Why We Hate Woke Remakes, Reboots, & More
When looking to be entertained, one doesn't want to be dehumanized & attacked
Why Create These “Woke” Films?
It’s not the money. They get panned and do poorly, but one thing the creators enjoy is being able to use the criticisms as propaganda fodder. What I mean by this is that whenever they switch a character to another skin color, and people inevitably don’t like the movie, they simply say it was “racists” who didn’t like the movie. If they are trying to promote a feminist, then it’s “sexists” who don’t like the movie, etc. If the movie does well, good, and if it does poorly, good. It’s a win-win for them. It’s clear that their motive is something beyond money.
They get to play “victims” acting as if they’ve been attacked by people who choose not to watch their film. And they enjoy making their critics look like evil “persecutors” because it bolsters the image that they want to portray to the world. They also want people to know they’re the “saviors.”
In this article, for instance, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power showrunner Patrick McKay explained why he and Prime Video decided to ignore J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing and depict their own creation of Mordor.” It’s revealed that they wanted to focus on a cause, environmentalism.
Environmentalism Drama
This could probably be its own article, but I’m going to try to keep this short here. It’s worth pointing out that there is a large movement trying to paint people as evil consumers who consume way too much plastic, gas, etc. and don’t care for the environment enough. There are corporations and groups of people who take on the “savior” role to try to stop “climate change” and help “save the environment.” So the earth is seen as a “victim” to the big consumers (persecutors) who live here. There’s nothing wrong with trying to care for the earth, using less, and cleaning up after yourself. The drama comes from acting as if the earth doesn’t have a way to care for itself and dehumanizing people as “evil persecutors” of it.
Just like I wrote about in The Drama of Hypocrites, people in the drama triangle seem to waffle on issues because they have no integrity. They are not really in this to “save” anyone, because if they did “save” people or the earth, then they would be out of a job and/or have an identity crisis.
In this case, we see the hypocrites easily when we see people who rallied against having plastic straws, and then as soon as they got scared of COVID ran out to get disposable masks and left them everywhere creating a far worse issue than the straws. Sure, they can be two separate issues, but it was a lot of the same people, and those people were hypocrites. It just shows that they care more about virtue signaling their “saving” people or the earth whenever the wind shifts to the “current thing.”
Remakes & Other Woke Works
The Rings of Power is just one example, but you’ll also see woke works trying to promote feminists and “race” swap for “racial justice.” You can tell what woke causes that a particular show or movie is trying to promote. The fact that it is so blatant is a problem. They don’t see it that way because they’re tied up in the drama but when it’s so crystal clear that there’s an agenda then regular people won’t watch it.
Who wants to go to something to be lectured to or propagandized? Only the true believers will be drawn to it and enjoy it. Sure, the masochists who claim to hate woke stuff but love to play “victim” themselves will watch it to complain. And others will watch it as fodder for their own podcast, video, or news articles. But those aren’t regular people looking for good entertainment.
If you figure out the woke cause that it’s promoting, then you can figure out who the “persecutors” and “victims” are. If it’s about race swapping, obviously racists would be “persecutors” but it’s not just that. Because the demand outweighs the supply for racists, they will increase the pool by labeling regular people as racists too. Then it can be all-out war against “white” people as “persecutors” simply for having been born with white skin. They likely won’t say it like that, although if you’ve seen a good example where they do you can comment about it below. But there’s a sense of a desire to erase white people from the stories we grew up on.
Side note: Am I playing “victim” here complaining that white people are being erased from shows via remakes and reboots? No. I couldn’t care less that these people are trying to do this. I take personal responsibility and simply won’t watch if there’s a feeling of hatred from someone or some woke cause being pushed. I watch movies for entertainment, not to be lectured to.
Rat Race
I saw the movie Rat Race in the movie theaters in 2001. I will spoil the ending so move on to the next section if you don’t want to read that. I honestly don’t remember what state I was in when I saw it (it was my first time to this particular theater). Because of this, I don’t think it was my idea to see it.
But I’d heard it was “inspired by” It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which I had seen and loved. Yes, I could see some similarities though it’s quite different, and there was a large push for woke causes back in 2001 too. The whole Nazi stuff wasn’t in the original, for instance. It’s kind of amazing that they thought to add that to the movie. But also the money at the end that was “lost” by the people chasing after it was given away to a charity. In It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World the money is given to anyone who can catch it as it’s falling out of the sky. It just felt like Rat Race was pushing donating money “to feed the earth” hard. There’s nothing wrong with donating money to great causes, but it’s the pushing that I don’t like. I could tell they made the remake with a desire to change people rather than for creativity’s sake. It certainly was nowhere near as good as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
These Woke Movies Are Attacks
You can figure out the drama triangle pretty easily for whatever woke movie you’re thinking of. The movie creators are the people trying to play “savior” and the movie is their form of “attack” against the “persecutor.” They don’t care that the attack will inevitably fail because they don’t want to face an identity crisis which is what happens when there is no “victim” left to “save.” They don’t want to be out of a job. So they will continue to make a show of it over and over again.
As I wrote in my article on Trump’s Drama Triangle, the “savior” will look like a “persecutor” to the mirroring drama triangle. In an effort to look like “saviors,” the woke movie creators are basically attacking the people they see as “persecutors,” through the production of the movie. People who feel attacked by a movie won’t want to watch it and will not happily promote it. Hence, why the movies keep flopping.
THE SAXON CROSS writes "These are direct attacks on Western culture, archetypes, and stories. Nothing less" in this article. Concerning the new Indiana Jones movie Saxon Cross writes,
“They aren’t even attempting to tell a story that audiences want. They’re trying to push a message. But it’s not that they’re disrespecting the original Indiana Jones “lore”, that’s not looking deep enough.
They want to dismantle the archetype his character used to embody. The gruff, Anglo, swashbuckling explorer. They hate everything this character stood for, so they have to dismantle him. So they’ll make a fool of him before putting his character to rest.”
I haven’t seen the new Indiana movie so I don’t know if that’s what will happen with it. But based on all the other remakes and reboots of favorites it could very well be the case. This fits a pattern from Hollywood.
It’s not surprising that Hollywood is full of narcissists who feel as if it’s their job to “save” people. Although I mentioned that it doesn’t matter if they actually ever succeed, they do likely believe that they are “helping.” They just can’t see that their method is totally ineffective and often makes things worse. There’s a subconscious desire (self-sabotage) to always have someone to “save” so their attempts fail. But consciously they’ll say they really want to help and believe it.
These Hollywood folks see themselves as “elite,” better than the regular people in “fly-over states.” They see us as “victims” and “persecutors” simultaneously. We’re “victims” for having been brought up in systemic racism and other systemic injustices and were never taught the way things should be (according to them). They think we’re stupid followers (that’s mostly projection by the way). And we’re “persecutors” for upholding all those systemic injustices and institutions. They dehumanize us as “evil persecutors,” (once again an act of projection). The movies are an attempt to attack the “persecutor” portion and “save” the “victim” portion.
No one wants to be condescended down to and perceived as a victim when they’re taking personal responsibility for themselves (out of the drama triangle). No one wants to be viewed as a “persecutor” and attacked when they just want to be entertained with a movie.
The movies are also trying to “save” the “victims” by uplifting them. So, in the case of race-swapping, they will say that “people of color” don’t get as many roles as they should, so they provide more roles for them. This is Hollywood basically saying, “I see that you cannot do this on your own, so I will do it for you.” It’s condescending down to the “victims” of injustices and giving them breadcrumbs. I’m surprised how many people see it as uplifting when it’s really condescending.
They do the same thing for feminists. They try to give girls these really masculine roles. But it just feels fake and gross because a lot of the time the roles are narcissistic and/or sexist characters. There are strong female roles in past movies. We really didn’t need this crusade. But they’re trying to create a new type of society where people are more like these narcissistic, sexist characters.
Creativity is Lost In Fear
It feels preachy because they’re needy. Whenever someone is in the fear state they enter into the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn stage, then their brain shuts down a little and they are no longer creative. This is a fight to them. They are not seeing things from a creative standpoint any longer.
“The more the artist is suffering, the less creative he is going to be. It’s less likely that he is going to enjoy his work and less likely that he will be able to do really good work.”
David Lynch
They’re afraid that the world is doing something that they don’t like. They want to change the world, but they don’t want to do the inner work. They want to control by force. This is an attempt to control the world. It’s not creative work, it’s propaganda.
No one would care if there were new movies with kick-ass females and people of various skin colors (because we love movies from the past where this is so). It’s the pushiness that is repelling people.
The creators of these movies feel a lack in their life and they’re trying so hard with much effort to fix things but they won’t do the only thing that will work. They won’t do the inner work and take personal responsibility and allow other people to do the same.
Their lack is their vibe. Your vibe attracts your tribe and also repels those not of your tribe. So their neediness, and thus propaganda pieces, is repelling people.
Here is another perspective from a student of medieval literary tradition. So, last week, I was reading my old Medieval English Literature textbook, and toward the end was a section on mystery plays and morality plays. These plays portrayed in dramatic form on small stages the mysteries of the Christian religion and Christian moral virtues. I don't invalidate what you say because I agree with the drama perspective you show us. Instead, I add another reason for our distaste for Woke remakes and films in general: they're speaking to the faithful, not to us. Woke films are the mystery and morality plays of their religion and are foreign to those of us who do not adhere to their tenets. That is the reason they say, "You didn't like Ghostbusters because you're a sexist!" Or you could insert whatever film they get upset about us panning with whatever the -ism or -phobia applies. It is basically the adherent of the Woke religion telling us we're going to whatever Hell they believe in, that we're sinners or heretics. Or infidels. Woke is a religion, and I think after figuring out that Robin D'Angelo and Ibram X. Kendi wrote their liturgy, that whiteness is their original sin, and "doing the work" is their acts of conscience, we now have their mystery and morality plays.