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"Woke" was added to the Merriam Webster dictionary in 2017:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woke-meaning-origin
“aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)"
Oooh, how horrible! We must put a stop to this rampant wokeness at once! 
...this is an entirely made-up bogeyman, with a certain segment of the population co-opting the word to represent things they dislike. The term is NOT used as a pejorative across the ideological spectrum. It just isn't.
Now to be sure, there is some cringe-inducing performative virtue-signaling on the other side of the political divide, like awkwardly putting token black people in the background of that terrible Disney live-action Beauty and the Beast, despite being set in France during the 1600s. But that's really not "wokeness", it's at best only superficially aspiring to it.
Maybe the new LotR show will fall under that category, but my impression is that these characters of color will be fully fleshed out and integral to the plot. I think their representation will not be the superficial pandering which Hollywood is sometimes guilty of, but we'll see.
Whether this show is any good or not is another matter entirely, which I don't think will have anything to do with the skin color(s) of the cast. I'm still cautiously optimistic, though I will admit none of the trailers have really excited me thusfar. HBO's House of the Dragon (Game of Thrones prequel) looks far more promising, to me, though that also has weathered attacks from some fans for its "woke" casting of black actors in certain Westerosi roles.
Yavar
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Posted: |
Jul 17, 2022 - 3:35 AM
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By: |
DaveM
(Member)
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"Woke" is when a Film/Show puts diversity and representation over good story telling. These are medias that are considered woke:
-Star Trek Discovery
-Doctor Who (Series 11 & 12)
and many more (Terminator Dark Fate, CW's Batwoman, Ghostbusters 2016..) but I havent watched them.
Discovery for example: Terrible scripts, the main character is an unlikable mary sue and does everything right and perfect. It's kinda hard to see myself represented in that (and it wouldn't change if I'm female and black).
Now to LotR: tRoP: The marketing is more like "look how diversive we are" instead of "look, here is tease of a good story we want to tell you". It's Tolkins world and when his world doesn't feature black people (or others), is it that way. Peter Jackson understood that and did a faithfull adaptation.
And before someone things I'm against diversity, LGBTQ+, representation etc. I LOVE (I repeat) LOVE Star Trek (TOS - ENT) and The Orville. Both franshises are commenting on todays politics, diversity and litterally everything, but they do it right. They don't tell us what is right or wrong. My favorite Episodes are those ones without a right or wrong. Those moral dilemma episodes. Perfect! Heck, the Orville even did a all strong female planet episode recently and I enjoyed it because it was a good written episode with likeable characters.
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"Woke" is when a Film/Show puts diversity and representation over good story telling. These are medias that are considered woke:
-Star Trek Discovery
-Doctor Who (Series 11 & 12)
and many more (Terminator Dark Fate, CW's Batwoman, Ghostbusters 2016..) but I havent watched them.
No. There already was bad storytelling before right wing thinkers made the term „woke“ something to stir up hate for being awakened to the fact that their ideas were discriminating against others.
The worst thing about this is what you already have internalized: you think that because other right wingers call something woke it becomes a definition.
You don’t like a show or a film? Great. I don’t like many shows and films either.
Sometimes due to bad storytelling, sometimes because I just do not like the stories (there is a huge difference). But not everything is for everyone.
And that is perfectly alright and no insult.
I don’t think I need another rehash of TLOTR. But others do. Good for them. I will look for something else.
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Posted: |
Jul 17, 2022 - 9:41 AM
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By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
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Call me a cynic, but it's easy to defend bad writing and acting when you can accuse critics as being simply racist or sexism or some kind of phobic, and ignore such criticism as merely being toxic fandom.
Bingo! Nuff said. I'm out.
Any filmmaker who jumps to this defense as a default is thin-skinned and lacks self-reflection. Accepting criticism on something you worked for years on isn't fun, but it comes with the job.
But that's not the same as getting angry because there's such a thing as a Black dwarf.
Likewise, characters defined exclusively by their gender identities are no characters at all. (Unless "Star Trek: Discovery" made a big creative comeback after I abandoned it, it's very guilty of this. That's just weak writing, plain and simple.)
But that's not the same as getting angry because there's such a thing as a Black dwarf.
And I agree, putting Black people in the background in 1600s France was silly. (Though there also weren't dancing candlesticks in 1600s France.)
But that's not the same as getting angry because there's such a thing as a Black dwarf.
The funny thing is, when I watched that trailer, my first reaction had nothing to do with any of this (I just rewatched, and this offensive diversity that people are saying is being shoved in their faces is a very small portion of the 2½ minutes of footage). To me, it just seemed leaden. This sort of portentous dialogue sometimes works in the mouths of very good actors, but from the (admittedly very little) footage we've seen, I'm not sure that's what they've got here. And while it's elaborately mounted, a few shots feel like they're going with Jackson's worst instincts in the Hobbit films, where the effects completely took over and any sense of grounding or physics was lost.
But of course, we've only seen a tiny fraction of this series. I hope my initial reaction is wrong, and you can all mock me for being such a cynic.
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Posted: |
Jul 17, 2022 - 10:18 AM
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By: |
Mephariel
(Member)
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Because of wokeness huh? Not because there are 500 sequels, bad scripts, uninspired acting, bad direction, endless repeat of the same plotlines, etc. If they hire white actors, those issue would be solved huh?
THIS.
I figured out a long time ago that anyone complaining about "wokeness" is just a racist...plain and simple.
Well you haven't figured anything out then. Wokeness is the direct cause of bad stories and scripts. Because its not about story and characters its about virtue signalling.
That doesn't even make sense. That is like saying movies with CGI is a direct cause of bad stories. Because it is not about story and characters, it is about visual excitement.
CGI CAN be a cause of bad movie making if it is overdone or not done right. But movies with GCI can also be awesome.
In other words...it is about the direction, the script, and acting...just like any movie.
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The argument that only white dwarfs are allowed (just that statement should be regarded as ridiculous as it sounds) reveals how fixed some people‘s ideas about entertainment are.
What about other features like ears? Noses? Hairlength? Baldness? Gasp!
It seems especially offensive when protagonists are female these days, too.
All of that is just woke and virtue signaling?
I wonder what people would have said on the internet when ALIEN was released. A FEMALE SURVIVOR WHO IS MORE CLEVER THAN THE WEAK MALES? And why isn’t the crew all white?
And Star Wars? Oh, that princess bitching around, grabbing a gun, insulting the male heroes.
And gee, all thise chick flicks of the 80‘s and 90‘s. Just woke and virtue signaling? Oh, where are the good ol‘ days during which only white alpha males determined what is done, with their female squeezes obedient and perma-sexy…
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Posted: |
Jul 17, 2022 - 10:57 AM
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By: |
Grack21
(Member)
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The argument that only white dwarfs are allowed (just that statement should be regarded as ridiculous as it sounds) reveals how fixed some people‘s ideas about entertainment are.
What about other features like ears? Noses? Hairlength? Baldness? Gasp!
It seems especially offensive when protagonists are female these days, too.
All of that is just woke and virtue signaling?
I wonder what people would have said on the internet when ALIEN was released. A FEMALE SURVIVOR WHO IS MORE CLEVER THAN THE WEAK MALES? And why isn’t the crew all white?
And Star Wars? Oh, that princess bitching around, grabbing a gun, insulting the male heroes.
And gee, all thise chick flicks of the 80‘s and 90‘s. Just woke and virtue signaling? Oh, where are the good ol‘ days during which only white alpha males determined what is done, with their female squeezes obedient and perma-sexy…
Oh, I like you! We can be friends.
Alien was one I was going to bring up earlier. On a fun wait people are that dumb note, there was someone on a site that I think may have even been here that had a meltdown when the main character of Prometheus was announced as a girl, in which said person cried about how it was disrespectful to the franchise to have a female lead. Yeah. So, that’s the kind of “rational thinking” you are going to get from these people.
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If we circle back to this LOTR show: SchiffyM has expressed what I also immediately thought about, namely Jackson‘s indulgences with The Hobbit. It shares the overlit CGI look, and it seems to do the expected „a storm is coming“-trope of too many fantasy epics.
I hope it will be fantastic. But how can it be when two trilogies have already mined everything worthwhile about this story?
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