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Notes -
I found the first “wokish” show that I enjoy. The Last of Us based on a video game it’s basically your typically zombie show. But unlike a lot of woke stuff I found myself identifying with characters and enjoying it. Curious if other people would give similar reviews and this is light for a top level posts. While theirs culture war and I’ll be against those ideologies because I believe their bad - I’ve also found modern movies/shows to be unwatchable. There’s something about inserting woke into shows that I believe the issue is it makes characters not believable. (Some spoilers to follow)
In the third episode it was primarily about the love relationship of a gay couple. One was a typical red tribe prepper type who had a good set-up for a zombie apocalypse. Then one day a guy shows up outside his electric fence and to summarize they fall in love and they spend the next 20 or so years together.
In some ways since they were gay and I wasn’t physically interested in his new partner it made the story better. It made me see the human parts of caring about someone and the process of growing older.
Obviously for a zombie show you can just insert any character you want. It’s not like game of thrones the dragon show where you make the characters black when they were super concerned about family purity feels off and unbelievable. I’m calling this show woke because they specifically chose to add a gay love story early which I think is reasonable.
I personally don’t use certain brands because of their ideology (nike, Disney, etc) and will not watch some media if I think it’s something I don’t believe in. But there’s also a lot of movies/shows I don’t enjoy because of ideology. Foundation along with the new thrones would be examples of this to me. Maybe I’ll get trashed for saying I enjoyed the show but it’s the first time I watched something woke and felt like it didn’t ruin the ability to identify with characters. Certain shows like The Wire could never be made in a woke a world. How do you show black drug dealers doing black drug dealer stuff in a world where black people cant do bad things?
I know the old filmmakers many of them were socialist and had ideologies I disagreed with but they still made great art. A criticism of woke has been that the art sucks which in my opinion this didn’t suck but was solid something to watch (not must watch but for laziness).
Also interested in if their are other “wokish” films that are enjoyable to watch
Thanks for the review. I follow video game news more than I play video games these days, but the Last of Us game and sequel are a particularly hot culture war flashpoint in the video game world.
The developers and creators of the game are some of the most subversive, degenerate, and outspoken culture warriors in the entire industry. I don’t think I can support the show based on what I know about the series.
The narrative of the first game (season 1) was well liked and hit on some timeless themes and archetypes. the sequel to the game has one of the most controversial narratives and is extremely heavy handed on culture war issues. Even beyond the CW issues, some of the choices seem to be optimized for shitting on certain types of people, as opposed to telling a good story.
Ok so I’m not a big video game player I’m just a guy who hit play on HBO and found it enjoyable. So if there’s video game issues would be nice if you explained. I obviously found that woke themes were built in.
I don’t want to spoil the plot for you. Suffice it to say that the creators of the show are the worst culture warriors in media. And the direction the show will likely go in season 2 is controversial to say the least. And not controversial like the gay episode 3. Controverisial insofar as many if not most people think the narrative choices are horrendous storytelling.
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