October 29, 2020

"They’re progressive, positive young women, and they’re tragically boring, which is less the fault of their woke makeover than the film’s conviction that it’s incompatible with conflict or distinct personalities."

Writes Alison Willmore in The Craft: Legacy Is Progressive, Positive, and Tragically Dull (New York Magazine) about a sequel to a 1996 movie that I don't know about you but I saw. The idea for both movies is 4 high school girls who do witchcraft. The old movie was about the personal flaws of the 4 characters and their interpersonal problems. In the new movie....
The witches in "The Craft: Legacy".. use their blossoming powers on behalf of the community... effacing slut-shaming graffiti from a locker and humiliating a homophobe by turning his jacket rainbow-colored. As their pièce de résistance, they use a spell to transform a sexually menacing bully named Timmy... into an emotionally open young man who holds forth about heteronormativity and how much he loves Princess Nokia — not just for her music, but for her politics.... 
[In] an interview that writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones did with Vanity Fair... she explained... that [the 1996 movie was] “about women whose power was too overwhelming for them to harness and was turned on each other.”...  [The new movie] is so reluctant to subject its characters to any stress that it consigns most of its major dramatic developments into its barely coherent last half hour, which is when a foe finally emerges.... 

Spoiler alert... 

... a knitwear-clad warlock Jordan Peterson... 

Willmore wants more of this villain and blames the director for wanting to protect viewers from conflict and stress. It's funny — as if the movie is making an argument against movies. Why get yourself all upset about fictional characters? Just watch TikTok, why don't you. 

Here's some TikTok I thought was pretty funny... but it might stress you out if you're one of the millions of people who are swaddling and comforting Joe Biden, the man you are hoping will protect us from our enemies.

97 comments:

daskol said...

I had a Wiccan on my hall in college. She smoked clove cigarettes, but that was the most objectionable thing about her.

Darrell said...

Joe Biden is asshoe.

Bruce Hayden said...

Sounds horrid. So much wokeness. I expect I would throw up halfway through.

Did you actually watch it or just read the review?

Darrell said...

All Lefties are asshoe.

daskol said...

That TikTok guy has Fire Marshall Bill energy.

Jack Klompus said...

Maybe it's because people who identify as "progressive" and feel the need to let you know it are tragically boring, immature, obnoxious, maladjusted, self-absorbed, one-dimensional, and use their political stance to excuse and sanctify being boorish, malignant, incompetent a-holes?

Temujin said...

We're a few generations down from those who stormed the beaches at Normandy and the Pacific Islands, fought in the sands of North Africa, and held their ground at the Battle of the Bulge.

A few generations and worlds apart. One generation had the courage and conviction to fight for their country and to stare evil in the face and take it on risking everything. Today's generation gets it's information from old hippies who never left the comfort of the campus, and the likes of Jack Dorsey, and Mark Zuckerberg. They are, on the whole, ill-informed, insecure, and gutless. They dwell in the unimportant, the make-believe, the unserious. We'll be completely turning things over to them in these next 10 years.

One little push and this country is tipped over. I still blame my generation, the baby-boomers.

Laslo Spatula said...

Woke characters are the new New Soviet Man, and thus cannot have flaws without admitting that flaws are possible.

The New Soviet Man was strong and rugged, however: traits that don't seem to be particularly valued by the Woke today.

Meanwhile, America eventually shunned our own strong and rugged version: the Marlboro Man.

Without the Marlboro Man we have become a nation of pussies.

America ran on ruggedness and nicotine.

Now we drink overpriced coffee beverages and sell Tampex to men.

Drag your Sharpies across the graph in a downward direction.

I am Laslo.

Todd said...

when a foe finally emerges....

Spoiler alert...

... a knitwear-clad warlock Jordan Peterson...


So the foe is an person named Jordan Peterson (which in its self is rather telling) or is actually the Jordan Peterson? Either way rather disturbing the the foe is [or is named after] a professor who teaches sociology and is mainly known for telling folks that if you want to change the world, start out by cleaning up your room. That if you can't even do that, how are you going to take on something as big as changing the world?

Expat(ish) said...

I dispute the word less in the lede.

Lurker21 said...


Without Fairuza Balk even the original movie wouldn't have been much.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Barely connected thoughts.
1. Bob Newhart was planning his "psychologist in Chicago" show. Eventually it was decided the patients would have phobias that made life a bit complicated. Bob had wanted to do big diseases like schizophrenia, or dangerous paranoia; he was advised he couldn't do that in a comedy in prime time. His wife was known to say that if he revealed what he really thought was funny, he'd be off the air.
2. The fairly recent movie of "Bewitched." As one reviewer said, after all our sexual revolutions, surely a witch who was centuries old could be made to do some things that were both scary and funny--at a minimum teach her husband a few tricks, leaving him exhausted. But the movie was very bland.
3. The movie "Addams Family Values," which I love. Supposedly the Addams kids come to the defence of kids who are outcasts: disabled, racially diverse, etc. My question: wouldn't those be the first kind of people the Addamses as a whole would kill and eat, if you take their inverse morality seriously? My son said something like: that might be popular (pre-woke times), but the Addamses would never do the merely popular thing. Part of being outcasts is that you identify with other outcasts, etc.
4. There's a very old view that if you give human beings great power, this is not a way to reveal that they are unusually nice. People who are now victims think that if they got power, they would be nicer than today's powerful people. Not very likely.

Jeff Gee said...

When movies are written by people who have no idea why people watch movies, this is what you get.

Todd said...

I thought the original was more about how ultimate power without limits corrupts but what do I know, I am not a film critic.

Sounds like yet another movie I don't need to fret about not seeing...

rehajm said...

All the wokeness...where will they all go in a week when the rallys and outward support turn into re election reality. Legacy media, social media, film, television...crossword puzzles have destroyed themselves over one goal not achieved...

wendybar said...

America is laughing at them.

tim in vermont said...

If anybody should be puling for Trump, it’s artists who value artistic freedom. Those artists who agree with Mussolini that there should be no art outside the state and no state outside the party will be fine with Biden.

mikee said...

COVID movies are gonna be a genre unto themselves. Most will be like this, an obvious vanity project disconnected from economic success. This is beyong "Get woke, go broke." This is more like banana rama fo fama.

mockturtle said...

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Isaiah 5:20,21

Mikey NTH said...

Eliminating all conflict between the characters? Well, there goes drama.

The safety first society is boring, and bored people will eventually find something to excite themselves. Come to think of it, riots are pretty exciting.

gilbar said...

it's strange;
they're making Proper, Politically Correct Movies; supporting the Established Religion..
But people find them boring, and aren't interested in attending!
Don't people REALIZE, that it is their RESPONSIBILITY to support these religious works?
BIG BROTHER is Our GOD. We MUST support BIG BROTHER, in ALL ways
Get out and SEE THIS MOVIE.... NOW!!!

Kate said...

When you worship the Church, you paint fraught moments of the Bible and sculpt the Madonna. When you worship Wokeness, you create ...

It's an arid religion.

Paul Snively said...

[The new movie] is so reluctant to subject its characters to any stress that it consigns most of its major dramatic developments into its barely coherent last half hour, which is when a foe finally emerges....

Spoiler alert...

... a knitwear-clad warlock Jordan Peterson...


Back in the mid-1990s, I met a good friend and former colleague, a woman, for lunch one day. We ran into another friend of hers. I don't recall how the subject came up, but she commented that she hated Camille Paglia.

"Why?" I asked. I guess my tone was as genuinely curious as I felt, because my friend's friend admitted:

"I don't know."

Jordan Peterson is to 2016-2020 as Camille Paglia was to 1990-1995: academic, keenly aware of the influence of chaos in life, and appreciative of the significance of western civilization in keeping chaos at bay. That both are academics, and in particular Paglia's coming from the perspective of a 1960's left emphasis on following critical thinking wherever it leads, out-group or in-group—I think contributes to the animosity both receive from the academically-inclined technocratic tribal authoritarian left.

tim maguire said...

They’re progressive, positive young women, and they’re tragically boring

So the writers made them realistic, then?

wildswan said...

These wokies are so sincerely convinced that conflict is wrong - not tragic - but wrong that they can't acknowledge that their own side is rioting, beating, injuring and killing. You could get a real movie out of a character who is forced to acknowledge that their own side unwoke. And what is the moral response?

Fernandinande said...

I see that "The Craft: Legacy" (imdb 4.0 = terrible) is a "Blumhouse" production; we watched "The Lie", which I liked but the BunnyHun didn't, and that tricked me into trying to watch other Blumhouse productions but they were all pretty bad.

Jamie said...

she explained... that [the 1996 movie was] “about women whose power was too overwhelming for them to harness and was turned on each other.”

From the blockquote within the blogpost. The grammar is telling: "power... was turned on each other." Passive voice, of course, because the girls were not at all responsible for how they used their power. Does this sound familiar?

Lurker21 said...

You don't want to make your "good" characters too "good." Robin Tunney was the good girl heroine in the original. Fairuza Balk was the bad girl villain. She was far more interesting, and I rooted for her. I think Tunney stole her boyfriend, so it was only fair that Balk try to set her on fire.

I saw the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker movie last night. I understood what people objected to in the omnicompetent, too good to be true heroine, Rey. It wasn't so blatant in the earlier movie: she wasn't so idealized and faultless. Still, the movie was bad mostly because after 40 years the franchise got tired. Either that, or I grew up. At least a little.

Dave Begley said...

I can, however, assure Althouse blog readers that "Frankenstein, Part II" is not dull. Or tragically dull.

Temujin said...

I can see a future society where the 'peaceful protestors' will be brought in and strapped into a chair, their eyes held open by an eye speculum, then made to watch a steady stream of psyops showing extreme violence and words that trigger that violence. They'll get to the point where they get physically sick to even think about violence, let alone commit it.

Or, did I read that in a book somewhere, a long time ago?

Another old lawyer said...

I wish I thought that Temujin and Laslo were wrong.

Howard said...

So you people either didn't watch or thought The Social Dilemma didn't applied to you.

Eleanor said...

I went to college in the 70s in an environment that skewed decidedly male. When I asked my friends why they never went to see a movie or read a book with a female protagonist, they said it was because women never did anything exciting enough to make the book or the movie entertaining, and being entertained was the whole point of spending the time, wasn't it? Fifty years later the most popular movies feature comic book heroes. I'm still not entertained by car chases and gun battles, and the movies about women are still mostly drivel so I still don't go to see a movie very often. A good whodunit or an epic historical saga might get my attention. A bunch of women trying to outwoke each other won't even get me to turn on Netflix while I fold laundry.

buwaya said...

" Those artists who agree with Mussolini that there should be no art outside the state and no state outside the party will be fine with Biden."

Mussolini had a heck of a lot of good artists on his side. For a while anyway.
So did the pre-communists and early communists in Russia.

Known Unknown said...

"A few generations and worlds apart."

Those men and women are out there. They're just quiet. And they haven't been asked to do what that generation did. Yet.

Known Unknown said...

Paul Snively-

Here you can watch Peterson and Paglia agree on the pitfalls of postmodernism.

Wince said...

Maybe they can recycle the idea into a tampon commercial?

Known Unknown said...

"technocratic tribal authoritarian left."

Make that Technocratic Authoritarian Tribal Left" and you have TATL (Tattle). Seems a good fit for their inclination into cancel culture. Hell, they have tried to cancel Paglia at the Philadelphia Art Institute recently.

Jupiter said...

"One generation had the courage and conviction to fight for their country and to stare evil in the face and take it on risking everything."

I can agree that getting machine-gunned in the water off Omaha beach was staring evil in the face, and required courage. But conviction? Of what? That the Soviet Union must be saved from Hitler? They just did what their elders told them, and it did not turn out well for a lot of them. All that's changed is the elders.

Jupiter said...

"tragically boring". Hmmm ...

narciso said...

well they brought back palpatine which cut short the redemption arc, the star destroyers went to eleven, with their death stars etc,

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

That Tik Tok video is hilarious and downright frightening.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

*make sure to up the volume

BUMBLE BEE said...

It's all progressive womyn battlefield prep. So where does Kamala fit in here?

Bob Smith said...

Are the girls hot? Asking for a friend.

Paul Sand said...

Zoe Lister-Jones was really good in the TV show "Life in Pieces". So much that I got her movie "Band Aid" on DVD ... which we ejected about 15 minutes in, it was awful. I guess she's best when someone else is writing and directing.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"Here's some TikTok I thought was pretty funny... but it might stress you out if you're one of the millions of people who are swaddling and comforting Joe Biden, the man you are hoping will protect us from our enemies."

Wish!

Althouse for win!

bagoh20 said...

If you like your artistic freedom, you can keep your artistic freedom.

Is there any love or respect for art created under totalitarian states?

Greg The Class Traitor said...

she explained... that [the 1996 movie was] “about women whose power was too overwhelming for them to harness and was turned on each other.”

IOW, we're in for another round of "socialism has only failed everywhere it was tried because the wrong people did it!"

"about women whose power was too overwhelming for them to harness"

No shit? People abuse power? Even women? Oh, no, we can't have that! Because we know that the US would be a paradise if only white males were locked out of power!

Static Ping said...

What is being described here is a common phenomenon in "woke" entertainment. It is progressive to espouse female empowerment. However, if your strong female protagonist has flaws then, in their minds, it undermines the idea that women are powerful. So the obvious solution is to give the strong female protagonist no flaws. That way, no one can criticize their strong female character; she is simply perfect.

The problem is perfect characters typically make boring stories. Perfect characters do not need to learn anything, they do not encounter obstacles that they cannot easily overcome, and, most importantly, they do not fail. In drains out all the tension and drama. The result is usually something resembling bad fanfiction in the power fantasy genre as written by a 13-year-old girl: I am perfect, everyone loves me or else is pure evil, I can destroy all of my enemies, real and perceived, with a wave of my hand. (Also often included is I can have sex with the target(s) of my affection at will, but only if I want to.) It's quite the tempting fantasy but like heck does anyone else want to hear about it.

The Craft: Legacy is merely a minor installment of this trend. It has been repeatedly done over the past several years in movies like Captain Marvel, Rey from the Disney Star Wars trilogy, and, most recently, the live action version of Mulan. This latter one is especially noteworthy as it discarded the original compelling plot (Mulan has to overcome severe obstacles through her wits) in favor of making her essentially a superhero who is better than everyone because she is so awesome in every way. These are far from the only examples. It has infected not only movies but television shows and mainstream comic books, almost universally to their detriment, both in entertainment value and monetary profit.

Sebastian said...

"use their blossoming powers on behalf of the community"

Ah, yes, same old boring prog power lust, used "on behalf of the community," for our own good, and woe to you if you #Resist.

Yes, boring same old, same old. Twas ever thus, since 1789.

YoungHegelian said...

Even the Soviet Union got bored with having all art serve the Revolution.

Joe Smith said...

"We're a few generations down from those who stormed the beaches at Normandy and the Pacific Islands, fought in the sands of North Africa, and held their ground at the Battle of the Bulge."

This country is twenty years away from losing a war to Chinese middle-schoolers.

We are soft and weak and have no will to win.

I'm surprised the actresses weren't all obese black lesbians.

Nonapod said...

Characters have to have flaws to be relatable. And there has to be real stakes. There has to be a real sense of peril for the protagonists. Perfect characters are boring. It's one of the problems that writers had with the old Superman comics. How can you come up with interesting stories for a character that is perfect?

During the early years of Star Trek: The Next Generation when Roddenbery was still alive he had a mandate that there could not be any real interpersonal conflict between the main characters. Consequently the first season of the show is regarded as the worst one by far. But as Roddenberry's influence began to wane, the writers gradually introduced more flaws to the characters and the quality of the show improved dramatically. Although characters certain (Riker) remained irretrievably dull.

William said...

There was a witch in Game of Thrones. Her character arc came and went before the show went to crap. She was realistic and terrifying. She counselled her client to kill his daughter by burning the child at the stake....The witch was very good looking and had the occasional nude scene. It's very important that witches be dramatized as good looking and occasionally nude. This emphasizes the seductive power of witchcraft.....The witches in MacBeth used to be presented as crones. I think nowadays they're usually kind of hot. I guess a feminist would say that it's counter-productive for a woman to be empowered by good looks as opposed to managerial skills and occult powers, but that's the way it goes. No old women with sunken mouths and gray hair need apply for the job.

Bill Peschel said...

I dispute the word less in the lede.

I dispute the positive after "progressive."

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

mikee said...
COVID movies are gonna be a genre unto themselves."

People stuck at home, slowly going insane, mindlessly buying tons of useless crap on Amazon despite the fact their jobs are in jeopardy, calling the cops on neighbors who have too many visitors sitting in the backyard, frantically using Lysol wipes on every surface while watching ABC report on "new covid cases reached a RECORD HIGH today!" morose, unemployed son who lives in the basement stealthily slipping out of the house to join the antifa mob downtown, getting into a yard sign war with the Trump voter across the street....,the scripts write themselves.

RNB said...

I work with a self-described "feminist author." At one point, she said to me: "Oh, I could never do anything terrible to my characters!" And I thought: "And that's why you'll always be a crap writer."

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

Sounds like those girls are using their powers to bully others. Guess that's ok if you're woke; it's probably expected.

I'm amused by the resurrection of the 90s "wicca" culture among young women.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOse4uszOR4

Agree that Fariuza Balk made the original work. She made crazy, evil, goth bitch look sexy. The problem with that from a modern, woke perspective is that conflict between women is due to competition for male attention and the desire for male attention is caused by socialization. Absent such socialization there would be no competition for male attention and thus no conflict between woman. Also, the premise, that people who were down trodden, and then given power over others, might use that power vindictively to extract revenge is anathema to the modern woke left, for obvious reasons. So, since the plot has to accommodate a crazy ideology, people find the movie strange, off putting, and boring.

This is an actual quote from the trans actor playing one of the witches:

"I think she is a visionary when it comes to creating realistic characters and realizes the importance of including a trans witch considering that witchcraft can be very exclusive of trans identities. A lot of practical witches are very focused on the lunar cycle and their period. Witchcraft isn’t always just about cis women with ovulation problems. Transwomen definitely have their own magic. I can attest to that because I am a witch myself. I’ve been a witch even before I got the audition."

https://www.sacurrent.com/ArtSlut/archives/2020/10/28/trans-latina-actress-zoey-luna-casts-spooky-spells-in-the-craft-legacy

Crazy people.

Darrell said...

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker doesn't just give you a new Mary-Sue lead, it destroys the original leading characters--not even letting them have a last heroic moment together. The same type of idiots did that with Star Trek and Doctor Who, too.

gerry said...

It sounds like pure, preachy bullshit to me. Which means it's boring bullshit.

Ack.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

During the early years of Star Trek: The Next Generation when Roddenberry was still alive he had a mandate that there could not be any real interpersonal conflict between the main characters.

His justification for that was that in the future the field of psychology would be so advanced that it would enable children to be brought up free of character flaws. But, if that was the case then why would anyone want to watch Shakespear's plays or pretend to be a hard-boiled detective in the 1930's on the holodeck? If you were so completely well-adjusted why would you enjoy entertainment about overcoming conflict between human beings?

Rick said...

I'm amused by the resurrection of the 90s "wicca" culture among young women.

People who can't deal with how mundane modern life is often invent a fantasy life to compensate. Some cosplay wicca, others cosplay fighting white supremacy.

buwaya said...

Harry Lime: In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.

The Third Man

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

"But conviction? Of what? That the Soviet Union must be saved from Hitler? "

Jupiter, that is one of the most obtuse comments I've seen today. Go read some of the autobiographical works out there from WWII. Besides the fact that Japan and Germany declared war on the US, the US (well, Roosevelt) worked to help the USSR because it was helping the British. The evil of the Nazi empire was not lost on the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the US and most of them knew and believed they were fighting something truly evil. After landing in Morocco and then landing in Italy and France, that belief increased. And that was just in Europe. In the Pacific, just a couple weeks spent on Guadalcanal and most of the Americans were fighting with true conviction.

Jack Klompus said...

Actually, Howard the Gimp, I rewatched the made-for-TV movie
Like Normal People and figured it was your biopic.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

As their pièce de résistance, they use a spell to transform a sexually menacing bully named Timmy... into an emotionally open young man who holds forth about heteronormativity and how much he loves Princess Nokia — not just for her music, but for her politics....

In the Dresden universe that would earn them a visit from a Warden of the White Council who would chop off their heads, because using magic to control someone's mind is evil.

Mr Wibble said...

Woke stories are all no better than middling fan fiction written by nerds and losers.

We need a rule that no one can write for Hollywood unless they have a divorce and a drinking problem.

5M - Eckstine said...

Men are afraid of women with power.

Tony constantly on Jeannie not to use her magic.
Darren constantly trolling Samantha to be "just" a housewife.

What you create then is Carrie.

PM said...

I always pronounce 'coven' the way they did in American Movie.

5M - Eckstine said...

What men and women want are different?

I evaluate my sci fi/fantasy fundamentally on if there are any space babes in it. Then secondly is the writing and production good enough to tell a memorable story.

The BBC has gone to crap in its police dramas. Wokeness crimes bleeding over every pint in the pub, every drop of tea.

buwaya said...

"Crazy people."

You could make a good movie about crazy people of course. But not this year, and not for a while.

Michael K said...

I can agree that getting machine-gunned in the water off Omaha beach was staring evil in the face, and required courage. But conviction? Of what? That the Soviet Union must be saved from Hitler? They just did what their elders told them, and it did not turn out well for a lot of them. All that's changed is the elders.

Partly disagree. The culture those kids grew up in has changed. I know because, while I was pretty young, I remember it. That generation had the Depression to remember. They respected their elders who had raised them. The elders weren't on Omaha Beach telling them what to do. That was in every one of those kids who charged up that beach. They knew. They are old and mostly dead now but I knew them well.

Matt said...

I really liked the first movie. Fairuza Balk was quite a lovely Goth.

As for the sequel, ha! What a bunch of fags!

Ron Winkleheimer said...

It's funny — as if the movie is making an argument against movies. Why get yourself all upset about fictional characters?

In the novel Fahrenheit 451 books are banned because they upset people. Or at least that is the reason given.

Joe Smith said...

"Are the girls hot? Asking for a friend."

What you really want to know is, is there any Wiccan-on-Wiccan lezbo action?

Todd said...

buwaya said...

Mussolini had a heck of a lot of good artists on his side. For a while anyway.
So did the pre-communists and early communists in Russia.

10/29/20, 9:03 AM


That makes a lot of sense as most artists are not hugely successful at it and many are really not good. Having to do a "real job" so you have a place to live and can eat while pursuing your "muse" as a hobby is not fun at all.

Thinking you will get lots of free stuff (other people's money that they had to work for) while you get to "practice" your art is extremely enticing. Especially if it is art for government, then it doesn't even need to be any good. It just needs to tow the party line. The majority of artists would always vote for that.

Todd said...

Ron Winkleheimer said...

This is an actual quote from the trans actor playing one of the witches:

10/29/20, 10:25 AM


Them(They, Thother?) is right, witches have always been excepting of trans witches. In fact, they actually have a name for such. Trans witches are call "warlocks".

Iman said...

Blogger Howard said...
So you people either didn't watch or thought The Social Dilemma didn't applied to you.


Old news, Howeeee. And told in a ham-handed way.

Better just grin and Barrett...

n.n said...

Witchcraft isn’t always just about cis women with ovulation problems. Transwomen definitely have their own magic.

Trans/homosexual? Trans/bisexual? Trans/neosexual? A man in woman's clothing?

I work with a self-described "feminist author." At one point, she said to me: "Oh, I could never do anything terrible to my characters!"

She's not in the Progressive Church? She's not a Pro-Choice cultist? A yesterliberal, perhaps classical, but with a sex chauvinistic ideology?

n.n said...

who identify as "progressive" and feel the need to let you know it are tragically boring, immature, obnoxious, maladjusted, self-absorbed, one-dimensiona

Yes, by definition, progressives are monotonic with a unique tunnel vision that grants them an indomitable self-confidence, an ideological bent that has served them well. #PrinciplesMatter

n.n said...

Woke and drowsy.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

My wife and I have been watching "Supergirl." Season 1 had the villain being a technology industrialist who thought Supergirl was an evil alien who wanted to do Earth in. Season two had villains from Krypton who wanted to take Earth over. Season three, also villains from Krypton who wanted to "cleanse" the Earth and krypto-form it as New Krypton. Season four has gone SJW, with a group that wants to make Earth safe for humans and kill all the aliens living among us. It's heavy with us/them symbology with the aliens representing American minorities. As Yoda might have once said "The Critical Race Theory is strong in this season."

Whiskeybum said...

Night said...

...The BBC has gone to crap in its police dramas. Wokeness crimes bleeding over every pint in the pub, every drop of tea.


Tell me about it. Every time I watch one of the more modern BBC police dramas, I ask myself beforehand, "will it revolve around a homophobe, a racist or a misogynist?" Sometimes it's all three.

eddie willers said...

Something good has come to Netflix: "The Queen's Gambit". All you boomers who remember following Fischer/Spassky will know that a Queen's Gambit is a chess opening. And this is, indeed, about a young, orphaned woman rising to become a Chess Master in a male dominated semi-profession. Very little "social justice" injected when it could have loaded up on the blandishments. Written by the fellow who wrote "The Hustler" and "The Man Who Fell To Earth".

Spanning 1957 to 1967 it is gorgeous (and by gorgeous I mean three showroom '57 Chevys and a "to die for" Chevy Monza)

All kidding aside, it is a well done mini-series that starts and ends in seven episodes.

Joe Smith said...

"Tell me about it. Every time I watch one of the more modern BBC police dramas, I ask myself beforehand, "will it revolve around a homophobe, a racist or a misogynist?" Sometimes it's all three."

British police/mystery/crime shows are a favorite of ours because (at least up until recently), the actors looked like real people, the dialog was realistic, the acting superb, and the production values excellent.

They still have the production values, but the characters are starting to be played by Barbie-types.

In the obligatory scenes where they gather around the chalkboard with the crime scene photos, you can now spot Muslims, Indians, blacks, gays/lesbians, handicapped (no, really), and lots and lots of women.

They have one or two heterosexual males for old time's sake, I guess.

The shows are beginning to look like CBS or NBC, but even more woke, if that's possible.

Joe Smith said...

"Very little "social justice" injected..."

Except for the glaring point of having a woman in the role of a wannabe world chess champion.

alanc709 said...

I doubt you can be both progressive and positive.

Ralph L said...

They have one or two heterosexual males for old time's sake, I guess.

The boss is either a woman (usually black) or a crook (on occasion, both).

ALP said...

Maybe when you are young you need to be conked on the head with the lesson a story is trying to tell. But I prefer a good story with a lesson that creeps up on you, or requires some thinking to grasp. Story tellers that try to be too obvious make boring, stilted stories.

Fernandinande said...

So the foe is an person named Jordan Peterson (which in its self is rather telling) or is actually the Jordan Peterson?

Neither. No actor or character is named Jordan Peterson; the production coordinator is named Jordan Delic.

ALP said...

Lots of Netflix/TV discussion in this thread. For you Netflix subscribers, consider "Stranger" - a police thriller from South Korea. Quite different in style to most offerings. Zero sex or any mention of it other than the upper crust elite caught purchasing the services of prostitutes. Fascinating window into a very different work/office culture. Nice shots of Seoul, and for anyone that likes art/design you'll see some very cool interior design and fashion. The story involves Korea's prosecutor's office; the attorney characters are rocking the sharpest suits I've ever seen on a group of male actors. Very enjoyable with a consistent 'try to do the right thing' message - I find it devoid of any of the preaching you will see on western shows so give "Stranger" a try.

eddie willers said...

Except for the glaring point of having a woman in the role of a wannabe world chess champion.

Except that was the plot of the 1983 novel. (Otherwise, it would have just been a nerd makes good novel)

That's why I pointed out that the adaptation was "ripe" to be exploited for "modern sensibilities" but, refreshingly, refrained. Even the black girl that becomes her friend in the orphanage was in the original novel.

Static Ping said...

About the "Queen's Gambit," there have been high rated female chess players, including ones that have defeated world champions. They are not common though. Chess tends to be a male dominated game, but there are plenty of women who could defeat you so thoroughly that you would wonder what the heck just happened. Some of them are married to the male chess players and, yes, some of them are quite attractive.

To be truly great at chess requires quite the obsession and, to express my personal opinion, having something wrong with you that still allows you to be functional. I suspect that is more of a male trait on average.

Oh, and the "Queen's Gambit" final game is based off a real game played in a chess tournament, except it diverges at one point in a subtle way. I believe the original game ended in a draw, so they had to make an adjustment to allow a victory. The move that undoes her opponent does not even look wrong unless you play very high level chess, and, even so, the counter would be easy enough to miss.

Joe Smith said...

@eddie willers

I guess there were woke folks back in '83 too, even if they weren't called that...

But nice to see they didn't lay it on too thick...

Lurker21 said...

Somebody needs to come up with a new version of the "Bechdel test" to weed out the bad new woke feminist pictures. Unfortunately, it isn't likely to come from everybody's favorite lesbian cartoonist.

You needed that internal conflict between the girls in the original Craft to make it interesting. If the girls all thought and felt alike about everything there wouldn't have been much of a movie. Giving them an external enemy isn't anywhere near as dramatic. And, yes, lack of conflict among the crew is why Star Trek TNG is so boring.