Do people only give bad movies the SJW label?

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Sure, the Internet gave everyone a chance to speak up. The flip side of that is that when everyone has a megaphone you have no idea how many people are saying things. Sometimes an important thing gets heard that didn't before, and sometimes people use repetition and volume to create a false sense of scale to get what they want. It's kind of a mess.

You asked in other threads why they listen to these people if there aren't very many of them. That's why. It's increasingly difficult to differentiate between valid grievances and reflexive ones, and genuine movements from astroturf outrage campaigns.



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Oh okay. It's just a lot of these movies that have gone 'woke' as the term goes haven't been well received, unless that's of course they have been and box office wise?

Or I just keep reading about people saying that they do not like how movies have gone woke now. But what counts as a woke movie though? Cause woke people say they want more women in action roles, and more LGBTQ representation in movies.

So therefore, would a movie like Atomic Blonde count as a woke movie, since you have a woman in an action role, who's character is also a lesbian, or at least bi-sexual? So would that therefore count?



Defining my own terms here. I don't think its so much "strong women/people of various ethnicities/LGBTQ," (well, perhaps for some it is), that people tend to take issue with. As aforementioned, I think it mainly has to do with scripts written for the "agenda" which is already polarizing. Sigourney Weaver's character ushered in a whole new breed of female empowerment in the Aliens films and it came with acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. Likewise, I've stated many times on these boards that female directors need more exposure. Maya Deren and Marie Menken in particular practically defined the American Avant-Garde. Then there are those like Charles Burnett and Spike Lee... even Spike Lee, as polarizing as he can be some times, his films seem to prod issues in a very sophisticated manner that leaves the audience asking questions and leaving room for intellectual debate. I guess that's kind of the point... if your going to make a film with an "agenda" it might be best not to "hammer" your opinions on to others. Provide a point of view which begs the viewer to make up their own mind. I guess ask questions is what I'm saying, not so much "hustle" the answers.
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Yes that makes sense. Don't hustle the viewer or force your points onto them or shoehorn them into the story. But if Atomic Blonde did that then, you have a female action hero, who has LGBTQ character traits, but it's not forced with an agenda, then why don't other movies do it that way then, and do it without forcing?

Can't Hollywood appeal to the SJW movement with stories like Alien, where it's not forced?



Movies don't always make their points with tact and sophistication because it's hard to do that. Same reason movies sometimes resort to clumsy exposition.

And, less charitably, sometimes it's because making their point is the primary consideration and artistic concerns are secondary. Nobody makes propaganda and spends most of their time on the cinematography.



Holy crap, whenever the movie fandom learned the terms "agenda" and "woke" it all got screwed up.

This whole debate of forced or unforced, of quotas and SJWs is malicious from its very roots. There have always been ideological vehicles in the medium. Think of whatever character in a Mizoguchi film almost shouting out the message, to not mention stuff that is plain propaganda. There has always been pandering and tokenism. Disney and Hollywood have always been into conforming to washed out and easy to digest politics. This is not a recent phenomenon. It's only the usual happening but in an era where the fans learned basic alt-right internet jargon.

Like, I wouldn't take issue with all this necessary talk on forced messages if it didn't plain ignore how unsubtle, pandering and conforming the film industry, the mainstream film industry in particular, has always been.



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Well a lot of Star Wars fans for example, complain about how the last couple of Star Wars movies, have shoehorned in 'identity politics', but did the 70s/80s Star Wars movies do this as well?



I don't think so. People like to respond to that charge with the straw man that they were still "political," but that's not quite the same thing (and involves drawing very broad parallels that can always be drawn with good storytelling, contra the much narrower focus and application of more zeitgeisty/didactic movies).



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Oh okay. The last Star Wars movie I saw was The Last Jedi, but even that one, I didn't think was huge on identity politics but other people thought so, unless I just didn't see it on a first viewing?



I suppose "huge" is relative to the fact that it's a very popular space fantasy cultural icon franchise, but yes, people can be more or less sensitive to these concerns. The same way people are more or less sensitive to it when a film doesn't have an acceptable number of X (X being any group of people) in it.



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Oh okay. Well I wasn't seen a lot of it in The Last Jedi. I keep hearing that the new Harley Quinn movie had a lot of it in from people, so makes me interest to see that now, to see what's up.



Hollywood's obsession with pushing it's woke/progressive/SJW agenda into mainstream films has poisoned the film industry. Most people simply don't want identity politics rammed into their films, especially when it so often comes at the expense of good storytelling. I know I'm sick of it.


This obsession with egalitarianism is as unhealthy as it is irritating. It's sad that so many intelligent and talented people have spent so much time and energy promoting it.



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But there is that saying 'go woke, go broke', which of course means that the majority will not like the movie if you do that. Is that saying true though, or are they making money off of it?



But there is that saying 'go woke, go broke', which of course means that the majority will not like the movie if you do that. Is that saying true though, or are they making money off of it?

It depends. I think films like the female ghostbusters and Birds of Prey which brands itself specifically as a woke SJW extravaganza is doomed to be a commercial failure but other movies like the Last Jedi which just contain elements of progressiveness will still make a profit, albeit a lot less than if the film had been free of those elements. It's the difference between being financially killed or just wounded. Other films like Captain Marvel that just had a smattering of wokeness will hardly be affected.



Is that saying true though, or are they making money off of it?
Who are "they"? Some do, some don't.

As I've been saying repeatedly, these questions need to be specific if you want clear answers. You can't get clear answers to untenably broad/vague questions.



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Oh by they I just mean the companies who choose to promote the woke-ness in their movies. Sorry.



Yes, it's obvious that's what you mean, but I'm asking to point out why the question isn't answerable. The "they" refers to a large group of films, right? So even if someone had the answer, how would they express it? As an average? Based on the number of films that did or didn't make money relative to budget? Total budget combined with total cost across all of them? And that's if we had an objective list of "woke" films, which we obviously don't. Heck, what if the film itself qualifies, but the marketing doesn't emphasize it, or vice versa?

Before asking a question, consider whether:
a) it's asking for the kind of information anyone could possibly have and
b) whether you're asking for information that could be feasibly expressed based on the request.
In this case, the answer is no to both. It's not data people can really have and it's not even clear how they should answer if they had it.

When you ask questions in this way you're basically saying "here, think about all this for me so I don't have to."



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Oh okay, I was just welcoming answers from different perspectives.



What I'm describing is not an issue of "perspectives." It's basic information the questioner has to consider if they realistically want an answer. And it's the kind of thing people omit when they're just asking questions reflexively and expecting (consciously or otherwise) other people to parse all the tricky nuance for them. It shows a real lack of consideration for other people's time, especially when it keeps happening long after being pointed out.