think it does contribute to a feel. In "Into the Spider-Verse", Pat notes how there is a multicultural feel - but he calls it a "natural consequence" of the core plot. I see it as the other way around. Having a diverse cast of heroes and multicultural feel was a goal of the film-makers, and the universe-switching was a plot device picked to make that happen.

I think enough markers give a woke feel - like highlighting minority, female, and/or LGBT heroes; a traditional-seeming white male villain; pulling together a diverse community; etc.

Has anyone read the Spider-Gwen comic? I've only read a bit. While I'm not 100%, it seems like it is squarely in the genre of recent Marvel comics that many posters here have been complaining about.

Trond

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #39 on: January 26, 2022, 09:04:06 PM »
My issues with Fury Road isn't it's wokeness. It's that it didn't feel grounded like Road Warrior or Mad Max did.....

I agree with this. I actually enjoyed Fury Road though. The "wokeness" could go both ways. It also had hot girls hosing each other down, a naked woman being used as bait, and rape (ghasp) strongly implied. There's a reason why Anita Sarkeesian hated it.

The real reason why many woke people accepted and lauded it as a "woke" movie was really because some MRAs hated it, apparently. The narrative took off from there.

oggsmash

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #40 on: January 26, 2022, 09:30:18 PM »
  This was the feeling I was getting from the odd interpretation that a liberal concept/idea is some how automatically woke.  I guess if I had grown up in what was essentially an echo chamber of uber liberal thinking, I would be inclined to be as jhkim, and assume the rest of country is a bunch of inbred red necks who can not wait to off some coloreds.

So, hedgehobbit at least agrees with me that "Into the Spider-verse" and "Fury Road" are woke. Over on the main RPG forums, GeekyBugle expressed similar sentiments:

As fot the Tom Holland movies: I fucking hate them, I'm done with the gender bending/race swaping, fuck them.

Into the Spiderverse, tokenized Spider-Man... Hard Pass.

While you may disagree with us, I don't think hedgehobbit and GeekyBugle are the products of liberal echo chambers. As for living in an echo chamber -- I've been an active member of this forum for over 15 years, and read plenty of conservative media, and engage with conservative family and acquaintances in other walks of life.

  If you say so.

S'mon

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #41 on: January 27, 2022, 04:22:28 PM »
I've only ever seen 'growing up is a bad thing' in 20th century authors like CS Lewis and JM Barrie.

And even Lewis and Barrie didn't condemn growing up, they only condemned growing up the wrong way -- becoming fixated on a specific concept of "adulthood" and abandoning the dreams and enthusiasms of childhood that appear to interfere with that, even if they were the things that kept faith and joy alive.

Fair point!

S'mon

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #42 on: January 27, 2022, 04:27:44 PM »
Are we at least agreed that Fury Road is feminist? That seems like a no-brainer to me. There's the old women that hedgehobbit notes, and the plot of rescuing an enslaved harem from a crazed dictator.

As for _Into the Spider-Verse_...

And Sweet Christmas, your description of Miles is 100% old stereotypes, and completely unrelated to anything woke. Gwen isn't woke, or even particularly feminist. And Parker is given respect and a character arc. Doc Ock is a gender flip, but so? That's been a trope for decades. They do combine to make for a vague multicultural feel, but it's a multidimensional patchwork, so it's a natural consequence of the core plot -- there's an anime girl with a mecha and a talking pig, after all.

That was my impression. I didn't see* any Woke/neo-Marxist elements in the film. Woke is about hate, not 'let's all work together, we're all equally valuable!'

Saying "woke is about hate" seems close to making the original question tautological -- i.e. if it isn't dreary and hateful, then by definition, it isn't Woke. For example, it seems common to call things "woke" if they're full of touchy-feely coming together of minority, female, and/or LGBT heroes with flowers and participation prizes. It doesn't require hate being shown to call such works "woke". Actually, that description reminds me of the Steven Universe series, which I would call woke.

A theme of "let's all work together, we're all equally valuable" isn't by definition woke - but combined with enough other markers, I think it does contribute to a feel. In "Into the Spider-Verse", Pat notes how there is a multicultural feel - but he calls it a "natural consequence" of the core plot. I see it as the other way around. Having a diverse cast of heroes and multicultural feel was a goal of the film-makers, and the universe-switching was a plot device picked to make that happen.

I think enough markers give a woke feel - like highlighting minority, female, and/or LGBT heroes; a traditional-seeming white male villain; pulling together a diverse community; etc.

Has anyone read the Spider-Gwen comic? I've only read a bit. While I'm not 100%, it seems like it is squarely in the genre of recent Marvel comics that many posters here have been complaining about.

The originators of the term meant Woke as wakening up - being woke - to the 'realities' of systemic oppression. To be Woke you have to believe in race, gender, LGBT oppression by the straight white male Patriarchy. You can't just be a liberal, even a left-liberal.

Some people here call anything left-liberal Woke, just like some on the left call anything right-liberal Fascist or Alt-Right. So what? 

S'mon

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #43 on: January 27, 2022, 04:35:42 PM »
Saying "woke is about hate" seems close to making the original question tautological -- i.e. if it isn't dreary and hateful, then by definition, it isn't Woke.

Why do you think hate is necessarily dreary? I thought Captain Marvel was full of hate (which is not what 'hateful' means, BTW) but not dreary, or at least much less dreary than I expected. Black Widow had a lot less generalised hate, while I found it a lot drearier. I guess my expectations were higher, though.

Leaving aside Wokery, plenty of films are full of hate but not dreary. Braveheart has a huge hate-on for the English, it's pretty entertaining IMO. Conan the Barbarian hates on hippies and implies it's a short step from flower power to Manson Family; it's one of my favourite films.

Ratman_tf

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #44 on: January 27, 2022, 05:37:57 PM »
My issues with Fury Road isn't it's wokeness. It's that it didn't feel grounded like Road Warrior or Mad Max did.....

I agree with this. I actually enjoyed Fury Road though.

Oh, yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed it for what it was.

Quote
The "wokeness" could go both ways. It also had hot girls hosing each other down, a naked woman being used as bait, and rape (ghasp) strongly implied. There's a reason why Anita Sarkeesian hated it.

The real reason why many woke people accepted and lauded it as a "woke" movie was really because some MRAs hated it, apparently. The narrative took off from there.

There's this bizzare "jockeying for position" moment in modern media where everyone starts picking a side when a movie comes out. Sometimes it's immediate like with Captain Marvel. I don't think Fury Road was intended as one thing or another. (Tough female character, damsels in distress, bad guys drinking milk forced out of women because post holocaust food supplies, Max helps women out because personal reasons) so people had to figure out which side of be on concerning whether the movie supported their particular -ism or not.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2022, 05:40:12 PM by Ratman_tf »
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