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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
So far, I don't really agree that "Last of Us" (I've watched through episode 3) is a woke show. To be, the important thing about woke content is that it lies to us about the natural relationships between people. Instead it substitutes a fake, aspirational, version of reality where, for example, a woman is just as strong as man. Woke content is especially awful when it distorts the plot or makes its characters mere shells who exist to hammer a political point down the viewers throats.
There's nothing in the love story in episode 3 that felt unnatural or weird to me, and the characters felt like real people. The creators had a good story to tell and they told it - without drifting into politics. They could have thrown in a few sneer lines about the red tribe or bigots or something. They didn't. I enjoyed the episode a lot and I have a very low tolerance for woke content of any sort.
I'm not sure about the specific criterion, but I broadly agree with this. A "woke" show (or film or game or etc.) isn't "woke" merely by having diversity or messaging that appeals to woke people. It's something that specifically reflects the woke mentality in contrast to the standard 90s-00s liberal "diversity is our strength" mentality. Which is that the world is a constant war between different oppressor/oppressed classes, and that TV shows are just another battleground where the messaging or representation has direct downstream effects that play out in literal people being killed or injured or otherwise going through unnecessary suffering. As such, the primary determinant of the quality of a TV show is its messaging, with trivial matters like likeable characters, character development, intriguing plot, clever writing, visually appealing cinematography, engaging pacing, satisfying character arcs, and the like, taking a very far back seat.
If a show just integrates concepts like diversity into its script in a way that's natural and meant to play into those traditional or outdated ways of making a show "good," then I don't think it's reasonable to consider the show "woke" in any way. It's just a standard liberal show.
90-00 liberalism might be a good analysis versus woke. That being said turning a prepper whose “clinging” to his guns into a closeted homo might make the “woke” bar. And some of you seem to be concluding if the art is done well and feels natural it then can by definition not be woke since woke can only be things we don’t like.
I'm not watching the show, so I can't make a meaningful judgment on this specific case, but that's possible, depending on the execution. Closeted homosexuals is something that's been explored in fiction long before wokeness, such as American Beauty (which ironically starred a famously homosexual man as the straight protagonist), and I don't see the concept of turning a stereotypically conservative prepper into a closeted gay man to be automatically woke. From the other comments here, it seems that, if anything, having this be the 3rd episode in a way that breaks up the pacing of the show might be the strongest case of it being woke.
Hard disagree. It's to differentiate "woke" from "standard liberalism." These are different - though related and somewhat similar - clusters of ideologies, and "woke" is "woke" by how it differentiates itself from "standard liberalism." If a show can't be distinguished from what a standard liberal would make in terms of integrating their political messaging into the work (ie in a natural way that is meant to enhance the work by those traditional standards of how shows get judged, rather than supersede them), then I don't think it makes sense to call it "woke."
For a I watched a show and I think this is interesting post there’s some good ideas going on.
It seems as though people want to separate pre 2020 media from post 2020 media. Things based on pre-2020 of which this is can still have real characters you connect to. The left liberal of the ‘90-2016 maybe a little longer can do art. And for conservatives can be someone we can get along with.
Theres an added issue from video game people that the creators went from left liberal in the first game and their follow up is harder woke. That would be interesting to set a 1 year or so timer on this post to compare.
It seems like there is general agreement that gay love story episode 3 is well done art and hits home for that human element of deeply caring about someone.
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