Supacell, a new Netflix series, was attacked by right-wingers for having many black characters. Just go to YouTube and read the comments.
I haven’t watched Wakanda Forever, but I am going to guess it is accused of being woke because it probably tries to push a political message or ideology and doesn’t do a very good job of weaving it into the story (very common for modern Disney). Looking at some of the complaints, it appears to have a similar problem to other modern Disney films, in which women are put on an elevated pedestal and men are left to be bumbling idiots completely incapable of basic human functions. This is the most common complaint I see in the reviews, but I don’t see any specific complaints that every character is black. I’m sure its possible some people might complain about it, though I doubt it is a significant portion of the complaints if I haven’t seen it mentioned in the 100 or so reviews I quickly skimmed through.
I did watch Black Panther, but I don’t remember much about it. I remember the bad looking CG, and there being some points where I felt modern Disney’s political messaging was poorly written and “too obviously preaching to the audience,” for a lack of a better way to put it. Not because all the characters were black in the story that literally takes place in Africa. I do recall noticing that Disney chose only white actors to play all the villain roles in Black Panther, which normally wouldn’t have been a problem but in the context of modern Disney and when you have all the black people as “the good guys” and all the white people as “the bad guys,” that is probably going to be taken by a lot of people as political messaging. I didn’t have any issues with Chadwick, he was a good actor for the role of Black Panther IMO. I was sad to hear about his passing. I don’t recall being particularly irked by any other character than that one girl that was his science assistant (I think, I dont remember fully), but I also only watched the movie once in theaters when it came out. So it has been a while.
That’s not to say people are incapable of being racist, but most of the time something isn’t called woke only because the entire cast is black, unless the story was supposed to have white characters that are suddenly black instead (like the live action Little Mermaid, for example). It needs some other context to be called woke other than just “the whole cast is black.”
Lhamat@lemm.ee 3 months ago
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I have never heard of this show, but it appears that most of the negativity is about how it is focused on “showing how societal failings have lead to stereotypes in black people,” which, if that is true, would be pushing ideological or political messaging. Now, if the show makes no attempt to actually write that into the story but instead makes it obvious it is trying to “educate” or “preach” to the audience, it would likely be considered woke. People watch entertainment to be entertained and escape from reality, not to be bombarded with more real life social politics in their time theyre trying to get away from all that. And thats likely the biggest reason the pushback is so strong, its like prodding a bear when its trying to go to sleep.
I also read that apparently the show has only black people with super powers because it is “based on real science since people with sickle cell disease are mostly black,” but mostly is different from only. White people can also have SCD, so why couldn’t the show have one who also was born to parents with SCD? To a person accusing the show of feeling woke, it would appear like a convenient excuse to erase people that are white with sickle cell disease.
YouTube comments isn’t usually the best place to get information about real opinions, since most of them are going to be trolls or 13 year olds thinking they’re being cool or edgy. There may be some comments that are genuine, but that hasn’t been true in my experience.
WldFyre@lemm.ee 3 months ago
I also read that apparently the show has only black people with super powers because it is “based on real science since people with sickle cell disease are mostly black,” but mostly is different from only. White people can also have SCD, so why couldn’t the show have one who also was born to parents with SCD?
You’re right, the show would have been so much better if they added a token white character to pander to white people. They don’t get represented enough, and them heavy handedly shoving one in would have been perfect.
Mambele@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Was the antagonist not also a villian?
HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world 3 months ago
No, not at all. There are three male characters in the film (Winston Duke’s M’Baku, Martin Freeman’s Everett Ross, and Tenoch Huerta’s Namor), and they are all very competent. One is a CIA agent, and the other two are leaders of their people.
The villain in Black Panther was Erik Killmonger, played by the very black Michael B. Jordan.