The majority of people don't like woke films. That's pretty well-established. Interestingly, the "modern audience" - that these woke producers and directors are supposedly making these movies and shows for - isn't even showing up in large enough numbers to make sequels or additional seasons worth making.
If you've been reading my work long enough, you'll probably be able to pull some examples right off the top of your head. There have been so many that you've probably forgotten more than you can remember. I know that, because I can't keep track of all of them either.
But what makes them so bad?
You could just chalk it up to bad writing, awful characters, the prioritization of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) over development and plot, etc., but it actually goes deeper than that. It's a psychological issue we as a species have with this kind of writing.
Researchers at Ohio State University studied how the human brain reacts to stories, and how it processes what it sees during shows, movies, and even books. What they found was that the human brain automatically tries to find a moral hook to put into any given character for self-identification.
In other words, the human brain immediately looks to take a side. It doesn't matter what the subject is. The human brain wants to find its individual place in the story, and it does that by creating "social networks" between characters.
The study of this is known as the Dynamic Coordination Theory, and it posits that as we watch stories unfold, we create a story within the story that directly involves us as individuals. We plant ourselves into the story by hooking into a side or an individual character.
A great example of this is "Star Wars," where there are two well-defined social networks. Obi-Wan, Han, Luke, Leia, and Chewy all form one social network while Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and Boba Fett form another. Between these characters, your brain will hook into one network or another, usually the side of the good guys. However, whenever conflict arises between the good guys, your brain will delve deeper for another hook, usually into an individual character.
So, the scene where Han is effectively laughing off the Force in the first movie, you have two good guys in conflict, yet you might side with the believer or the cynic. Your brain will adjust from macro to micro positioning during the course of the story, and some of the best movies and shows force your brain to do this multiple times before it's over.
Woke films are very difficult for our brains to find these hooks, for a couple of reasons.
For one, woke stories and characters come with a lot of moral ambiguity, which muddies the waters, making it more difficult to truly identify with a character, or, in most cases, makes you not want to relate at all. You begin to find yourself not caring about anyone or anything in the story, and what you're watching becomes a slog. You're not morally hooked to anyone. You're treading your own water.
Morally gray characters also make conflicts harder to keep interesting. If everyone is morally ambiguous, and there's no real north on the moral compass, then there's no real "us vs. them" mentality you can sink yourself into. The emotional stakes of the story more or less disappear. A lack of moral clarity actually makes it harder to enjoy a story.
Woke writing is rife with a lot of consistency issues due to the fact that the philosophy behind it relies on moral ambiguity to sell some of the actions of its protagonists as good, when they clearly aren't. Riri Williams of "Ironheart," for instance, robs, kills, and acts selfishly, but the story doesn't do anything to show how this affects her spiritually or mentally. It keeps going as if her moral position is secure.
This doesn't mean villains can't be good protagonists. "The Godfather" does a very good job of making heroes out of villains by giving them redeeming qualities such as family loyalty, ethical guidelines, and circumstantial tragedy. You want the Corleone family to succeed at being the mob that bests all the other mobs because you see them as the bad guys who do good.
The film gives you moral hooks that allow you to sympathize with the villains.
But most woke creations do no such thing. The morality they revolve around is often no morality at all, or immorality sold as something one must get on board with, despite it clearly being wrong. Your brain rejects it on a fundamental level. It sees the good guys as the villains and the bad guys as the villains too, and so, you've nowhere to find a home in the story.
