It’s time once again for our weekly catalogue of some of the unlikelier things that right-wingers are denouncing as “woke.” This week features a cameo from none other than Donald Trump himself.
Let’s hop right in.
Jeb Bush
Poor Jeb! The former governor and failed presidential candidate recently reminded the world of his existence by putting out a rather confusing Tweet:
Well, it might not be completely clear what Jeb meant in the first sentence there, but that last bit seems awfully sympathetic towards immigrants — not exactly the stance of most Republicans.
So Mark Margolis went after Jeb on PJ Media, declaring that “Jeb Bush’s Woke Tweet About the Olympics Is Shockingly Anti-American.” Though it’s really not at all.
[T]he most disturbing thing (I think) about the tweet is that he seems to be implying that because of the Trump years, America didn’t get enough foreign-born talent to do better in the Olympics. So are foreign-born Americans better athletes than American-born athletes, Jeb?
[I]t seems incredibly anti-American to imply that American-born athletes are inferior to foreign-born athletes. I’m sure you thought it made you sound woke and inclusive, but instead, it just makes you sound anti-American.
Meanwhile, countless right-wingers have been actively rooting against allegedly “woke” American Olympic athletes, which seems, I dunno, a lot more anti-American than anything Jeb has said.
Losers
Speaking of which: the American women’s soccer team has been pilloried by right-wingers for being too “woke,” by which they mean that the team kneeled before a game and also Megan Rapinoe has purple hair. Some right-wing observers, falling into magical thinking, have convinced themselves that the team’s “bad karma” from being too woke made it lose critical matches and walk away with “only” a bronze medal.
Now Donald Trump himself is weighing in on this, er, theory. In a statement sent to reporters he launched into the soccer team (and Rapinoe in particular) for being “losers.”
If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn’t woke, they would have won the Gold Medal instead of the Bronze.
Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has. …
They should replace the wokesters with Patriots and start winning again. The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about Radical Left politics and not doing her job!
There is a slight irony here in that a bronze medal isn’t really a loss, exactly, while LOSING A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION very definitely is. Trump ain’t woke, but he sure went broke in the election.
Trump you lost.
You lost. You lost. You lost.
Now shut up and go away.
Cinderella
In the American Spectator, Emily Burke takes aim at what she calls “Amazon Prime Video’s new woke “Cinderella” starring Cuban-American pop princess Camila Cabello.”
The movie isn’t even out yet, but Burke has no problem declaring it “woke” based on the cast and some publicity materials.
Scheduled to be released September 3, the progressive musical’s take on the 1950 Disney classic boasts Broadway sweetheart Idina Menzel as the evil step-mother, Billy Porter as “Fab-G” (the new and improved fairy godmother), and action hero Pierce Brosnan as King Rowan. …
The project’s progressive interpretation is hardly subtle, given its career woman Cinderella, oppression lottery “Fab-G,” and slang dialogue.
Oh, no, not SLANG DIALOGUE.
The film’s marketing also leaves the viewer without a doubt of its woke mission.
In a commercial advertising both Mercedes Benz and the film, Cabello opens saying, “we all know the story.” The lens begins to follow camera crew and actors facetiously spouting phrases feminists have long deemed micro-aggressive and oppressive. The producer says, “just play your role;” a camerawoman quips “honey you’re prettier when you smile” … The video concludes with the phrase “a new kind of Cinderella has arrived” as Cabello hops into a Benz instead of her pumpkin carriage.
I don’t think the Benz is what is getting Burke mad. I suspect the real culprit in her mind is the diverse — that is, not all-white — cast. Indeed, she’s also mad that an upcoming Little Mermaid reboot stars Halle Bailey.
Cabello’s Ella is not the first leftist interpretation of a Disney princess, but she marks a distinct pattern of woke politics dictating the portrayal of princess leads. The upcoming live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” will re-envision Ariel with Halle Bailey as a black mermaid with long locks. Though of course there is nothing inherently wrong with this depiction, the problem lies in the leftist need to diversify stories already told.
And why exactly is that a problem?
A specific political message is being sold to children, especially young girls, in Cabello’s movie with LGBTQ characters and blatant third-wave feminist values. Crafting an artful, well-done film is sacrificed to the PC gods to fit the predominant, ever-increasing leftist cultural values. Whether some will admit it or not, children will be influenced by this movie.
Parents concerned over their children’s formation …
Their children’s what, now?
… should consider skipping this rendition and instead watch a more wholesome version like the 2015 live action adaptation or the original 1950 animation.
Nah. I think I’ll wait for the new Little Mermaid. I
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Yes and no. There is no shortage of folktales about water sprites and similar that fall in love with human beings. (Consider for example the selkie myth, which is only sometimes about a horrible man who blackmails a woman into marrying him by holding part of her body hostage.) Andersen’s innovation was the motive of acquiring an immortal soul via marriage.
I was going to skip the new version of Cinderella (actually version 2,165), because I hate Caballo’s singing voice, which sounds really nasal. Plus, I already have two versions of Cinderella that are my absolute favorites, the 1960 gender-swapped version, called Cinderfella, starring Jerry Lewis, and the 1990s race-swapped version starring Brandy!
The animated version comes in somewhere as a distant third favorite, because the last time I saw it, I was a child of about eight or ten. Honestly, these people really outchere acting like movies haven’t been remade over and over and over again for like 70+ years!
There have been about 500 different versions of Cyrano de Bergerac, umpteen million versions of Hamlet (Hollywood remakes that one every five to ten years) The Little Mermaid alone has three forthcoming versions, and I don’t know how many existed in the past as its a fairly popular story.
What I do know, is that I’m getting pretty damned tired of those on the Right appropriating words and meanings invented by Black culture, and bastardizing them in the mainstream media, to mean anything they don’t like, and I will be very happy to never again hear the word “woke” or “canceled” from yet another angry white dude, for the rest of my natural existence!
Why have I never heard of this guy?!!! I am constantly searching for people with interesting and good analytical takes on film, from a knowledgable viewpoint.
See, this is why I hate the Youtube algorithm. It insists on offering me stupid shite that OTHER (stupider) people like, rather than similar stuff I have actually watched and/or searched for, and subscribed to! How hard is it to not offer me irrelevant videos from ten or eleven years ago?!
Ah, the old “but I just want a good story/game” BS we got from GamerGate, Sad Puppies, ComicGate, and every other reactionary when people want to actually do something different with stories. She hasn’t even seen either movie so she has no idea how artful or well-done they are.
Ssh. Don’t tell Ms. Burke about Jim Hines’ Princess series, which tends to be described as “Charlie’s Angels, only with Disney princesses.”
@Kat, @FM Ox: And the upcoming movie of “West Side Story” is directed by Steven Spielberg.
(Being a big fan of Sondheim, Bernstein, and Spielberg, I am buying my ticket, like, now.)
Some fairy tales probably go back to the Stone Age, so they’ve been changing for a long time.
And I guess the people who whine about things being changed from the Disney version must have missed all bazillion seasons of Disney’s network TV show “Once Upon A Time”, which threw everything Disney ever did (plus other stuff, like Wonderland and Oz) into a Mixmaster and put it on TV weekly. Did they have a cow when Peter Pan turned out to be Rumplestiltskin’s father? (Yes. That is a thing that happened.) Mulan was a lesbian in that one.
@Surplus: The new Cinderella movie was supposed to be theatrical, but Covid meant it got sold to Amazon instead. Thus the cast is a little more starry than you’d expect.
@ gss ex noob
I liked Steven Spielberg’s film about his circumcision. It was the director’s cut.
(I’ll get me coat)
Sorry, Alan, that’s bad enough you’ll have to leave without your coat.
@Full Metal Ox, thank you so much for sharing that snippet of Tales of the Night. I’d never heard of it before, and this excerpt is gorgeous.
@Victorious Parasol: I love those books, except the last one.
His “Bibliomancer” series is even better, though less feminist.
Trump sucks , the Biggest loser any! What’s worst is the trump loser lovers!
@GSS ex-noob
Yeah, I’ve re-read them a few times, but the last one … erm, no. I can skip around and re-read certain sections, but that’s as far as I can go.