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Author Topic: Is Woke media always dreary?  (Read 6284 times)

Ratman_tf

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #45 on: January 27, 2022, 05:43:22 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.

I don't think Fury Road was particuarly pro or anti feminist. I think it was a lot of-



With a seasoning of modern politics movie tropes that one can ignore or point at as they see fit.

(I did find the concept in the movie of young men being used by society as disposable cannon fodder to be a pretty MRA stance. Though I doubt the writers thought of it that way, since Max was portrayed as a good guy due to his value to the women in the film.)
« Last Edit: January 27, 2022, 05:52:33 PM by Ratman_tf »
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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #46 on: January 27, 2022, 06:12:37 PM »
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.
I think a lot of the Woke classification has nothing to do with the thing in question, and everything to do with the behavior of those involved. If you have a producer or an actor posting shit about the thing on Twitter that's so racist it would make a Klansman blush, it's probably going to be classified as Woke.

jhkim

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #47 on: January 27, 2022, 07:10:52 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.

OK, fair enough. I feel like the categories here are very subjective, but I guess that is inherent in the topic. As I said before, I thought of "woke" as something applied to stuff like touchy-feely snowflake participation prizes -- whereas you consider it to be specifically about hate.

Overall, I don't feel like I have a good grasp on what you consider to be woke. I mentioned Steven Universe before - that seems very woke to me, but not hate filled or dreary. On the other end, what do you think about black revenge films - like Django Unchained (2012) or the Birth of a Nation (2016)? Would you consider them to be woke and/or dreary?

Ratman_tf

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #48 on: January 27, 2022, 07:38:40 PM »
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.
I think a lot of the Woke classification has nothing to do with the thing in question, and everything to do with the behavior of those involved. If you have a producer or an actor posting shit about the thing on Twitter that's so racist it would make a Klansman blush, it's probably going to be classified as Woke.

I agree about the behavior, but I don't think it has nothing to do with the thing in question. There's the feminist trope in quite a few films where the woman is already extremely powerful, she's just held back by the oppressive mens in her life. Which isn't necessarily a bad story, except when the woman character is a bit (or a lot) of an asshole and is intended to be a hero.
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RandyB

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #49 on: January 27, 2022, 08:55:36 PM »
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.
I think a lot of the Woke classification has nothing to do with the thing in question, and everything to do with the behavior of those involved. If you have a producer or an actor posting shit about the thing on Twitter that's so racist it would make a Klansman blush, it's probably going to be classified as Woke.

I agree about the behavior, but I don't think it has nothing to do with the thing in question. There's the feminist trope in quite a few films where the woman is already extremely powerful, she's just held back by the oppressive mens in her life. Which isn't necessarily a bad story, except when the woman character is a bit (or a lot) of an asshole and is intended to be a hero.

Yeah, but you can only remake "9-to-5" so many times before it gets stale.

S'mon

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #50 on: January 28, 2022, 01:39:01 AM »
Overall, I don't feel like I have a good grasp on what you consider to be woke. I mentioned Steven Universe before - that seems very woke to me, but not hate filled or dreary. On the other end, what do you think about black revenge films - like Django Unchained (2012) or the Birth of a Nation (2016)? Would you consider them to be woke and/or dreary?

I've not watched any of these, my understanding is that the latter two are certainly Woke. I guess Steven Universe is woke at least somewhat. But not having seen these I'm just guessing from what I've read.

Edit: I may have seen a tiny bit of Steven Universe. I seem to recall it employed Marxist-Feminist dialectic, which would make it gender-Woke. But my memory is prettty dim. I tend to avoid 'race-hate porn' so I didn't watch Get Out, Django, Machete, etc etc. Not that I believe Tarantino is genuinely Woke, he just loves pornographic violence/gore/torture and Woke gives him a great excuse to indulge.

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #51 on: January 28, 2022, 01:42:15 AM »
If you have a producer or an actor posting shit about the thing on Twitter that's so racist it would make a Klansman blush, it's probably going to be classified as Woke.

And the irony is that that usually worsens reactions, by priming people to look for messaging they might quite cheerfully not have noticed without it or even to infer a hostile message where it wasn't actually intended.

I personally think Captain Marvel would still have struck me as a poorly written film whatever its hype said, but Brie Larson's rather vocal pro-feminist promotion sent me into the theatre braced for sucker punches rather than relaxed and willing to cut it slack.
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GeekyBugle

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Re: Is Woke media always dreary?
« Reply #52 on: February 03, 2022, 12:28:35 PM »
If you have a producer or an actor posting shit about the thing on Twitter that's so racist it would make a Klansman blush, it's probably going to be classified as Woke.

And the irony is that that usually worsens reactions, by priming people to look for messaging they might quite cheerfully not have noticed without it or even to infer a hostile message where it wasn't actually intended.

I personally think Captain Marvel would still have struck me as a poorly written film whatever its hype said, but Brie Larson's rather vocal pro-feminist promotion sent me into the theatre braced for sucker punches rather than relaxed and willing to cut it slack.

While I didn't go to the theater, wouldn't even pirate it. The first because I won't give money to people that hate me and the latter because watching it isn't neccesary to understanding the Meh finalle of the MCU.
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