4 ms·

What kind of woke crap? I don't really understand the definition, but that's because it is US identity politics and nobody wants to define it apparently. But

What kind of woke crap? I don't really understand the definition, but that's because it is US identity politics and nobody wants to define it apparently. But maybe from afar you have a particular definition?

drexlspivey 4y ago
Like when you change the gender/race of literature/historical characters to hit a diversity quota or when there is a whole carousel of movies with the genre “Black History Month” which is a US thing. That kind of stuff
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  That seems like a better point -- at least, the part about changing the gender/race/etc of a real (or perhaps mythical, but well established) person. Although I gotta say, I sure did enjoy Hamilton in spite of the wild disregard for trying to make the actors resemble the people they were portraying. Certainly more solid than what I usually hear from local people, which tends to just be complaints that a minority position was represented at all, even if it is an entirely new character. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
- sosodev 4y ago
  Characters in modern takes on historical media have always been heavily modified. Why is editing their gender or skin tone not okay? Also, can't you just scroll past a carousel representing a genre you're not interested in? Are other carousels for things like musicals woke too?
  - seydor 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - sosodev 4y ago
      Why did you delete the variety link? It was a thoughtful exploration of the problem. This is undoubtedly a complex issue but I don't know that their approach can be dismissed as "woke".
      - seydor 4y ago
        She literally says it was a political act for her, but the most problematic is this: > I have asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans, and they are furious at me for that if you try to lump all the cultures of africa in a single word 'black' that is synonym 'african-american' then yes it s very woke and insulting to egyptians (who are more culturally arab than sub-saharan). Asking egyptians to see themselves as african-american is profoundly american myopia, but netflix doesn't even see that.
    - foldr 4y ago
      >So, was Cleopatra Black? We don’t know for sure, but we can be certain she wasn’t white like Elizabeth Taylor. Seems like a fair point. I'd take this outrage more seriously if the same people were also protesting about the innumerable portrayals of Cleopatra by white actresses.
      - seydor 4y ago
        [flagged]
        foldr 4y ago
        >but over the trailer of the documentary (i added the link) which literally says she was a black woman. Err, no, it doesn't literally say that. There is: 1) A man with light brown skin saying that he imagines Cleopatra as having the same skin tone as him and curly hair, which is entirely plausible (though far from certain) given what is known about her ancestry. 2) A woman saying that her grandma told her that Cleopatra was black. It's nothing more than a nod to the longstanding controversy over Cleopatra's race and appearance, which far predates anything usually covered by the meaningless term of abuse 'woke'. Part of the problem here is that 'black' as a racial category didn't really exist in Egypt in the 1st century BC, so it's a bit of a silly debate anyway.
        seydor 4y ago
        [flagged]
        foldr 4y ago
        It briefly shows one person saying that their grandma said it. There's no suggestion that any particular claim about Cleopatra's appearance is endorsed by the documentary as definitely true. In general, as I'm sure you're aware, it's misleading to say that a documentary "says X" if X isn't a claim that the documentary itself is endorsing. > they could at least show a bust of her Are you sure that they don't? This is just the trailer. Perhaps they could use this racially ambiguous 1862 depiction of Cleopatra by William Wetmore Story: https://smarthistory.org/seeing-america-2/william-wetmore-story-cleopatra/ https://smarthistory.org/seeing-america-2/william-wetmore-st... (The 1860s were, of course, a notoriously 'woke' period of American history.)
xadhominemx 4y ago
It’s when there are shows about women, black, and gay people. I’m not joking - that’s what they are complaining about.
- stiltzkin 4y ago
  Also content against white people.
gondaloof 4y ago
I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to describe woke. It’s mostly genders and race, it becomes a problem when you’re trying to watch a movie and you start noticing the minority token that exists exclusively to gain imaginary social points but adds nothing to the story. This isn’t anything new however, cinema is soft power and the US has been at it for nearly a century now.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Is that not a perception issue, and more descriptive of the viewer than any specific action on the part of the creator? How do we objectively define what 'adds nothing to the story' looks like?
  - kulahan 4y ago
    This is a weird question. You can't objectively define that because what adds nothing to story A could add everything to story B. However, it's not very difficult to read an individual story and pick out which parts do and don't contribute to the plot well. This is just talking about Chekov's Guns.
    - foldr 4y ago
      How is someone having a particular ethnicity a Chekov's gun? When a show introduces a white character, do you expect there to be some kind of plot payoff in a future episode where the fact that they're white makes all the difference?
- foldr 4y ago
  Not every story with a black person in it has to be a story about the person being black. We're pretty used to seeing shows with white characters whose whiteness doesn't contribute anything to the story. The implicit rationale here seems to be that any character who isn't white and male needs a special justification for existing.
hyperman1 4y ago
I get the US woke vibes from TV commercials. Plenty of black people on TV, but over here the US style black are a very small minority. I see much more black people on TV than in reality. Meanwhile, the Turkish/Morrocan/Islamish people are mostly absent in the commercials, even if 10% of the local people have that background. Apart from that, it all somehow feels fake and USA. It's hard to define, but everything is subtly wrong. Weird thing, the local commercials somehow adapted around 2000. You get the same black people overload and US vibes in commercials from EU-only companies.
- commitpizza 4y ago
  Yep same here and also for some strange reason, there is always a mixed race couple and the man is almost always black and the woman white. Almost never any other races involved basically and it's almost never a black woman and a white man. It makes me a bit disgusting when it's so obvious and somehow it's like many, many companies colludes to spread this image. It's shit like that which makes conspiracy theories seem less like theories.
stiltzkin 4y ago
Anything identity/racial/lgtb propaganda is molded for higher ESG score.

drexlspivey 4y ago

Like when you change the gender/race of literature/historical characters to hit a diversity quota or when there is a whole carousel of movies with the genre “Black History Month” which is a US thing. That kind of stuff

rootusrootus 4y ago
That seems like a better point -- at least, the part about changing the gender/race/etc of a real (or perhaps mythical, but well established) person. Although I gotta say, I sure did enjoy Hamilton in spite of the wild disregard for trying to make the actors resemble the people they were portraying. Certainly more solid than what I usually hear from local people, which tends to just be complaints that a minority position was represented at all, even if it is an entirely new character. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
sosodev 4y ago
Characters in modern takes on historical media have always been heavily modified. Why is editing their gender or skin tone not okay? Also, can't you just scroll past a carousel representing a genre you're not interested in? Are other carousels for things like musicals woke too?
- seydor 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - sosodev 4y ago
    Why did you delete the variety link? It was a thoughtful exploration of the problem. This is undoubtedly a complex issue but I don't know that their approach can be dismissed as "woke".
    - seydor 4y ago
      She literally says it was a political act for her, but the most problematic is this: > I have asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans, and they are furious at me for that if you try to lump all the cultures of africa in a single word 'black' that is synonym 'african-american' then yes it s very woke and insulting to egyptians (who are more culturally arab than sub-saharan). Asking egyptians to see themselves as african-american is profoundly american myopia, but netflix doesn't even see that.
  - foldr 4y ago
    >So, was Cleopatra Black? We don’t know for sure, but we can be certain she wasn’t white like Elizabeth Taylor. Seems like a fair point. I'd take this outrage more seriously if the same people were also protesting about the innumerable portrayals of Cleopatra by white actresses.
    - seydor 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - foldr 4y ago
        >but over the trailer of the documentary (i added the link) which literally says she was a black woman. Err, no, it doesn't literally say that. There is: 1) A man with light brown skin saying that he imagines Cleopatra as having the same skin tone as him and curly hair, which is entirely plausible (though far from certain) given what is known about her ancestry. 2) A woman saying that her grandma told her that Cleopatra was black. It's nothing more than a nod to the longstanding controversy over Cleopatra's race and appearance, which far predates anything usually covered by the meaningless term of abuse 'woke'. Part of the problem here is that 'black' as a racial category didn't really exist in Egypt in the 1st century BC, so it's a bit of a silly debate anyway.
        seydor 4y ago
        [flagged]
        foldr 4y ago
        It briefly shows one person saying that their grandma said it. There's no suggestion that any particular claim about Cleopatra's appearance is endorsed by the documentary as definitely true. In general, as I'm sure you're aware, it's misleading to say that a documentary "says X" if X isn't a claim that the documentary itself is endorsing. > they could at least show a bust of her Are you sure that they don't? This is just the trailer. Perhaps they could use this racially ambiguous 1862 depiction of Cleopatra by William Wetmore Story: https://smarthistory.org/seeing-america-2/william-wetmore-story-cleopatra/ https://smarthistory.org/seeing-america-2/william-wetmore-st... (The 1860s were, of course, a notoriously 'woke' period of American history.)

xadhominemx 4y ago

It’s when there are shows about women, black, and gay people. I’m not joking - that’s what they are complaining about.

stiltzkin 4y ago
Also content against white people.

gondaloof 4y ago

I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to describe woke. It’s mostly genders and race, it becomes a problem when you’re trying to watch a movie and you start noticing the minority token that exists exclusively to gain imaginary social points but adds nothing to the story. This isn’t anything new however, cinema is soft power and the US has been at it for nearly a century now.

rootusrootus 4y ago
Is that not a perception issue, and more descriptive of the viewer than any specific action on the part of the creator? How do we objectively define what 'adds nothing to the story' looks like?
- kulahan 4y ago
  This is a weird question. You can't objectively define that because what adds nothing to story A could add everything to story B. However, it's not very difficult to read an individual story and pick out which parts do and don't contribute to the plot well. This is just talking about Chekov's Guns.
  - foldr 4y ago
    How is someone having a particular ethnicity a Chekov's gun? When a show introduces a white character, do you expect there to be some kind of plot payoff in a future episode where the fact that they're white makes all the difference?
foldr 4y ago
Not every story with a black person in it has to be a story about the person being black. We're pretty used to seeing shows with white characters whose whiteness doesn't contribute anything to the story. The implicit rationale here seems to be that any character who isn't white and male needs a special justification for existing.

hyperman1 4y ago

I get the US woke vibes from TV commercials. Plenty of black people on TV, but over here the US style black are a very small minority. I see much more black people on TV than in reality. Meanwhile, the Turkish/Morrocan/Islamish people are mostly absent in the commercials, even if 10% of the local people have that background. Apart from that, it all somehow feels fake and USA. It's hard to define, but everything is subtly wrong. Weird thing, the local commercials somehow adapted around 2000. You get the same black people overload and US vibes in commercials from EU-only companies.

commitpizza 4y ago
Yep same here and also for some strange reason, there is always a mixed race couple and the man is almost always black and the woman white. Almost never any other races involved basically and it's almost never a black woman and a white man. It makes me a bit disgusting when it's so obvious and somehow it's like many, many companies colludes to spread this image. It's shit like that which makes conspiracy theories seem less like theories.

stiltzkin 4y ago

Anything identity/racial/lgtb propaganda is molded for higher ESG score.