The Woke Mind Virus era wasn't funny. Not by a long shot.
People couldn't express reasonable points of view without looking over their shoulder. Comedians had to weigh their jokes carefully or face the consequences. Unexpurgated violence got labeled as "fiery but mostly peaceful."
You remember.
Still, one aspect of the cultural scourge brought a smile to more than a few faces. You never could be woke enough.
Director Christopher Nolan is finding that out the hard way.
In the woke era, progressives always fell short of true woke perfection.
No matter how hard you tried. No matter how you appeased the far-Left mob, there was always something more you could have done. Take the 2019 comedy "Booksmart." It might be worthy of time capsule treatment as the most aggressively woke movie possible.
And, to no one's shock, it did poorly in theaters.
Still, the woke mob wasn't satisfied with its empowered female characters, progressive tics and nonstop lectures. The far-Left Buzzfeed praised the film but said it still came up short.
How? Not enough class warfare!
But there’s one area where it doesn’t feel of the moment, and that’s when it comes to acknowledging its underlying class dynamics, and how much privilege can impact what gets interpreted as intelligence, or achievement (or make up for the lack of it).
Oh, and casting two young white actresses as the leads proved problematic, too. This was just a short seven years ago.
Seemingly woke-friendly movies like "Soul" and "Wonder Woman 1984" also got slammed for not crossing all the Ts and dotting all the Is on their woke agenda. The former was Pixar's first major film with a black lead, but that character's interaction with white co-stars crossed a harsh red line.
As for "Wonder Woman 1984," the story gave too much screen time to an icky male character (played by Chris Pine).
Now, it's Nolan's turn.
The auteur behind "The Odyssey" leaned on feminist author Emily Wilson's translation of Homer's epic poem to shape his film. That's the honor of a lifetime, full stop. And, apparently, Nolan's stamp of approval led to her book climbing the charts anew.
Thank you, thank you!
Except Wilson has a bone to pick with Nolan's film. Several, actually.
She called some of the film's messaging "incoherent," questioned the absence of Zeus and Poseidon and attacked Penelope, a key character played by Anne Hathaway.
Wilson even found the dog portrayed in the film as pandering of the highest order.
Best of all? She gave the film's marketing team the worst quote possible to use on the movie poster moving forward.
I didn’t feel it was pulling teeth to engage with it.
A simple "thank you" note would have sufficed. Instead, she found the nearest rhetorical dagger and plunged it into Nolan's back.
Maybe Nolan should have made trans actor Elliot Page the film's lead, not Matt Damon. Then again, the remaining wokesters would have found something else to bemoan. Wilson would likely be leading the charge.
