The far right is constantly warning that if you go woke, you’ll go broke. But when it comes to the new Barbie movie, they couldn’t be more wrong.
Barbie, which follows Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) as they leave Barbie Land to explore the real world, earned a whopping $162 million in its opening weekend, Variety reported Monday. This is the biggest opening weekend of the year, and the biggest opening weekend for a female director ever.
The film had already made $22.3 million at the domestic box office from Thursday previews, the biggest preview haul of the summer. It blew the previous record of $17.5 million (made by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in May) out of the water.
1 what’s gratuitous? More than 12% of the cast? A ratio that normally makes you clutch your pearls at the store?
2 happens in every male action movie ever made but it’s men being awesome. 3 has been every sitcom since the first sitcom (I hate 3 but conservatives have loved those shows for decades). And for 3, in men’s movies, the women were just peops. I bet you love Planet Of the Apes. The man is super awesome and perfect and the woman is literally a pointless mute.
4 happens for movies with men, constantly.
Your examples are trash too. So Star Wars would have been just fine if Rey was Ray. Why?
You list Ripley but how is that different? If alien was made in 2019 you’d be saying the same shit
Hello @Saneless I hope this reply finds you well.
Should make something clear: @DrMango asked “Can someone please tell me what makes the Barbie Movie woke”. I’m just doing my best to give a reasonably-neutral answer. I don’t necessarily agree with the attitude. (Although, I think I can appreciate it better than most who aren’t RWers.)
Also: I should have added bullet point #5:
**5. All the above are applied to established IP with existing cultural resonance. ** I regret I didn’t include it in the above list since it’s key to understanding the objections to ‘wokeness’ … but in my defense, this is a Lemmy thread - how much time should anyone put into anything on a minor Lemmy thread? ;-)
With that out of the way:
It’s not a percentage … it’s when a character is cast based on virtue-signaling rather than what makes sense for the story or original IP. For example: A story set in Kamakura period, Japan shouldn’t have Native Americans in the back-ground drinking steins of beer. A character who is described in a book as a middle-aged British Victorian butler shouldn’t be a 20-something, lesbian, black woman.
Yes, there are examples of male characters being awesome out-of-the-gate. But I would submit that the ones that resonate are the ones that had to grow. These resonating characters & stories are what Hollywood studios are re-working in the laziest way possible. (One quick example: Skywalker had to grow into his role, Rey automatically understands everything.) It just seems that every new movie based on an established IP has to make the Strong Female Character good at anything.
We’re talking about what makes something woke. Weak character and story arcs are a staple of wokeness, but not the only one.
I disagree. Ripley, for the movies time, was an original character. Moreover: She made mistakes, grew as a person, and had a decent arc.
To wrap this up: ‘Woke’ is a synonym for lazy writing when applied to established IP - especially when pointing out the laziness opens one to accusations of misogyny.
Cheers!
When people accept something happening in a male character they do not accept in a female character that is at least sexist. If Rey was male perhaps there still would have been some whining, but the sheer amount of angry men tears online over Rey being too good is in part due to her being a woman.
I don’t think people accept it happening in a male character, in both cases it makes for a bad movie. The term woke is just so politically charged it doesn’t really apply to when it is a male character.