I enjoy some good sci-fi. I like urban fantasy. I like good story telling. Over the years there have been some series and settings that I always wanted to watch. Some examples of those are Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and generally speaking Marvel and DC comic inspired shows.
These days...
These days my mind goes through a rather new process. "How much woke at the expense of story am I willing to tolerate?" The stories have become weaker, derivative, and often involve just rereleasing something from the past. It goes even so far as rereleasing a rerelease. Yet one thing that has changed and seems to be getting worse and not better is the emphasis put on making certain woke ideology is put into the new shows and the rereleases. In the process the stories are not as deep.
I have thought for awhile that if we view the creation process as having so many creative and productive cycles that can be devoted to the shows what happens when the criteria now includes a MUST BE WOKE category? They don't tend to reduce the special effects. We are getting more special effects and I'll admit I am a fan of that. Where do they get the time to determine "How can woke be injected into this? Which roles can we gender swap, sexual preference swap, or skin color swap?" The dialog will also need some work. "How can we change the dialog to push some woke talking points?" The end result seems to me that the stories often suck. They are an after thought. As long as they got the woke in then the rest doesn't matter.
So what is that doing to my watching habits?
I have to think "Do I have the stomach or the patience to watch this?" Often the answer is no. I have shows that in the past I would have watched the moment I had some free time and had my hands on them. Now many such things have been sitting in my digital video repository for some time and I just can't manage to watch them.
I have thought about this and written about it before.
Today I was adding Star Trek Picard Season 2 Episode 5 to my library. I realized I hadn't bothered watching episodes 1-4 and I wasn't sure when I was going to get around to it. I probably will at some point.
The new Amazon Lord of the Rings : Ring of Power I suspect I may skip completely.
I also was very disappointed in what they did to the Wheel of Time. The setting looked great. The story got pretty thoroughly worked over for the sake of wokeness.
If I didn't know those particular books I'd watch the Wheel of Time and think "It's a well made woke heavy show" and I'd likely still watch it. I did enjoy it. I have read those books several times. Now I've come to expect shows to not be as good as the books in pretty much every case. The liberties they took with the Wheel of Time did not IMPROVE anything. They just checked off some woke check boxes and that can be a major disappointment.
All I know is if it seems to be focusing on woke my mind may suddenly decide "I don't have the time or the interest in this."
As important as it is to add woke ideas, include a diversity of gender and races, the fact still remains that on many occasions the movie makers let that ruin the stories. Sometimes it is not just to promote wokeness but to please certain communities. I'm really sure that whatever their intentions are they can weave beautiful stories that don't make you feel like some parts of the story were just political statements and didn't quite fit.
That isn't important at all. Just tell the story.
Forced attention on race is RACISM.
Forced attention on gender is SEXISM.
If you truly want to not be racist, or sexist then what you do shouldn't be decided based upon race or gender.
It is mental illness. It is people claiming to fight the thing they have become.
When we stop talking about race as a criteria then racism will be minimized. I don't think we'll ever completely be able to eliminate it.
If on the other hand you think you need to create diversity that means you are making decisions based upon race. That is racism.
The only diversity that truly matters is diversity of thought, and diversity of character.
Those are things we can improve, and change about ourselves.
Focusing on things people cannot change about themselves and making decisions such as hiring, staffing, etc. as some form of quota is not positive. It is just bigotry.
Racism and Sexism are just forms of bigotry.
Wow. I like it that I can still perceive your good intentions in all these you say. So your stand is that this inclusion of wokeness, the gender and racial swaps is not important at all? Let's talk about gender and race for example, do you not agree that there are certain things people suffer from due to their race and gender? Isn't it a good idea that these things are included in stories so that wide audiences would get to see these things and understand what is going on?
I don't see any problem with that at all, my only problem is that it is done too much sometimes in the stories and at the expense of a good story. I only wish they could do a better job at this inclusion without ruining some other things, are you saying there is nothing good or important about inclusion at all?
I only care about skin color when people throw it in my face. (Meaning... they put an importance on skin color when interacting with me. They make skin color into something important.)
Outside of that none of my decisions involve skin color.
I have people I idolize in history of all skin colors, genders, and sexual preferences.
What they think, who they are, and what they accomplish. Those are the things that matter to me.
Let me put it to you another way...
Imagine a world where each of us put on a gray head to toe suit each day that completely concealed our skin color. A suit that made it to where race was not identifiable.
At that point how would groups form?
Do you realize that if this went on for a long time and you suddenly had people take those suits off.
Some groups would be diverse in color.
Other groups would not be.
Why?
The decisions had nothing to do with skin color just other things. Who has the skill for the position you are seeking? Who happened to be in the right place at the right time?
Who has a character that was appealing to whatever criteria a group formed around?
"Content of their character" NOT the color of their skin, the shape of their genitalia, or whom they chose to have sexual relations with.
Woke = asleep.
Woke ideas are a mental virus. They are not good things.
Woke does not mean awake. It is quite the opposite.
I can't watch woke movies and series, the plot, and character development have been sacrificed for skin color and gender diversity.
Yep.
"Swap" (gender, skin color, etc.) re-releases are theft. I try to avoid stolen property. No telling what the consequences might be.