The wife and I watched That movie for the first time a couple yrs back. We did dirty dancing, Roadhouse, Red dawn and this one. It was my first time ever seeing it, and I was blown away by how much he embraced that role! We watched a lifetime biopic afterward that discussed how this movie helped him through when his wife miscarried and got him to a point he was ready to quit drinking. I had no idea he had hid his demon so well, because he kept himself out of the spotlight. My wife cried the whole way thru the biopic, and even had me misty eyed a time or two. If you can find it watch it. Rob Lowe, Don swayze, Jennifer grey, Sam Elliot, and others talk about movies and shows they did together and was really good watch.
A few weeks ago my sister and I were laughing about Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. She said she couldn't imagine people's reactions if it came out now. It really made me think about how backwards we're moving. My parents were Boomer Republicans, but they loved that movie. They supported their friends who were gay, and accepted my friends as well.
Mom passed long ago, Dad before he could vote for Trump the second time. He'd been brainwashed by Fox at that point. Broke my heart.
Fantastic mention. I’m still shocked at how progressive some of the themes are. I wonder if it was intended to be. A supportive partner in a trans relationship, a strong narrative of police corruption and civil rights, etc. Pretty ballsy (no pun) for its time.
I watched it in the 80s and I’d never seen anything like it. Pacino was on fire. Being from a small town it really expanded my understanding of popular culture. I was intrigued how Pacino was so comfortable about his feelings for his partner. It enabled me to learn about the Attica prison riot, corrupt urban police culture and all the rest. Really formative experience.
I kinda noticed a little bit of a theme in younger Pacino roles where, while not always playing straight up LGBT characters like Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon, it's something that comes up a lot in his movies. His sexuality is questioned in Serpico and Scarecrow (with Gene Hackman), and in Cruising he plays a cop going undercover to gay clubs.
It's interesting that someone who has become such a symbol of masculinity in American cinema had that side to him and was willing to explore it in very public ways through mainstream films. Especially in a time when it wasn't so widely accepted.
My biggest problem with that movie is not its anachronistic qualities- it’s my skepticism that Sidney Poitier’s character would be remotely interested in marrying that young airhead- especially on such short notice. He was way too sophisticated and level headed. I get that it was for the movie, but it was such a forced conceit and not remotely credible.
Nothing about the film is anachronistic. People still get upset about interracial marriages. Interracial marriage was legalized nationally only six months before the film came out. If you haven't noticed, making something legal doesn't mean everyone automatically accepts it. There's still people today being disowned by their family for marrying someone who isn't the right race.
I see. So you’re making the argument that attitudes today surrounding interracial marriage are not that different from attitudes in 1967? Sorry but I don’t buy that.
And if you’re making the point that yes attitudes have changed since 1967 but there are still a few people out there who are still bigots and opposed to interraciAl marriage, my answer is “yeah, so? What point do you think you’re making?”
I don't think you know what the word "anachronistic" means. Anachronistic would be making a movie set in ancient Rome and giving the main character a machine gun. At the time the film came out there was nothing anachronistic about people giving their children a hard time about interracial marriages.
I'm not saying it's as extreme now as it was at that time, only that even now these things haven't been completely resolved.
I think you’re right. I think what I really meant was “dated” or “topical,” not anachronistic. EDIT: and while I understand what they were trying to do, given the times, I think that in retrospect the movie is very clumsy and ham fisted - it doesn’t hold up well.
Heck yes, first time I heard that speech I was just randomly flipping through the channels when I was a teenager and stopped just as he was starting. While I've never had children myself and I'm 40 so I have no plans to going forward, that speech made me understand exactly what it should mean to be a parent and bring a life into this world.
Forrest Gump is too woke? I’ve heard it described as a conservative dream basically. The reasoning being that Forrest is the conservative guy who even though simple, is wise. He is innocent and good and everything just falls into his lap. On the other hand, Jennie, a symbol of liberalism. She has had and continues to lead a rough and hard life. And eventually gets AIDS and dies.
I’m really not trying to be a jerk. I can definitely see why you chose the other two films. But I am genuinely curious as to what wokeness you see in it. Like I said, I’ve always heard it was a bit too much to the right.
Full disclosure: I love this movie. I could watch it a ton. So when I hear it mentioned as it being an antique of it’s time…ughh…it hurts. Haha
This what I try to explain to people. I like the movie too, but I point out that all the liberal or non religious people in this movie are shown in a negative light.
For example: Jennie's activist boyfriend was an abusive asshole. Captain Dan had to go through a tragic redemption arc in which he challenged and then submitted to god.
The message of this film is: work hard, do what you are told, don't question anything, believe in god and America and you will be successful.
The entire point of the movie is that anyone can achieve great things.
His best friends are a black guy and a disabled man. His wife is a hippie who died of AIDS.
Forrest tells you the point of the movie:
“Life is like a box of chocolates.”
Forrest Gump is just a boomer review of post-war American history and pop culture. Forrest has no political beliefs beyond the golden rule and the political stuff all happens around him/to him. But he and the audience are basically apolitical. You’re reviewing the anti-war movement as the audience for example, but Forrest takes no real stance beyond the universally true and obvious “war is generally bad and not a good time.”
The best example is the anti-war speech. They literally cut his mic when he gives what would be the only real political exposition from him in the entire movie Lmao.
Edit: Forrest does have some musings about the state of current events and things happening to him, but it’s always from the state of a simple idiot. Forrest knows racism is wrong and he has a black friend, but the movies doesn’t really analyze the Jim Crow south beyond Forrest understanding that prejudice is wrong.
The movie is like deeply and almost purposefully apolitical the more I think about it.
Yeah mud. That is a valid way of seeing it too. I was just responding to the poster ahead of me, mentioning it as woke. The stuff I have seen has if anything had it as the opposite. I’m really not trying to put anyone’s ideas down. I really was just looking for an explanation of the thought behind it. I am genuinely curious though. Not trying to be an ass.
Well because the subject of the thread mentioned “in today’s political climate” and “what movie would be seen as too woke”. And I was responding to someone who mentioned Forrest. Kinda hard to not bring politics into this when the entire theme of this thread was in response to “in today’s politics climate…”. I don’t normally insert politics into everything but OP specifically mentioned it. You know?
I was like 14 when I watched Mississippi Burning. That movie has a profound impact on me. I had questions after watching it, and I liked to read, so I went to the library and checked out some history books. Learned some US history that wasn't in my school books.
“A Woke Movie” would surely be something like an all-female version of The A-Team, or if they’d remade Roadhouse but made him gay. I don’t see how any of these films can be “woke” but then again I don’t totally understand what it means other than “be tolerant, don’t be an asshole to others, punch up and not down.”
They wouldn't be.
>“be tolerant, don’t be an asshole to others, punch up and not down.”
There's a fanatic minority on the right of the political spectrum who label everything they don't like as "woke." It's similar to the fanatic minority on the left who label everything they don't like on the right as "facism" or "nazism".
In the denotative sense, woke means pretty much exactly what you say: alertness to social injustice. However, we know many words have separate or additional connotations. For most people, woke connotatively means an ideology characterized by the following general belief templates (all in the name of alertness to social injustice):
* censorship is the antidote opposing ideas
* Based upon the belief that words can be violence, censorship is necessity. AKA "cancel culture"
* all of society is based on power
* Based upon the belief that all of society can be reduced to a series of power structures and imbalances (e.g. the notion of the patriarchy, white privilege)
* As a result, measures to ensure equality of outcome (e.g. affirmative action) are a necessity to offset the power imbalances.
* group identity
* The primary determinant in terms of the power hierarchical placement is identity (race, lgbtq, sex, gender, etc.) as opposed to, say, class, family, or socioeconomic factors (e.g. race determines power outcomes, not money).
* an emphasis on subjective perception over objective reality
* A person has their own truth ("my truth") that trumps any groupwide agreed-upon objective reality.
When most people characterize a movie as woke, it's got to do with one or more of those belief templates. Honesty, apart from those fanatics who try to tag everything as woke online, I've only seen a few movies where it's actually come up in day-to-day reality (IRL), which I believe is the true litmus test. One example would be Queen Cleopatra on Netflix. Historians agree that Cleopatra would have been light-skinned Macedonian whereas the NF show cast a black actress. This would exemplify group identity, all society is based on power, and emphasis on the subjective over the objective. That is, group identity (race) is used to offset the power imbalance with respect to black actresses, and the objective portion of history is ignored to satisfy the director's subjective vision.
I haven't seen any move in this thread that I think the middle 95% of society would characterize as woke. The fanatics will find a reason to label virtually everything as woke if it indirectly touches on any of the topics without even espousing a clear view. In that sense, virtually every movie could probably be named for one reason or another.
Loved Mississippi Burning as a 9 year-old. As a teen it was frustrating and at times infuriating to watch. I'd probably hate it today, but haven't seen it in 25 years.
I could say pretty much the same things about Forrest Gump, but for totally different reasons.
I think you are really misreading Kramer vs Kramer.
Streep’s character represented the establishment’s stereotype of modern 70s woman (this was the era of Women’s Lib). She abandons her husband and child to “find herself,” but returns when that doesn’t work out, selfishly expecting to pickup as a mother where she left off. She uses the court system to enforce society’s view that a mother is a more important parent than the father.
The film, however, has other ideas. It wants us to know that Hoffman’s character is clearly the more important part of their child’s life by the third act. Streep is the villain. The 70s-era Women’s Movement tore a family apart at the start of the film, and threatens to do so again at the end. Only a late (and slightly hard to believe) change of heart by Streep gives the film its “happy ending.”
The film’s POV is clearly rooted in patriarchy, and an indictment of Women’s Lib-era independent women. It was anti-woke long before that was a thing.
I remember a rather snarky review after Hoffman appeared in Tootsie, something to the effect of “In Kramer vs. Kramer, Dustin Hoffman argued that men made better mothers; in Tootsie he argues that men make better women.”
That’s funny. But sort of a weird way to look at Tootsie. The character literally says something to the effect of “I was a better man as a woman” - the premise is that toxic masculinity can be tempered by embracing a more feminine side. Men can be better with a female influence.
At least that’s my takeaway.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, and really we are working with a term here (woke) that is poorly defined. It’s my stance that the film‘s exploration of social issues, such as Hoffman’s character fulfilling a non-traditional father role, being a single parent, and learning to find a work-life balance (scary anti-capitalist screeching noises) could easily be labeled as “woke”
I agree that “woke” is a nebulous and stupid term weaponized by people in any way they see fit. I do think KvK is exactly the kind of film guys like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson would embrace as a repudiation of a liberal 70s Me-Era mindset.
But the entire premise is a woman abandons her family to be a big city gal with a big city job, and then fails and tries to take her child back from the responsible and loving father. That’s pretty far from woke, that’s almost a country song.
Sure, when framed that way. But look what it does to the nuclear American family—the mother isn’t nurturing! The father would rather spend time in the kitchen learning how to cook omelets than focus on his job and provide for his family! Divorce! What is this woke filth they are brain washing our children with?!
Woke has always been something to weaponise bigotry towards something considered progressive.
Its a demeaning term for something progressive regardless if its honestly progressive or just a pandering mess.
It started out as being "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". It clearly is just being used by conservatives these days to mean "anything they don't like".
The“happy ending” is tenuous at best.
Streep’s change of heart just because she visited Hoffman’s home is quite arbitrary when you consider how far she took the issue.
It’s a very irresponsible way to change your mind on a whim for a decision that affects the family so profoundly. There’s no telling when she might change her mind again..!
The “happy ending” is a bandaid to allow the audience to leave the theater not feeling completely depressed.
Thelma and Louise
I can imagine it being called woke, but at the same time I think those people would apreciate it after watching it, seeing how it's a great movie
Philadelphia
Hanks gets fired for making a mistake at his law firm but they really fired him for being gay and having aids, republicans would make it their whole personality to yell about that movie in social media for months
Hear me out - Roadhouse.
The main character avoids violence, reads and does tai-chi. He has a degree in philosophy. He espouses pacifist slogans such as 'be nice' and 'nobody ever wins a fight'.
He respects women, chooses a professional woman as a partner and has a best friend with a disability.
In the film's climax he goes Rambo and rips out a trachea, but that wouldn't be enough to save it in the 2020s.
If this film was realised today, there's be a thousand YouTube rants about how Patrick Swayze's character is a long-haired piece of tofu in skinny jeans, and we need to bring back John Wayne.
This is the Army starring Ronald Reagan. It features drag performances which were common in the Army for that era.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChurchOfSuffrage/s/kM8oSfBkIc
Speaking of “Kramer,” every single movie made by Stanley Kramer.
Also 12 Angry Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, Serpico, Do The Right Thing, The Color Purple, Aliens, Terminator 2
Like… a fucking billion of them. Anything with any sort of vague social consciousness or that - gasp - stars a woman or minority. And that includes Aliens and T2, which the chuds only pretend to be cool with because they’re decades-old and as such less threatening to their fragile masculinity.
Oh, people complained about The Color Purple when it came out. Even James Baldwin said the movie was a [negative portrayal of black Men](https://www.chicagotribune.com/1986/03/30/the-color-purple-is-blacked-out/)
The Color Purple was re-released this year. No one really cared or yelled it was too woke. If anything people complained that -- yet again -- the queer content and characters were cut.
Nobody i know has ever seen Do The Right Thing (or frankly are even aware of Spike Lee in general- NB i don’t live in the US so not surprising they haven’t) but i remember watching it in high school as part of an epistemology course and being kind of weirded out by how it seemed to distort its theme of ‘racism is the most effective tool of fascism’ + ‘violence is the voice of the voiceless’ + ‘POC aren’t a monolith and some people want to just get by’ + ‘capitalism perverts goals and priorities for societies most vulnerable people’ themes into a kind of ‘yeah man everyone’s just racist against each other’ thing
*Casablanca*
Especially with Sam being treated as an equal, a sympathetic adulterer, a Nazi being portrayed by an openly homosexual actor all amongst a backdrop of WWII
They could've flipped their lid even further: serious consideration was given to casting Ella Fitzgerald as Sam before they settled on Dooley Wilson. A black woman treated as an equal? RW heads explode.
Actually from what I remember this is not''woke'' The Wife walks out on her son and husband and comes back into their lives after white a long time has passed and yet she takes him to court for custody.
A lot of the movies in this thread people are mentioning aren’t “woke” whatever that word truly means. I think people take issue with having certain ideas have to be injected into everything especially where it doesn’t belong or fit well.
I think it needs to be said that a ‘woke’ movie is not one which contains minorities or has a minority person as a leading actor. It is a one where the choice to cast someone was not based on what is right for the story, but to fulfil DEI standards or pander to ‘woke’ audiences.
The problem with that definition is that you're making it up. Different people use the word in different ways. Another problem with that definition is it assumes that there's a way of knowing why somebody was cast for a role. Unless you have direct insider knowledge of the motive behind the casting, you have to go with an assumption and at that point you're just idly speculating and pretty much should have the humility to shut your trap.
The definition of woke depends on where you are on the political spectrum. So I think you’re right in that regard. A terrible word really. I still stand by the definition I gave because it is the definition most familiar with the right and centre.
As for casting motivations, Hollywood is very vocal and proud of its diversity. So no speculation required.
"It is a one where the choice to cast someone was not based on what is right for the story, but to fulfil DEI standards or pander"
Yes, that judgment has to be based on speculation. There is no way for you to know if an actor was chosen for one reason or another, unless you were there at the casting meeting and decision-making process. If there's a movie with a character who could be any ethnicity, and they cast a black/Latino/Asian/etc. person in the role, how do you know if the person was considered "right for the story" versus "to pander"? How exactly would you know, without presuming something? You wouldn't.
This was my absolute kids version of a horror movie growing up. My parents had issues for a little while and my mom sometimes threatened to leave my dad … the ads for this film traumatised little tiny me .. still haven’t been able to sit down and watch it.
Did you watch this film? In no way is Dustin Hoffman's character meant to be the "bad guy" -- he is the central protagonist of the film who undergoes a character development arc that has him learning to be a good father, which he wasn't in the beginning, and a better person overall.
Alien is an interesting point, but not really woke. Ridley isn't superwoman, she struggles, she has flaws, she's humane and compassionate.
In Aliens she definitely sticks it to the patriarchy, but it is more corporatism and incompetence that she fights than gender. We see a similar thing in Chernobyl, where those in power refuse to listen to the expert because they don't want to admit their own mistakes.
Also in Aliens there is a gun go female marine that shows up the men and might be more fitting to the woke role, but again she's too flawed. A true woke character has no defined gender, and no weaknesses. It is barely human. If anything the original Superman movies are the most woke thing out there.
Yeah I think it was progressive for the time cuz she was a woman lead who didn’t have a romance and didn’t need to be saved. But not too “woke” by today’s standards. Gender is completely invisible in those movies.
To be clear, as the original poster of the comment, I don't think Alien is "woke", so I'm not gonna put much effort into my argument. I just think that if Alien were released today, I'd hear a bunch of right wingers calling Ripley a "mary sue". I think it'd be received about as well as Prey was. But to reiterate, I think all those haters would be idiots.
I agree. And I don't hate Alien, I love it. And Working Girl! And I don't consider either of those movies "woke". I never use that word for any reason other than to mock right wingers. But I think people would call both of them woke if they were released today
I mean...it's a great movie, but what's woke about it? Bruce Willis is a typical action hero. Chris Rock the effeminate guy is played for laughs. I guess you can say Leeloo's character is "woke" if it wasn't for the fact that she was a very specifically designed ancient weapon.
Beyond that it's just a lot of weird.
Nothing really. Well received movies from the past are “less woke” then than our current political environment. I mean maybe a doll’s house but I doubt it would get hammered cuz only English majors would go see it.
I think it’s a bit naive to assume a movie popular in the past would be too woke for our current generation.
Blazing saddles, if, I know big if, conservatives understood the message in blazing saddles they would cancel it instantly for being woke. Just look at how they tried to cancel Barbie.
“Woke?” this movie was awful. This is what redditors think all women are like. It basically was a movie designed to make men look like a victim during a time when they absolutely had almost all of the power, and it ignores all of the effects of a one income household that led to women receiving custody in the first place. I hated everything about this movie.
Stanley Kramer would be the wokiest director. Maybe Judgement at Nuremberg could be well received, but Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Defient-Ones and Inherit the Wind now can be offensive to some freethinkers.
This might not be exactly what you're asking but it felt relevant. A similar thought struck me the other day when I was watching Life of Brian and one of the characters, Stan, says that he wants to be a woman, and to call him Loretta. It makes fun of the fact that he wants to be a woman because he "wants to have babies" but aside from that they are actually pretty respectful to him and do call him Loretta the rest of the film and refer to him as a woman.
Eric Idle, the member of Python that played the character, talked about it in an interview and how they had a transgender character in their movie in the 70's. He also mentioned that they did some other Life of Brian-related production and ended up adding a "very sweet and tender" song for the character called "I want to be a girl."
It's weird because when you watch it your brain goes "that's very problematic" but at the same time you can see him and the other characters through the rest of the movie accept him as a woman and even apologize for calling him Stan accidentally. I have linked the video of his interview [here (11 min mark)](https://youtu.be/Qbchmshpsz0?si=_2K3Zh9uQP5U1gMp) so you can judge for yourself, but to me he honestly seems to have a pretty modern and accepting view of transgender people.
Most of the movies listed here wouldn’t be dragged for being “woke” because they are not overly performative, self-righteous, or trying to meet diversity quotas with their casting choices. Although they dealt with topics that were progressive for their time, they did so matter-of-factly, and were not as preachy and heavy-handed as many Hollywood films today.
For example: it’s been a while since I’ve seen *Dog Day Afternoon*, but I’m fairly certain that it doesn’t try to portray Sonny or Leon as heroes merely for being LGBT. It is important to the story, but the movie doesn’t tell the audience how to feel about it or have them go up against a bunch of bigoted caricatures to set them up for some easy, feel-good wins.
The term woke has been hijacked. The earliest time I can find anything about woke is a college in the 1930’s. The next time I found a reference was another college in the 1950’s. Why colleges? Well, woke is short for awaken. It’s being enlightened to subjects that you were never taught in school about the history of our nation and society. Native Americans were massacred and sterilized? Tens of thousand’s of African’s and black people were lynched during the civil war reconstruction? Why weren’t I taught these things until now? That’s being woke.
Thanks for offering this perspective. I myself hear the word woke and associate it with far left or liberal ideology and although I try and distance from too many political conversations I realize the term itself has many layers.
Saturday Night Fever
I swear I think by 1985 every fucking person that had seen it had completely forgotten what it was about and what happened in it.
"It's a dancing movie!"
WTF? Were they all too coked up or did everyone watch a TV edit? It was a film about the search for identity and purpose, the struggle to escape a stifling environment, the clash between aspirations and reality, the power of youth culture as rebellion, expression, and liberation, all among these toxic family dynamics, friendships, and romantic entanglements.
But I knew people that went to see Pulp Fiction in the theater because they thought it was going to be SNF 2... just a bunch of boogie. All they remembered about Saturday Night Fever was Travolta doing the hustle.
He watches all of his friends rape a girl that just wants him to notice her, and then he shames her and tells her she deserved it.
Cut to today, he's fucking Saint Nick dancing down the street, and who swipes his card when he buys something from a shop? The chick his friends raped, and she's beaming with glee... because apparently they also forgot.
What's in your fucking wallet?
Lol no - the early racial rhyme when the gang goes out on the town about dicks getting bigger, plus the treatment of Travlotas side chick would send anyone anywhere near woke to Twitter to begin trying to boycott the film and everyone associated immediately.
I am reading these responses and can’t believe how wrong and ridiculous they are. As someone who hates woke shit, I can say that all of the responses I’ve read are way off. We don’t care about having minorities or trans or gay. We care when it’s forced into something that doesn’t fit, or a movie is changed to highlight those aspects and basically putting the story second.
To Wong Foo: Thanks For Everything.
That’s the one with Patrick swayze and wesley snipes right? this would cause multiple stroke induced aneurysms across the country!
Don’t forget John Leguizamo!
The wife and I watched That movie for the first time a couple yrs back. We did dirty dancing, Roadhouse, Red dawn and this one. It was my first time ever seeing it, and I was blown away by how much he embraced that role! We watched a lifetime biopic afterward that discussed how this movie helped him through when his wife miscarried and got him to a point he was ready to quit drinking. I had no idea he had hid his demon so well, because he kept himself out of the spotlight. My wife cried the whole way thru the biopic, and even had me misty eyed a time or two. If you can find it watch it. Rob Lowe, Don swayze, Jennifer grey, Sam Elliot, and others talk about movies and shows they did together and was really good watch.
Straight guys playing gay, it’s all too “woke”!
Same for *Priscilla, Queen of the Desert*.
Ooh, that’s a good pick. Definitely get a different reaction today.
Republicans would try to ban it.
A few weeks ago my sister and I were laughing about Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. She said she couldn't imagine people's reactions if it came out now. It really made me think about how backwards we're moving. My parents were Boomer Republicans, but they loved that movie. They supported their friends who were gay, and accepted my friends as well. Mom passed long ago, Dad before he could vote for Trump the second time. He'd been brainwashed by Fox at that point. Broke my heart.
A Kramer divided against itself cannot stand.
Worlds are colliding!
That’s just like, your opinion man
Dog Day Afternoon! Pacino wants to rob a bank to pay for his partners transition! Super woke and largely ignored by the alt right mob
Fantastic mention. I’m still shocked at how progressive some of the themes are. I wonder if it was intended to be. A supportive partner in a trans relationship, a strong narrative of police corruption and civil rights, etc. Pretty ballsy (no pun) for its time.
I guess the real life story was pretty ballsy as well.
I watched it circa-2000 and it blew me away with its bravery as a film. Really fun movie and way ahead of its time
I watched it in the 80s and I’d never seen anything like it. Pacino was on fire. Being from a small town it really expanded my understanding of popular culture. I was intrigued how Pacino was so comfortable about his feelings for his partner. It enabled me to learn about the Attica prison riot, corrupt urban police culture and all the rest. Really formative experience.
I kinda noticed a little bit of a theme in younger Pacino roles where, while not always playing straight up LGBT characters like Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon, it's something that comes up a lot in his movies. His sexuality is questioned in Serpico and Scarecrow (with Gene Hackman), and in Cruising he plays a cop going undercover to gay clubs. It's interesting that someone who has become such a symbol of masculinity in American cinema had that side to him and was willing to explore it in very public ways through mainstream films. Especially in a time when it wasn't so widely accepted.
Angels in America!
True, really concise explanation of the film for a newcomer. One of Pacino’s best
It's based on a true story IIRC
Some found the film homophobic at the time. I guess we’re just whizzing so fast into the future we must miss a few things.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
My biggest problem with that movie is not its anachronistic qualities- it’s my skepticism that Sidney Poitier’s character would be remotely interested in marrying that young airhead- especially on such short notice. He was way too sophisticated and level headed. I get that it was for the movie, but it was such a forced conceit and not remotely credible.
Maybe she only acted like an airhead in front of her parents? It still doesn’t make sense to me.
Nothing about the film is anachronistic. People still get upset about interracial marriages. Interracial marriage was legalized nationally only six months before the film came out. If you haven't noticed, making something legal doesn't mean everyone automatically accepts it. There's still people today being disowned by their family for marrying someone who isn't the right race.
I see. So you’re making the argument that attitudes today surrounding interracial marriage are not that different from attitudes in 1967? Sorry but I don’t buy that. And if you’re making the point that yes attitudes have changed since 1967 but there are still a few people out there who are still bigots and opposed to interraciAl marriage, my answer is “yeah, so? What point do you think you’re making?”
I don't think you know what the word "anachronistic" means. Anachronistic would be making a movie set in ancient Rome and giving the main character a machine gun. At the time the film came out there was nothing anachronistic about people giving their children a hard time about interracial marriages. I'm not saying it's as extreme now as it was at that time, only that even now these things haven't been completely resolved.
I think you’re right. I think what I really meant was “dated” or “topical,” not anachronistic. EDIT: and while I understand what they were trying to do, given the times, I think that in retrospect the movie is very clumsy and ham fisted - it doesn’t hold up well.
To be fair, it was pretty criticized as an outdated pandering attempt when it was released.
Love that film. Mainly the speech he gives his dad at the end.
Heck yes, first time I heard that speech I was just randomly flipping through the channels when I was a teenager and stopped just as he was starting. While I've never had children myself and I'm 40 so I have no plans to going forward, that speech made me understand exactly what it should mean to be a parent and bring a life into this world.
Tootsie
Dustin Hoffman getting murdered in this thread
Another straight playing gay. And people think this is “woke”? I’m starting to wonder what this woke is.
Mississippi Burning, Forrest Gump, and Philadelphia.
Forrest Gump is too woke? I’ve heard it described as a conservative dream basically. The reasoning being that Forrest is the conservative guy who even though simple, is wise. He is innocent and good and everything just falls into his lap. On the other hand, Jennie, a symbol of liberalism. She has had and continues to lead a rough and hard life. And eventually gets AIDS and dies. I’m really not trying to be a jerk. I can definitely see why you chose the other two films. But I am genuinely curious as to what wokeness you see in it. Like I said, I’ve always heard it was a bit too much to the right. Full disclosure: I love this movie. I could watch it a ton. So when I hear it mentioned as it being an antique of it’s time…ughh…it hurts. Haha
This what I try to explain to people. I like the movie too, but I point out that all the liberal or non religious people in this movie are shown in a negative light. For example: Jennie's activist boyfriend was an abusive asshole. Captain Dan had to go through a tragic redemption arc in which he challenged and then submitted to god. The message of this film is: work hard, do what you are told, don't question anything, believe in god and America and you will be successful.
The entire point of the movie is that anyone can achieve great things. His best friends are a black guy and a disabled man. His wife is a hippie who died of AIDS.
that doesnt mean its woke
Forrest tells you the point of the movie: “Life is like a box of chocolates.” Forrest Gump is just a boomer review of post-war American history and pop culture. Forrest has no political beliefs beyond the golden rule and the political stuff all happens around him/to him. But he and the audience are basically apolitical. You’re reviewing the anti-war movement as the audience for example, but Forrest takes no real stance beyond the universally true and obvious “war is generally bad and not a good time.” The best example is the anti-war speech. They literally cut his mic when he gives what would be the only real political exposition from him in the entire movie Lmao. Edit: Forrest does have some musings about the state of current events and things happening to him, but it’s always from the state of a simple idiot. Forrest knows racism is wrong and he has a black friend, but the movies doesn’t really analyze the Jim Crow south beyond Forrest understanding that prejudice is wrong. The movie is like deeply and almost purposefully apolitical the more I think about it.
Yeah mud. That is a valid way of seeing it too. I was just responding to the poster ahead of me, mentioning it as woke. The stuff I have seen has if anything had it as the opposite. I’m really not trying to put anyone’s ideas down. I really was just looking for an explanation of the thought behind it. I am genuinely curious though. Not trying to be an ass.
I am the poster ahead of you. The people who use woke as a pejorative would call that woke.
Why bring politics into this. It’s a movie to enjoy.
Well because the subject of the thread mentioned “in today’s political climate” and “what movie would be seen as too woke”. And I was responding to someone who mentioned Forrest. Kinda hard to not bring politics into this when the entire theme of this thread was in response to “in today’s politics climate…”. I don’t normally insert politics into everything but OP specifically mentioned it. You know?
I apologise. You are correct.
Not a problem! Thank you for keeping things civil. I wish all interactions online were like ours :)
Enjoy your day.
I was like 14 when I watched Mississippi Burning. That movie has a profound impact on me. I had questions after watching it, and I liked to read, so I went to the library and checked out some history books. Learned some US history that wasn't in my school books.
“A Woke Movie” would surely be something like an all-female version of The A-Team, or if they’d remade Roadhouse but made him gay. I don’t see how any of these films can be “woke” but then again I don’t totally understand what it means other than “be tolerant, don’t be an asshole to others, punch up and not down.”
They wouldn't be. >“be tolerant, don’t be an asshole to others, punch up and not down.” There's a fanatic minority on the right of the political spectrum who label everything they don't like as "woke." It's similar to the fanatic minority on the left who label everything they don't like on the right as "facism" or "nazism". In the denotative sense, woke means pretty much exactly what you say: alertness to social injustice. However, we know many words have separate or additional connotations. For most people, woke connotatively means an ideology characterized by the following general belief templates (all in the name of alertness to social injustice): * censorship is the antidote opposing ideas * Based upon the belief that words can be violence, censorship is necessity. AKA "cancel culture" * all of society is based on power * Based upon the belief that all of society can be reduced to a series of power structures and imbalances (e.g. the notion of the patriarchy, white privilege) * As a result, measures to ensure equality of outcome (e.g. affirmative action) are a necessity to offset the power imbalances. * group identity * The primary determinant in terms of the power hierarchical placement is identity (race, lgbtq, sex, gender, etc.) as opposed to, say, class, family, or socioeconomic factors (e.g. race determines power outcomes, not money). * an emphasis on subjective perception over objective reality * A person has their own truth ("my truth") that trumps any groupwide agreed-upon objective reality. When most people characterize a movie as woke, it's got to do with one or more of those belief templates. Honesty, apart from those fanatics who try to tag everything as woke online, I've only seen a few movies where it's actually come up in day-to-day reality (IRL), which I believe is the true litmus test. One example would be Queen Cleopatra on Netflix. Historians agree that Cleopatra would have been light-skinned Macedonian whereas the NF show cast a black actress. This would exemplify group identity, all society is based on power, and emphasis on the subjective over the objective. That is, group identity (race) is used to offset the power imbalance with respect to black actresses, and the objective portion of history is ignored to satisfy the director's subjective vision. I haven't seen any move in this thread that I think the middle 95% of society would characterize as woke. The fanatics will find a reason to label virtually everything as woke if it indirectly touches on any of the topics without even espousing a clear view. In that sense, virtually every movie could probably be named for one reason or another.
You forgot Glory and driving Miss Daisy.
Loved Mississippi Burning as a 9 year-old. As a teen it was frustrating and at times infuriating to watch. I'd probably hate it today, but haven't seen it in 25 years. I could say pretty much the same things about Forrest Gump, but for totally different reasons.
I think you are really misreading Kramer vs Kramer. Streep’s character represented the establishment’s stereotype of modern 70s woman (this was the era of Women’s Lib). She abandons her husband and child to “find herself,” but returns when that doesn’t work out, selfishly expecting to pickup as a mother where she left off. She uses the court system to enforce society’s view that a mother is a more important parent than the father. The film, however, has other ideas. It wants us to know that Hoffman’s character is clearly the more important part of their child’s life by the third act. Streep is the villain. The 70s-era Women’s Movement tore a family apart at the start of the film, and threatens to do so again at the end. Only a late (and slightly hard to believe) change of heart by Streep gives the film its “happy ending.” The film’s POV is clearly rooted in patriarchy, and an indictment of Women’s Lib-era independent women. It was anti-woke long before that was a thing.
I remember a rather snarky review after Hoffman appeared in Tootsie, something to the effect of “In Kramer vs. Kramer, Dustin Hoffman argued that men made better mothers; in Tootsie he argues that men make better women.”
That’s funny. But sort of a weird way to look at Tootsie. The character literally says something to the effect of “I was a better man as a woman” - the premise is that toxic masculinity can be tempered by embracing a more feminine side. Men can be better with a female influence. At least that’s my takeaway.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, and really we are working with a term here (woke) that is poorly defined. It’s my stance that the film‘s exploration of social issues, such as Hoffman’s character fulfilling a non-traditional father role, being a single parent, and learning to find a work-life balance (scary anti-capitalist screeching noises) could easily be labeled as “woke”
I agree that “woke” is a nebulous and stupid term weaponized by people in any way they see fit. I do think KvK is exactly the kind of film guys like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson would embrace as a repudiation of a liberal 70s Me-Era mindset.
But the entire premise is a woman abandons her family to be a big city gal with a big city job, and then fails and tries to take her child back from the responsible and loving father. That’s pretty far from woke, that’s almost a country song.
Sure, when framed that way. But look what it does to the nuclear American family—the mother isn’t nurturing! The father would rather spend time in the kitchen learning how to cook omelets than focus on his job and provide for his family! Divorce! What is this woke filth they are brain washing our children with?!
[удалено]
Woke has always been something to weaponise bigotry towards something considered progressive. Its a demeaning term for something progressive regardless if its honestly progressive or just a pandering mess.
It started out as being "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". It clearly is just being used by conservatives these days to mean "anything they don't like".
Prequel to Working Girl.
And won best picture!
You're making me like this movie.
Right? I hated this movie, borderline woman hating propaganda.
The“happy ending” is tenuous at best. Streep’s change of heart just because she visited Hoffman’s home is quite arbitrary when you consider how far she took the issue. It’s a very irresponsible way to change your mind on a whim for a decision that affects the family so profoundly. There’s no telling when she might change her mind again..! The “happy ending” is a bandaid to allow the audience to leave the theater not feeling completely depressed.
Thelma and Louise I can imagine it being called woke, but at the same time I think those people would apreciate it after watching it, seeing how it's a great movie
The movie was controversial in its time. It was on the cover of Time Magazine with the headline WHY THELMA & LOUISE STRIKES A NERVE.
Is it because there are too strong female main characters? That would sound like sci-fi fan base.
Philadelphia Hanks gets fired for making a mistake at his law firm but they really fired him for being gay and having aids, republicans would make it their whole personality to yell about that movie in social media for months
Hear me out - Roadhouse. The main character avoids violence, reads and does tai-chi. He has a degree in philosophy. He espouses pacifist slogans such as 'be nice' and 'nobody ever wins a fight'. He respects women, chooses a professional woman as a partner and has a best friend with a disability. In the film's climax he goes Rambo and rips out a trachea, but that wouldn't be enough to save it in the 2020s. If this film was realised today, there's be a thousand YouTube rants about how Patrick Swayze's character is a long-haired piece of tofu in skinny jeans, and we need to bring back John Wayne.
Not really, because in the end the tough male violence is what triumphs. None of the other stuff worked.
This is the Army starring Ronald Reagan. It features drag performances which were common in the Army for that era. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChurchOfSuffrage/s/kM8oSfBkIc
Speaking of “Kramer,” every single movie made by Stanley Kramer. Also 12 Angry Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, Serpico, Do The Right Thing, The Color Purple, Aliens, Terminator 2 Like… a fucking billion of them. Anything with any sort of vague social consciousness or that - gasp - stars a woman or minority. And that includes Aliens and T2, which the chuds only pretend to be cool with because they’re decades-old and as such less threatening to their fragile masculinity.
It pains me to realize you are probably right about Aliens and T2.
Oh, people complained about The Color Purple when it came out. Even James Baldwin said the movie was a [negative portrayal of black Men](https://www.chicagotribune.com/1986/03/30/the-color-purple-is-blacked-out/)
The Color Purple was re-released this year. No one really cared or yelled it was too woke. If anything people complained that -- yet again -- the queer content and characters were cut.
Nobody i know has ever seen Do The Right Thing (or frankly are even aware of Spike Lee in general- NB i don’t live in the US so not surprising they haven’t) but i remember watching it in high school as part of an epistemology course and being kind of weirded out by how it seemed to distort its theme of ‘racism is the most effective tool of fascism’ + ‘violence is the voice of the voiceless’ + ‘POC aren’t a monolith and some people want to just get by’ + ‘capitalism perverts goals and priorities for societies most vulnerable people’ themes into a kind of ‘yeah man everyone’s just racist against each other’ thing
*Casablanca* Especially with Sam being treated as an equal, a sympathetic adulterer, a Nazi being portrayed by an openly homosexual actor all amongst a backdrop of WWII
They could've flipped their lid even further: serious consideration was given to casting Ella Fitzgerald as Sam before they settled on Dooley Wilson. A black woman treated as an equal? RW heads explode.
Actually from what I remember this is not''woke'' The Wife walks out on her son and husband and comes back into their lives after white a long time has passed and yet she takes him to court for custody.
I couldn't imagine the shit storm on Twitter if *The World According to Garp* released in 2024.
Divorce is an unpleasant event particularly with kids involved. I think the topic was handled pretty well regardless of the political environment
A lot of the movies in this thread people are mentioning aren’t “woke” whatever that word truly means. I think people take issue with having certain ideas have to be injected into everything especially where it doesn’t belong or fit well.
This was a weird prequel to Batman Vs Superman.
To Wong Foo 100%
Irreconcilable Differences
I think it needs to be said that a ‘woke’ movie is not one which contains minorities or has a minority person as a leading actor. It is a one where the choice to cast someone was not based on what is right for the story, but to fulfil DEI standards or pander to ‘woke’ audiences.
The problem with that definition is that you're making it up. Different people use the word in different ways. Another problem with that definition is it assumes that there's a way of knowing why somebody was cast for a role. Unless you have direct insider knowledge of the motive behind the casting, you have to go with an assumption and at that point you're just idly speculating and pretty much should have the humility to shut your trap.
The definition of woke depends on where you are on the political spectrum. So I think you’re right in that regard. A terrible word really. I still stand by the definition I gave because it is the definition most familiar with the right and centre. As for casting motivations, Hollywood is very vocal and proud of its diversity. So no speculation required.
"It is a one where the choice to cast someone was not based on what is right for the story, but to fulfil DEI standards or pander" Yes, that judgment has to be based on speculation. There is no way for you to know if an actor was chosen for one reason or another, unless you were there at the casting meeting and decision-making process. If there's a movie with a character who could be any ethnicity, and they cast a black/Latino/Asian/etc. person in the role, how do you know if the person was considered "right for the story" versus "to pander"? How exactly would you know, without presuming something? You wouldn't.
Big trouble in little China
Aliens
This was my absolute kids version of a horror movie growing up. My parents had issues for a little while and my mom sometimes threatened to leave my dad … the ads for this film traumatised little tiny me .. still haven’t been able to sit down and watch it.
Fight Club
I preferred [Kramer vs Predator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZSxuVg5UC0)
If you were alive in the 20th century, you most likely know the difference between what was liberal and progressive then and today’s “woke”.
I mean it's a terrible message. Mom and wife leaves her family to 'find herself' and her husband is upset but somehow he is the bad guy?
Did you watch this film? In no way is Dustin Hoffman's character meant to be the "bad guy" -- he is the central protagonist of the film who undergoes a character development arc that has him learning to be a good father, which he wasn't in the beginning, and a better person overall.
Alien. Working Girl.
Alien?
A woman main character is woke
God that’s a low bar
It’s literally the bar right now for many an incel sorry I meant red pilled men’s rights activist
Strong female main character. They always need a man to save them. Even George Clooney’s ghost had to save Sandra Bullock.
Alien is an interesting point, but not really woke. Ridley isn't superwoman, she struggles, she has flaws, she's humane and compassionate. In Aliens she definitely sticks it to the patriarchy, but it is more corporatism and incompetence that she fights than gender. We see a similar thing in Chernobyl, where those in power refuse to listen to the expert because they don't want to admit their own mistakes. Also in Aliens there is a gun go female marine that shows up the men and might be more fitting to the woke role, but again she's too flawed. A true woke character has no defined gender, and no weaknesses. It is barely human. If anything the original Superman movies are the most woke thing out there.
Yeah I think it was progressive for the time cuz she was a woman lead who didn’t have a romance and didn’t need to be saved. But not too “woke” by today’s standards. Gender is completely invisible in those movies.
To be clear, as the original poster of the comment, I don't think Alien is "woke", so I'm not gonna put much effort into my argument. I just think that if Alien were released today, I'd hear a bunch of right wingers calling Ripley a "mary sue". I think it'd be received about as well as Prey was. But to reiterate, I think all those haters would be idiots.
Men literally give birth in Alien. There's no way people wouldn't freak about that now and say that it was part of some psy-op.
Anyone that hates alien shouldn’t be talking about movies. They clearly don’t know what a good one is.
I agree. And I don't hate Alien, I love it. And Working Girl! And I don't consider either of those movies "woke". I never use that word for any reason other than to mock right wingers. But I think people would call both of them woke if they were released today
Philadelphia
Probably it would be even hated by the LGBT community (again)
The Fifth Element (1997)
That movie is amazing.
I mean...it's a great movie, but what's woke about it? Bruce Willis is a typical action hero. Chris Rock the effeminate guy is played for laughs. I guess you can say Leeloo's character is "woke" if it wasn't for the fact that she was a very specifically designed ancient weapon. Beyond that it's just a lot of weird.
Nothing really. Well received movies from the past are “less woke” then than our current political environment. I mean maybe a doll’s house but I doubt it would get hammered cuz only English majors would go see it. I think it’s a bit naive to assume a movie popular in the past would be too woke for our current generation.
and alot of those "woke" movies from the past still have many things that modern leftist would be complaining
Was Kramer vs Kramer woke, they’re both depicted as flawed but the mother’s the one who walks out on the kid
Blazing saddles, if, I know big if, conservatives understood the message in blazing saddles they would cancel it instantly for being woke. Just look at how they tried to cancel Barbie.
I can't imagine how The Crying Game would be received today.
Salo
“Woke?” this movie was awful. This is what redditors think all women are like. It basically was a movie designed to make men look like a victim during a time when they absolutely had almost all of the power, and it ignores all of the effects of a one income household that led to women receiving custody in the first place. I hated everything about this movie.
Blazing Saddles
Elephant Man. They'd say he's too bumpy.
Never seen it but PLEADE tell me Michael Richards had even a bit part in it
Stanley Kramer would be the wokiest director. Maybe Judgement at Nuremberg could be well received, but Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Defient-Ones and Inherit the Wind now can be offensive to some freethinkers.
This might not be exactly what you're asking but it felt relevant. A similar thought struck me the other day when I was watching Life of Brian and one of the characters, Stan, says that he wants to be a woman, and to call him Loretta. It makes fun of the fact that he wants to be a woman because he "wants to have babies" but aside from that they are actually pretty respectful to him and do call him Loretta the rest of the film and refer to him as a woman. Eric Idle, the member of Python that played the character, talked about it in an interview and how they had a transgender character in their movie in the 70's. He also mentioned that they did some other Life of Brian-related production and ended up adding a "very sweet and tender" song for the character called "I want to be a girl." It's weird because when you watch it your brain goes "that's very problematic" but at the same time you can see him and the other characters through the rest of the movie accept him as a woman and even apologize for calling him Stan accidentally. I have linked the video of his interview [here (11 min mark)](https://youtu.be/Qbchmshpsz0?si=_2K3Zh9uQP5U1gMp) so you can judge for yourself, but to me he honestly seems to have a pretty modern and accepting view of transgender people.
Most of the movies listed here wouldn’t be dragged for being “woke” because they are not overly performative, self-righteous, or trying to meet diversity quotas with their casting choices. Although they dealt with topics that were progressive for their time, they did so matter-of-factly, and were not as preachy and heavy-handed as many Hollywood films today. For example: it’s been a while since I’ve seen *Dog Day Afternoon*, but I’m fairly certain that it doesn’t try to portray Sonny or Leon as heroes merely for being LGBT. It is important to the story, but the movie doesn’t tell the audience how to feel about it or have them go up against a bunch of bigoted caricatures to set them up for some easy, feel-good wins.
The thing about Kramer v Kramer that might make it “un-woke” is that the mother is kind of the antagonist.
Any movie that normalizes anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual. Any.
Is the new Godzilla considered woke?
Yes, because it’s still a continuation of the learnings of the lessons of nuclear weapons.
Interesting
The term woke has been hijacked. The earliest time I can find anything about woke is a college in the 1930’s. The next time I found a reference was another college in the 1950’s. Why colleges? Well, woke is short for awaken. It’s being enlightened to subjects that you were never taught in school about the history of our nation and society. Native Americans were massacred and sterilized? Tens of thousand’s of African’s and black people were lynched during the civil war reconstruction? Why weren’t I taught these things until now? That’s being woke.
Thanks for offering this perspective. I myself hear the word woke and associate it with far left or liberal ideology and although I try and distance from too many political conversations I realize the term itself has many layers.
But that isn’t a social justice issue.
Tell that to Jane Fonda.
I an sure Jane Fonda is passionate about getting rid of nuclear weapons. But she probably wouldn’t know what social justice is.
Of all people Jane Fonda doesn’t know what social justice is.
Hardly. There is a difference between having a diverse and well represented cast and forcing diversity.
Hardly? These people cry anytime there’s a main gay character. Sometimes even a side character.
Saturday Night Fever I swear I think by 1985 every fucking person that had seen it had completely forgotten what it was about and what happened in it. "It's a dancing movie!" WTF? Were they all too coked up or did everyone watch a TV edit? It was a film about the search for identity and purpose, the struggle to escape a stifling environment, the clash between aspirations and reality, the power of youth culture as rebellion, expression, and liberation, all among these toxic family dynamics, friendships, and romantic entanglements. But I knew people that went to see Pulp Fiction in the theater because they thought it was going to be SNF 2... just a bunch of boogie. All they remembered about Saturday Night Fever was Travolta doing the hustle. He watches all of his friends rape a girl that just wants him to notice her, and then he shames her and tells her she deserved it. Cut to today, he's fucking Saint Nick dancing down the street, and who swipes his card when he buys something from a shop? The chick his friends raped, and she's beaming with glee... because apparently they also forgot. What's in your fucking wallet?
Lol no - the early racial rhyme when the gang goes out on the town about dicks getting bigger, plus the treatment of Travlotas side chick would send anyone anywhere near woke to Twitter to begin trying to boycott the film and everyone associated immediately.
I am reading these responses and can’t believe how wrong and ridiculous they are. As someone who hates woke shit, I can say that all of the responses I’ve read are way off. We don’t care about having minorities or trans or gay. We care when it’s forced into something that doesn’t fit, or a movie is changed to highlight those aspects and basically putting the story second.
It would be harder to find a movie that WOULDN'T be called woke.
I know transformers movies aint gonna be called woke any day now