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RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

It’s not woke if all the characters are black. Can you provide some examples of this?

It can feel “woke” if the characters were white and are now black, or if the character’s skin color is paraded around as some virtue signal or trophy. If the skin color of a character breaks an already established rule of the story world (for example, black skinned dwarves or elves in Lord of the Rings), that can also contribute to a “woke” feeling. The established rules of the world or story should not bend around or break just to ensure a diverse skin color of every race in the story.

Nobody complains about Mr. T in the A-Team, Denzel Washington as Robert McCall in The Equalizer, or Samuel L Jackson playing Mace Windu, because the color of their skin is not their only defining quality. They are well written and highly beloved characters that are important to their story, have equally as good acting and dialogue as the other characters in their stories, and are played by actors that are well qualified. Their characters feel like they were always meant to be there, and when they were written into their story, their skin color didn’t matter.

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Meron35@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Some ahem were complaining about all black movies such as Wakanda Forever and Black Panther being woke.

Is Wakanda Forever too ‘woke’ for Marvel’s own good? | Stuff - stuff.co.nz/…/is-wakanda-forever-too-woke-for-mar…

Nelson Peltz Criticizes Disney’s “Woke” Strategy With ‘Black Panther’ - hollywoodreporter.com/…/nelson-peltz-disney-woke-…

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- RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I haven’t watched Wakanda Forever, but I am going to guess it is accused of being woke because it probably tries to push a political message or ideology and doesn’t do a very good job of weaving it into the story (very common for modern Disney). Looking at some of the complaints, it appears to have a similar problem to other modern Disney films, in which women are put on an elevated pedestal and men are left to be bumbling idiots completely incapable of basic human functions. This is the most common complaint I see in the reviews, but I don’t see any specific complaints that every character is black. I’m sure its possible some people might complain about it, though I doubt it is a significant portion of the complaints if I haven’t seen it mentioned in the 100 or so reviews I quickly skimmed through.
  
  I did watch Black Panther, but I don’t remember much about it. I remember the bad looking CG, and there being some points where I felt modern Disney’s political messaging was poorly written and “too obviously preaching to the audience,” for a lack of a better way to put it. Not because all the characters were black in the story that literally takes place in Africa. I do recall noticing that Disney chose only white actors to play all the villain roles in Black Panther, which normally wouldn’t have been a problem but in the context of modern Disney and when you have all the black people as “the good guys” and all the white people as “the bad guys,” that is probably going to be taken by a lot of people as political messaging. I didn’t have any issues with Chadwick, he was a good actor for the role of Black Panther IMO. I was sad to hear about his passing. I don’t recall being particularly irked by any other character than that one girl that was his science assistant (I think, I dont remember fully), but I also only watched the movie once in theaters when it came out. So it has been a while.
  
  That’s not to say people are incapable of being racist, but most of the time something isn’t called woke only because the entire cast is black, unless the story was supposed to have white characters that are suddenly black instead (like the live action Little Mermaid, for example). It needs some other context to be called woke other than just “the whole cast is black.”
  
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  - HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I haven’t watched Wakanda Forever, but […] Looking at some of the complaints, it appears to have a similar problem to other modern Disney films, in which women are put on an elevated pedestal and men are left to be bumbling idiots completely incapable of basic human functions.
    
    No, not at all. There are three male characters in the film (Winston Duke’s M’Baku, Martin Freeman’s Everett Ross, and Tenoch Huerta’s Namor), and they are all very competent. One is a CIA agent, and the other two are leaders of their people.
    
    I did watch Black Panther […] I do recall noticing that Disney chose only white actors to play all the villain roles in Black Panther
    
    The villain in Black Panther was Erik Killmonger, played by the very black Michael B. Jordan.
    
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  - Lhamat@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Supacell, a new Netflix series, was attacked by right-wingers for having many black characters. Just go to YouTube and read the comments.
    
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    RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I have never heard of this show, but it appears that most of the negativity is about how it is focused on “showing how societal failings have lead to stereotypes in black people,” which, if that is true, would be pushing ideological or political messaging. Now, if the show makes no attempt to actually write that into the story but instead makes it obvious it is trying to “educate” or “preach” to the audience, it would likely be considered woke. People watch entertainment to be entertained and escape from reality, not to be bombarded with more real life social politics in their time theyre trying to get away from all that. And thats likely the biggest reason the pushback is so strong, its like prodding a bear when its trying to go to sleep.
    
    I also read that apparently the show has only black people with super powers because it is “based on real science since people with sickle cell disease are mostly black,” but mostly is different from only. White people can also have SCD, so why couldn’t the show have one who also was born to parents with SCD? To a person accusing the show of feeling woke, it would appear like a convenient excuse to erase people that are white with sickle cell disease.
    
    YouTube comments isn’t usually the best place to get information about real opinions, since most of them are going to be trolls or 13 year olds thinking they’re being cool or edgy. There may be some comments that are genuine, but that hasn’t been true in my experience.
    
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  - Mambele@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Was the antagonist not also a villian?
    
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corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
While I’ll entertain a discussion on whether equalizer movies are (over)woke for swapping the lead - despite Denzel kill-ing-it and already a national treasure, which will be my rebuttal there - I will not tolerate any blasphemy of mace windu being miscast. Down to the purple lightsaber, it was perfect, and I’m only sad our time was so short with that – I really wanted to see SLJ kicking some seeeerious butt.

And really. Who else but Mr Washington can play Robert McCall now? Affleck as a batman/accountant meld? Lou Diamond Phillips as himself? Nah. Denzel owns it now; he bought it fair and square, and we got the better on that deal.

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- RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I agree, Denzel did a phenomenal job. My point was that the story of The Equalizer is so well written, that it doesn’t matter what the skin color of the characters are, the story is equally as compelling with a great actor. The skin color of the character wasn’t considered when writing the story, or it wasn’t important to the story.
  
  I also agree on Mace Windu. The fact that George Lucas let Samuel L Jackson pick the purple lightsaber color himself is a teatament to his importance to George in the story. I have a hard time seeing someone else playing the role, but its possible there is some alternate reality where that role is held by someone else.
  
  I think any really good actor could just as well portray Robert McCall. I certainly think Ben Affleck could do it, as he did a great job in The Accountant. Perhaps not Lou Diamond Phillips, I don’t know much about his acting but I have a hard time seeing it. I could absolutely see a younger Christopher Lloyd or John Malkovich as McCall, though. Even Bob Odendirk, who was great as the main character in Nobody, could probably pull it off as well. But I still do like Denzel’s portrayal. Hes a great actor and I always think he does such a great job in whatever role he plays.
  
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- AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Wait, Denzel is in that show? Maybe I’ll have to watch it ……
  
  I saw that a new Equalizer exists, but the thumbnail always showed a black woman. Nothing wrong with that in general, but just try ping to picture Robert McCall as a young beautiful black woman was not happening.
  
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  - RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Denzel is in the newer movies, not the TV shows. And he does a great job, I definitely recommend the trilogy. He plays the role very well.
    
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Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The strangest thing about the black people in Rings of Power isn’t that they exist. It’s that there’s so few of them, and they’re all prominent roles.

It makes the world feel like there’s a reverse curse, where a baby comes out black and they immediately make it their king.

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