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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Discussion of...     General Chat  ›  I'll just leave this one here... Moderators: bert
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  Author    I'll just leave this one here...  (currently 7653 views)
AlsoBen
Posted: May 16th, 2021, 9:46pm Report to Moderator
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Identity politics are a conservative fiction, invented to distract and divide the working class so we don’t overrule and overthrow the one-percent who control the means of production.

Jeff Bezos will change Amazon’s app thumbnail in support of Black Lives Matter but then underpay and exploit his black employees.

Biden is just Trump wrapped in a rainbow flag and armed with more advanced vocabulary. Nobody in our current political institutions care about you, including so-called socialists like Bernie Sanders and AOC.

It all needs to be burnt down and started again.


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Grandma Bear
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 6:36am Report to Moderator
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This is kind of funny because politics always get people riled up and start arguing or at least pipe up with their point of view regardless of where the discussion started. I watched the video. The whole thing. Even paused SOTU on CNN to do so. The video was actually about how this affects the movies. A medium we all try to write for, so extra funny/interesting that so few watched it. Her point was that wokeness, a stupid word to begin with IMO. A new badge people like to wear so other know they are a good person and not some neanderthal. What she talks about is how this wokeness and cancel culture is forcing movies to fit into this ideal and by doing so making movies bad. Mainly by having female heroes be heroes, which is fine, but they are heroes and superheroes without earning it. Therefore, no one can relate to them. Not even women which is half of the audience. Also, they can't seem to be heroes or leaders without putting men down. That was kind of the point of the video for those of you who didn't watch.  


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Heretic
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 9:02am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Grandma Bear
What she talks about is how this wokeness and cancel culture is forcing movies to fit into this ideal and by doing so making movies bad.


Can anyone explain, explicitly, how "wokeness" or whatever "forces" Hollywood to do anything?

Who are the people doing the forcing, and who are the people being forced?
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Zack
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 9:12am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Heretic


Who are the people doing the forcing, and who are the people being forced?


Those in charge are doing the forcing, and those who want to work in the industry are the ones being forced.
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Grandma Bear
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 9:17am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Heretic


Can anyone explain, explicitly, how "wokeness" or whatever "forces" Hollywood to do anything?

Who are the people doing the forcing, and who are the people being forced?

You have to be woke or you might get cancelled as in boycotted and no one wants to be that. Especially not when you're selling a product and that's how you make a living.



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Heretic
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 9:53am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Zack
Those in charge are doing the forcing


Like who? The CEOs are "woke"? The board members are "woke"? The chairmen are "woke"? Personally I would describe the entire corporate structure and business model of every major film company as completely non-woke: entirely profit-driven, dependent on underpaying and overworking the below-the-line crew, enabling of sexual harassment and assault, etc. etc. I don't think the people running this industry are "woke."

Unless you mean that they are only pretending to be "woke," in which case the problem is them, not the ideology.


Quoted from Grandma Bear
You have to be woke or you might get cancelled as in boycotted and no one wants to be that. Especially not when you're selling a product and that's how you make a living.


How often does this happen? Are there really large numbers of people whose otherwise successful careers have ended when they merely expressed an un-woke opinion?

(Actually I can think of one, sort of...this asshole made my friend's life hell for two years before they finally got him pushed out: https://www.salon.com/2021/05/.....a-finally-got-fired/

Note that it took two full years, many people quitting, and many other people organizing to get any traction with the higher-ups.)
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Zack
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 10:04am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Heretic


Unless you mean that they are only pretending to be "woke," in which case the problem is them, not the ideology.



That's exactly what I mean. They pretend to be woke, and push the woke narrative in their products, out of fear that the REAL cult of woke will cancel their products.  
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Heretic
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 10:17am Report to Moderator
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Then first of all, why are you blaming "the woke cult" for decisions made by a bunch of non-woke multi-millionaire execs? If you don't like a decision, it seems like the obvious people to blame are the people who have the power in making the decision.

And how does the "woke cult" have so much power? Do they represent a significant portion of the market and have economic power? If so, they are just the "mainstream" and it's just Hollywood catering as usual. If not -- and surely the answer is not -- then what magical power do they use to "cancel" things?

Is there a major Hollywood movie that has been "cancelled" by the woke? Is there a major Hollywood creative who has been "cancelled" by the woke? If executives are really scared of this, shouldn't we expect it to have happened a couple times?
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Zack
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 10:29am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Heretic
Then first of all, why are you blaming "the woke cult" for decisions made by a bunch of non-woke multi-millionaire execs? If you don't like a decision, it seems like the obvious people to blame are the people who have the power in making the decision.



I blame the woke cult because they are the ones demanding things they deem "un-woke" to be canceled.

And I blame the execs for giving into the demands of a hateful cult.

And I blame MYSELF for letting all this stupid shit get to me. Ugh.

We clearly don't agree, but that's all good. No harm, no foul.
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eldave1
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 11:08am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Heretic
Then first of all, why are you blaming "the woke cult" for decisions made by a bunch of non-woke multi-millionaire execs? If you don't like a decision, it seems like the obvious people to blame are the people who have the power in making the decision.

And how does the "woke cult" have so much power? Do they represent a significant portion of the market and have economic power? If so, they are just the "mainstream" and it's just Hollywood catering as usual. If not -- and surely the answer is not -- then what magical power do they use to "cancel" things?

Is there a major Hollywood movie that has been "cancelled" by the woke? Is there a major Hollywood creative who has been "cancelled" by the woke? If executives are really scared of this, shouldn't we expect it to have happened a couple times?


Good, God you couldn't be more on point. This is it exactly. The CEO OF WOKENESS doesn't call up a studio and say - lookie here, you know that male commander you have in your next Sci-fi film. We want him replaced with a female commander. Oh, and while you're at it... could you please make it look like she didn't really earn her stripes and she disdains men. ...Thank you.

Studios try to cater to what they think we want so that they can sell tickets and make money. Sometimes they nail it. Sometimes they screw the pooch. It could very well be that the same mindset that brought us a strong character like Ripley in Aliens is the same mindset that brought us purpled hair Laura Dern. In the former they nailed it. In the latter they didn't. OR - for all we effing know the writer wanted a character that believes she is entitled simply because she is a woman or has a disdain for man versus having a man vs. woman agenda.



My Scripts can all be seen here:

http://dlambertson.wix.com/scripts
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Heretic
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 11:28am Report to Moderator
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Cheers Dave!

And cheers Zack. Yep we definitely won't agree, but that's all good for sure!

***

I've asked a bunch of questions. My thoughts:

There are lots of groups demanding that things be canceled. It seems to me that Hollywood generally ignores all of them, except the ones with financial power (for example: https://www.theguardian.com/fi.....-sony-censored-greed).

Small but dedicated groups do get companies to change unimportant things -- people got the Snyder cut released, people got Sonic's appearance changed, and more power to 'em. But the idea that any of these groups have any sort of significant power over the direction of Hollywood movies -- including the "woke," which as described represent a very small portion of society and therefore a very small portion of ticket sales -- seems quite far-fetched to me.

Hollywood movies ARE pretty bad right now and they DO have a bunch of moronic, corporate-approved "woke" messaging. This is currently standard for North American business. To choose an extreme example, the CIA also has a bunch of moronic, corporate-approved "woke" messaging (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news.....ries-amid-criticism/). The CIA is, to put it mildly, not woke. So I'm thinking maybe "woke" messaging isn't a good barometer for whether an organization is actually adhering to "woke" ideals.
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Andrew
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 11:53am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Heretic


Can anyone explain, explicitly, how "wokeness" or whatever "forces" Hollywood to do anything?

Who are the people doing the forcing, and who are the people being forced?


That's a broader question to explain why any idea takes root and forms groupthink.

Many simply want to benefit from the reputational, and by extension, commercial benefits to singing off the same songsheet.

It doesn't take a lot of ideologically motivated individuals to enforce groupthink; it's aided by cowardice and examples of 'cancel culture' to push others to toe the line, or, in other words, choosing career > truth.

Having worked on Hollywood productions, it's a perfect representation of craven sycophancy. People want their next jobs, and will follow most avenues to get there.

It's why you see most of the very top tier talent rarely pushing this nonsense in their own personal communications. Tom Cruise doesn't need to speak woke nonsense to get ahead.

Middle tier / aspirational talent most certainly do. There's a clear competitive advantage to speak "wokese" (excellent primer here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/woke-language-privilege), and it may be the difference to getting a job or not as we see star power wane (actors being the attraction rather than the property).

As for who is coordinating it; as mentioned, you only need to insert a handful of ideologically motivated individuals to outpower a general feeling of "avoid politics and religion" and thus capsize a politically neutral workplace.

Hollywood is no different to any other industry in being susceptible to the prevailing political winds, and it is here where the most significant conversations is: the ideas.

These are simply bad ideas that are being amplified by Hollywood; from commercial calculation (we include x and y and we will sell more tickets) to religious fervour to the idea (the absurd idea that the US is a white supremacy; absurd because facts do not support the claim, and people forget the difference between correlation and causation).

There is a complacent belief in an organic uprising in response to completely unacceptable racism, sexism and bigotry rooted in the past that will give way to a natural course correction to return us to a more even footing. I would agree with this if it were not for the overwhelming body of evidence in literature about the roots - and intent - of the ideas undergirding what's happening and manifesting in such phenomena as cancel culture, etc.

My argument is this is not a spontaneous uprising against an understandable - and justified - desire to right historic wrongs, but is actually rooted in a pernicious ideology dating back to postmodern thinkers like Focault and Derrida.

The postmodernists work was built upon with the Focauldian emphasis on power-knowledge, and the Derridian emphasis on deconstruction. It birthed ideas in the 70s, 80s and 90s that have now gone mainstream, and Hollywood is one organ of its growth. A critical one, but the ideas don't ome from Hollywood; it's simply spread from there.


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Andrew
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 12:13pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Heretic

Hollywood movies ARE pretty bad right now and they DO have a bunch of moronic, corporate-approved "woke" messaging. This is currently standard for North American business. To choose an extreme example, the CIA also has a bunch of moronic, corporate-approved "woke" messaging (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news.....ries-amid-criticism/). The CIA is, to put it mildly, not woke. So I'm thinking maybe "woke" messaging isn't a good barometer for whether an organization is actually adhering to "woke" ideals.


This is what the purview of the video is about: the ostentatious display of woke ideas fused with unsavoury levels of entitlement and obnoxiousness.

It's like the outry around Selma. An average movie, at best, that was treated like a shoehorn for an Oscar because Ava DuVernay directed it.

Or Elizabeth Banks equating the failure of her movie as being linked only to sexism. Why did Green Lantern fail? Why did superhero movies fail to get critical acclaim for so long? Because the quality wasn't there. I have sympathy with trhe fact there are lesser numbers of female led movies, so when they fail the % is higher, so the assumption is made on why it failed, and the easy answer is an -ism. It doesn't make it so. It means we need a bigger sample size, and believing in the marketplace of ideas.

But, of course, it's much easier to blame others for the failure of a film than to look inwards. It's this arrogance, condescension and entitlement that the video rightly calls out. People pushing this type of stuff usually think they're the smartest person in the room, yet seldom are.

What about the belief that we must see representation at the awards? Why? It's backwards thinking. You reward quality and reinforce meritocracy, regardless of the identity bona fides involved.

To address concerns around representation, it's about financing. Finance filmmakers to realise their visions. Don't insist on characters being x and y, or making that character a cookie cutter political message. It simply creates uninspiring work and rightly pisses people off who want to be entertained rather than preached at. And entertainment doesn't have to be action and crashes; it comes in many forms, and all forms of entertainment are diluted by hackneyed politicial messaging.

The frustrating thing about this conversation is we all dislike woke nonsense. We are just debating at cross purposes.


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Andrew
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 12:22pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Grandma Bear
This is kind of funny because politics always get people riled up and start arguing or at least pipe up with their point of view regardless of where the discussion started. I watched the video. The whole thing. Even paused SOTU on CNN to do so. The video was actually about how this affects the movies. A medium we all try to write for, so extra funny/interesting that so few watched it. Her point was that wokeness, a stupid word to begin with IMO. A new badge people like to wear so other know they are a good person and not some neanderthal. What she talks about is how this wokeness and cancel culture is forcing movies to fit into this ideal and by doing so making movies bad. Mainly by having female heroes be heroes, which is fine, but they are heroes and superheroes without earning it. Therefore, no one can relate to them. Not even women which is half of the audience. Also, they can't seem to be heroes or leaders without putting men down. That was kind of the point of the video for those of you who didn't watch.  


This is right and on point.

The purview of the discussion was expanded beyond the video, which is amusing when almost everyone agrees with the core frustration of politics grating in what's supposed to be art.

We all know modern female empowerment figures empower women less than Ripley or Sarah Connor, and are also much less interesting characters.


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Heretic
Posted: May 17th, 2021, 12:29pm Report to Moderator
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Can you provide an example from Foucault, Derrida, or a postmodern philosopher that clearly (or unclearly -- this is the humanities after all, ho ho) expresses this pernicious ideology?

The Tablet article states that "wokese is a tool that is most easily wielded by the credentialed elite—which suggests that the allegedly vulnerable cohorts in whose name this language is allegedly spoken are actually being used by others as rhetorical camouflage." So shouldn't we be focusing on challenging the privileged few at the top of this hierarchy? Wouldn't analyzing that power structure be more useful than analyzing the "rhetorical camouflage" of wokeness? Why is everyone always talking about wokeness?
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