Finally, Bro’s never ending prophecy of Woke being the thing that ruins a show is actually true. After years of complaining, he has been right once. The Boys Season 4 Episode 6 was actually ruined by woke. Usually “WOKE RUINED” it comes down to bad writing. This time, it was woke that actually killed it.
You see, if a story fails because of overly powered female character, that isn’t ‘woke’, it’s just bad writing. But, in this case Columbo would be asking Woke just one more thing. The episode is ostensibly about The Boys infiltrating a party where The 7 (the evil super powered folks pretending to be heroes) are plotting to take control of the US government. Fine plot premise. Except, in this alternate super hero universe, this party is thrown by the real world organization The Federalist Society, who the story checks as Alt-Right. What the fuck is Alt-Right? I still don’t know after 8 years of that term. Originally it connotated Edge Lords, now I guess it’s everyone on the right? The real world Federalist Society I don’t think in any known sense of Alt-Right could be called that. I mean, they are just Right, not even Far Right. But, it gets worse.
In this fake world, they name check AOC and Elizabeth Warren. No writer worth a pound of sand would mention mention real politicians in a contemporary piece of fiction. It only serves to divide the audience. What purpose in the story does this serve? None, other than to signal allegiance in this case.
Yet, at the same time, they have a Democratic Vice President scheming with the ‘Alt-Right’ to…become president with the help of Big Business? The introduction of real world things into a fake universe screams poor writing, but at the same time the injection of those things seems purely driven by ideology. I’m not saying that fiction can’t contain real world touchstones; but when your work of fiction is an entirely contained universe instead of a historical fiction, it comes off very forced.
Sure, you can write a historic pirate romance using real world facts, because the stakes are trivial enough that it may have plausibly happened. But, when you have an entire world built around an alternate history, where superheroes were genetically engineered by injecting children with a drug, and when those children come of age a megacorp brands them, makes movies and takes a hand in civil and military action; well I don’t think that world would reflect our own very much. But still these writers need to shoe-horn in their political fandom.
That is how Woke destroys media, not just through shitty writing as so many complain about, but failing to have the imagination to build a fictional world because they are too obsessed with the politics of the world they live in.
So, WOKE causes bad writing, in other words?
All of the great socialist revolutions had wokesters – that is people who adhere to the party narrative in spite of reality – and this one is no different.
As for creativity, imagination, innovation etc. consider the vast trove of classical plays, movies, novels etc. produced by the USSR and Maoist China. Woke is the mind killer. We are seeing the death of creativity before our eyes in real time.
Check this guy, Genrich Altshuller, and see what happens to innovative and inventive in the woke world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Altshuller
Contrast that with Lysenko.
I made a comment about S4 earlier that there are no characters in the series anymore, just a collection of funny voices that Kripke is using to tell his story. Audiences aren’t rooting for Homelander, they’re rooting against the insufferable twat with his hands up the dummies’ butts. To mix metaphors.
There’s also the issue that it’s a show with actual conspiracies taking place, it’s a little hard to show Q-Anon stand-ins as deluded right wing fools (earlier conspiracy theory episode).
I would also say you’ve got to be pretty selective with your causal chain to claim that “woke” didn’t tank She hulk, The Marvels or The Acolyte.
Feels like we’re doing “died WITH woke or FROM woke” here.
Did he die from pneumonia? Did she die from a stroke? How about the heart attack guy? Cancer? Gun shot wounds?
There is only one cause of death: Hypoxia.
That is it. Bro is inflating the death rate.
I’ve heard it said that old men who don’t die OF prostate cancer most certainly die WITH it.
At this point what diff…
Do bad writers get good gigs because they’re woke? Does woke turn good writers into bad writers? Does the passion for wokeness cause shitty writers to accept lower paychecks incentivizing their hire by production companies?
Yes.
Maybe? I have a hard time thinking of any real examples.
Maybe my meds are off, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were a Soros-backed fund somewhere parceling out little monthly/yearly ‘donations’ to a select crowd of content creators, just to help make them less dependent on things like, ‘Doing a good job,’ and ‘Building a saleable product.’
I have seen claims that some entertainers were supported by the CIA to push “American” values. So I don’t think your premise is surprising either.
I’ll leave this here: https://learcenter.org/
It’s more than just woke. Watching cop shows, especially feds, where they are portrayed as heroes who embody all that is right and good, always standing up for the weak, always spotlessly honest, even to a fault makes me want to retch.
I would say a good 90%+ of entertainment is propaganda. I am fairly sure you are correct Sheldon but it seems a waste of time to me as the show people are doing it all on their own.
Suthen, agreed. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: I blame Law & Order: SVU for the rampant stranger danger paranoia. They single-handedly turned the perception of an entire population of men as evil, sexual predators. For whatever reason, it has driven me to an irrational hatred of Mariska Hargitay.
“A very special Family Ties”
Alex Keaton is hooked on uppers. All the “just say no” plots in that era were specifically ordered by the government.
That makes you a Mariskaphobe.
Actually, that sounds like the fear of Spanish seafood.
Rhywun:
First hope this goes to the right place.
My favorite for mandated messages is from a Spider-Man story arc. The DEA asked Marvel to do a story where a character gets hooked on drugs to show drugs are bad. The Comics Code at the time forbade all depiction of drug use that wasn’t obviously evil.
Marvel ran the story arc without the Comics Code Authority stamp, and it helped kill the Comics Code.
As much as I dislike L&O:SUV, I blame Dateline and 48 Hours. All men are just one snap away from buying garbage bags, bleach, and saws at Walmart on their credit card.
When I worked at Wal Mart, a customer bought every item above, plus a 100 pack of 12 ga clay shots. I looked at him and explained I was uncomfortable selling him everything in one purchase.
“Dude, I get where you’re going with this, but shells for clay are just not the right tool for the job. A larger shot size would work better.”
You mean, like that?
More like, “can you purchase the rest at another register so there isn’t a single receipt with my name as the cashier?”
All men are just one snap away from buying garbage bags, bleach, and saws at Walmart on their credit card.
Real men already have these items stockpiled in preparation of their daughter’s first boyfriend. Don’t forget the lime and muriatic acid.
Deadwood taught me to make friends with a pig farmer.
This is what self-checkout is for.
And for heaven’s sake, don’t put the body and the acid in the bathtub when you were told explicitly which tub to get, just because you didn’t know how you were going to fit a whole body into one tub, when the solution was to get 2 tubs and cut the body up to make them fit.
/when I stopped watching Breaking Bad
They all have degrees from the same places, in the same types of departments, with professors who all went to the same schools, same editors, proofreaders, ad nauseum.
The death of movies, books, TV, journalism, etc. comes from this. There is such group think that they don’t even know that they are pushing stool on us, so to speak.
At the behest of my wife I began watching it from the beginning, and I will have to agree with First of Firsting too. It feels dirty but I am upset my wife thought I would actually like it. Maybe I’ll hose her off later.
Its not that the first season is woke, it just strikes me as lazy. I made it to finding out Stormfront is a literal Nazi (no way? Her name is Stormfront) before giving up and turning on Futurama. This doesn’t give me confidence it will get any better.
The first two seasons were far and away the best. It relies on shock humor, and Kripke doesn’t have the creativity to keep that going. I think hte last time it was funny was when The Deep was rescuing the dolphin. After that, it’s more gross-out humor.
I see. Maybe it was Jackass ruined that for me.
Meh, shock and gross-out humor don’t do it for me and haven’t for decades.
I prefer witty humor to “hurr-durr, he’s got a booger in his nose”.
“Owwww! My balls!”
II think the documentary ‘Idiocracy’ covered all of this.
I like to think I’m beyond that, but the “murdering people using a baby as a weapon” sequence made me LOL.
There’s a pretty large construction project going on here, another location of https://treehousebrew.com/
I don’t know if they’re any good, but there’s a trade union protest going on there, so I’ll be trying it out.
The unions in Duloot have a giant inflatable rat they use to protest building projects that don’t use union labor.
That seems like an intimidation tactic. If you don’t hire us, we are going to protest and disrupt your building site.
All the more reason never to hire them.
In light of the fact that they are legally allowed to blow up your car so long as it’s in the furtherance of “legitimate union objectives,” that’s pretty tame.
Every union strike and protest is an intimidation tactic. Picketing is an intimidation tactic because “crossing the picket line” exposes you to a beating. And there is a long history of unions beating people up. And worse. Some of the coal mine strikes a generation or so ago involved shots fired by union goons.
Coal miners were machine-gunned by corporate goons when they went on strike. Plenty of goons to go around. Martyr Made did a series called Whose America? that was a wild look at the labor wars.
When was that, Tundra? I’m talking about strikes in the 70s and 80s. I know before WWII/the NLRA the corporate side got their hands bloody, too, but I’m not aware of much of anything since then.
In the 20s and 30s. WV and Colorado especially. The history was something else.
Yeah, the Teamsters (anonymously) mailed a photo of my house during union negotiations once.
Freaked the fuck out of my wife.
There is a really good movie about the West Virginia miners strike, Matewan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjh29QNKLCc
I’ve had their beer. I remember it being good.
I think name-dropping like that makes shows get dated really fast. The Squad(tm) has just lost two members to primaries, and I think the rest will end up being a trivia question pretty soon. It’s not like Forrest Gump, where you see the “household names” that everyone recognizes.
I have not seen The Boys. The Mrs. and I have been watching The Bear, and we really enjoy it. We just started Season 3, which has kind of a slow start so far. But good writing, good acting, and it takes place in Chicago so that’s been fun.
Season 3 is extremely slow with too many flashbacks. The episode about Tina was good, but the rest was meh. Hopefully things pick up the second half of the season.
I have heard that episode is good. But yes, two episodes of too many flashbacks so far.
Without spoilers…to me its a season they didn’t think they would get and it should have been vignettes sprinkled throughout the 2nd season.
The Critical Drinker has a series of videos on why modern movies suck. It pretty much applies to broadcast and streaming shows as well.
Forcing woke themes into a show is only the most visible problem.
The overarching problem is driven by the constant pressure to hire people with the right point of view at every point in the production. The pressure results in proven talent being replaced with no-talent hacks that have the right appearance and spout the right ideas.
So, yes, woke kills everything. Various projects get polluted at different points in the production chain, but woke is always the root cause.
That is a great series. I’m not sure if it was The Drinker, but someone theorized that the writers today are younger, recent college grads who didn’t have to live through anything more difficult than being misgendered. In the past the writers were old guys who lived through the Depression and fought in wars. They had different experiences that made their writing more interesting.
Drinker has one video that explains that modern movies are written by children with no life experience for children with no life experience.
There are other commenters making similar arguments.
I suspect that this is why so many of us watch flicks from the olden days.
Or take true delight in the shows that somehow make it through the wringer.
See Arcane and Squid Game. One show done in-house by a gaming company and one show done in S Korea.
There’s definitely a lot of shows – She Hulk was full of this – with scenes where you quickly realize the whole scene is essentially “what the writer wishes she’d said and done that one time when some man didn’t listen to her idea and talked over her in a meeting”, because that’s all the conflict and struggle they’ve really had in their life.
Meh, Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola…They never had real world experience, they were rich kids that went to USC and started making movies as soon as they graduated.
it’s just bad writing
Completely in-co-fucking-herent. A random mishmash of talking point references and sexual deviance.
you can write a historic pirate romance using real world facts
I watched one last night.
I don’t mind a little woke as long as they are making fun of everyone. The first couple seasons were like that. It’s become much more heavy handed in later seasons, which makes it less enjoyable. Now it seems to have devolved into cursing and finding more ways to show gore. Not very creative. The bit about Frenchy suddenly turning bicurious came out of nowhere and seemed forced.
Now it seems to have devolved into cursing and finding more ways to show gore
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (French pronunciation: [lə teɑtʁ dy ɡʁɑ̃ ɡiɲɔl]: “The Theatre of the Great Puppet”)—known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialised in naturalistic horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre (for instance Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil), to today’s splatter films.
A theatrical tradition of long standing.
*squeeeeee* Got a shout-out!
Okay, so I didn’t last long enough with The Boys to get to the REAL wokeness. The last episode I remember, which is sad because I know I watched half of season 3, was the season 3 opener with the dude shrinking small enough to be a urethral sound and blowing up inside the other dude’s penis.
I don’t know in what part of my life I wouldn’t have found that off-putting, but post-menopause, my ick threshold is lower than a snake belly in a wagon rut. I got through the Deep forcing his dick into Starlight’s mouth, I got through Madelyn practically breastfeeding Homelander, I got through the utter silliness of the Stormfront storyline, and I got through the exploding penis episode, but I finally just couldn’t take it anymore.
All this to say, I really need to finish watching Preacher.
Regarding Preacher? No you really don’t. I finished it and I loved the graphic novels, so take that into consideration.
And I don’t have much room to talk. I hate finished American Gods, Preacher, Dexter, Game of Thrones, almost all of the Arrowverse shows, and more.
I figure, wherever I left off watching a series, I must have had a reason for it, so I never go back. So thanks for the warning.
But it was my kind of weird (husband hated it), especially given theology, and I enjoyed it. Till I didn’t. I don’t remember why.
I read American Gods because of the hype and as I read, I was like, “When’s this going to get good?” Narrator: It never did.
Oh, and then I saw this and I was like WTF. No.
Gross.
I wonder what ghoul did that to her.
Some women have a distorted view of their beauty and what is/is not beautiful. OBJECTIVELY SPEAKING, Jennifer Grey’s new nose is standard pretty, but it turned an interestingly pretty woman into a ubiquitously pretty woman.
Jennifer Grey?
*DDG*
Oh yeah, her. I wonder whatever happened to her. Wow, she went from cant-take-my-eyes-off striking to that lady I saw in was-mart the other day. How sad. I see she is so desperate for attention that she has done some nudie stuff now.
So many people do not understand that the “flaw” is what creates the beauty.
It is beyond sad.
Somebody turned on the “whoville” filter and the “alien” filter at the same time.
She did fuck up her face, but not as badly as that picture depicts. Some one did some photoshop to that to augment the changes.
I saw a three photo set of that with the un-retouched version of the 2nd photo is not quite so shocking.
But where’s the absurd rear wing?
Just two days after Dodge showed off the new simulated “exhaust” note on the upcoming 2024 Charger Daytona EV, the American automaker has announced official pricing for the two-door electric sports car. The 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T will start at $61,590, which is nearly $14K more than the previous-generation gas-powered 2023 Charger R/T.
The electric R/T, however, gains a whole lot more performance. Dodge says the 2024 Charger Daytona R/T will come standard with the Direct Connection Stage 1 Upgrade, which boosts the maximum output to 496 horsepower and 404 pound-feet of torque. The old Charger R/T’s V-8 engine produced 370 horsepower. Dodge also specified that the R/T will ride on 18-inch aluminum wheels wrapped in 245/55R18 all-season tires and attached to a sport suspension.
An engineering marvel.
*yawn*
Dodge wants to go tits-up sooner rather than later, I guess.
If you have to simulate an exhaust….OFFS. It’s telling a lie to make your case. If you have to do that you dont have a case worth making.
WTF is with the absurd reverse hood scoop?
Silly CjPRM, it is for collecting dead leaves and pine straw. The kind that the more you try to clean them out the further they get worked down into the cracks and crevices. Dont you even car wash?
patent-pending R-Wing aero pass-through. This unique front opening helps minimize drag and maximize performance at top speeds.
Why not just have the front of the vehicle sloop further down?
I looked around a bit regarding my comment and stumbled upon this: https://intobirds.com/bird-poop-mystery-car-colors-most-targeted-by-birds/
It is too hot to work outside so I am inside using my time wisely.
Do we need to make everything about trans?
Ownbestenemy – pedestrian crash standards.
The rear wing is for Vipers, duh.
/cuddles his V-8 cars
Rip Mr Democracy Manifest, a great Aussie
https://youtu.be/PeihcfYft9w
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Manifest
Why modern movies suck?
The entertainment crowd are a bunch of hack cannibals feasting on the corpse of their primogenitors creations.
I barely pay attention to teaser ads for whatever sequel, prequel, pre-prequel, episode 129, remake #5 is coming out.
Nothing original anywhere in sight.
They are now down to remaking what were originally shitty movies intended only as a platform for certain personalities (Beverly Hills Cops was not a movie with a plot, it was an Eddie Murphy comedy routine)
As always, Ricardo Cortez was the ultimate Sam Spade.
The Expanse was well done. I detected little wokeness except kick-ass girls, which I like within reason (as in, they don’t get to punch guys 3 times their size and expect to do any damage), it explored different themes even-handedly, it ended when it should have, and didn’t try to drag itself out to nonsense.
Most people did not like the “Naomi aboard the Chezomoka” sequence of episodes, but I absolutely LOVED it.
Instead of “engineering” being a euphemism of “type really fast while a timer runs in the background” they had her actually improvise, plan, and execute. And they showed how grueling and tedious her experience was.
Then most people are stupid because I LOVED that. That unprotected space walk was the most bad-ass thing I’ve seen in a while and was EXACTLY what I was talking about in my comment above. Also, Drummer.
I thought Drummer had potential, but one of the few wokean missteps was her stomping off in a huff and joining a polycule. And said polycule demonstrating the social norm that Drummer was supposed to choose them over her long(er) term comrades.
But that sequence was what “show, don’t tell” should be.
I thought that sequence was good. Bobbie was badass not because she was a chick. She was badass because she had the Martian Marine Supersuit (or whatever it was called). I thought the characters were all well thought out and you knew motivations, backgrounds, etc. Just don’t write em like they used to.
Bobbie was bad ass because she had the mind of a marine . . . and the tools to go with it.
Yeah. I think physically Bobbie was too chubby to be a marine, but the acting was fine.
What the hell is a polycule?
*DDG*
Oh. Lost people. No thanks.
I really want to be Chrisjen when I grow up.
Now that I think about it, I’d expect there to be less absolute sexual dimorphism among Martians and Belter than Earth Standard Human. Gravity plays such a large role in skeletal and muscular development.
I was going to follow up on that. I don’t recall any of the martians or belters as bering prime physical specimens. Amos was earther.
They all got by on brains and tools.
I’d still expect the military to be cardio’d to hell and back. Stamina is important, even inside armor.
Cobra Kai I stopped watching around the beginning of season 3 because FFS, just bury the fucking hatchet already. Have a decent conversation (they tried, I’ll give them that). You don’t have to be friends, but as adults, you have now given each other enough grief to get it all off your chest.
No, I didn’t like the addition of Kreese, or at least not that early.
I still enjoy Cobra Kai. Yeah, you have to suspend your disbelief, but the seasons are short and it’s not meant to be taken seriously.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/1emvdrd/the_word_of_the_day_is_weird_dave_smith_part_of/
I just described Harris and Walz on Twitter as “locust shells” and I’m pretty proud of myself.
I finally found an article with post-debate survey results from the Pence-Harris debate to get an idea of what the Trump-Harris debates would do.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/harris-pence-vp-debate-poll/
I don’t think you can get an idea of a Trump-Harris debate versus Pence-Harris. Pence is a wet rag.
I do want to find some sound clips of her in the debate. Pence was worse than a wet rag but he could at least enunciate thoughts.
I am stealing that.
Harris == Zombie Cicada
For a relatively non-woke show that looks and feels like a 70’s detective show with a fun twist, check out Poker Face on Peacock. It is about a woman who can tell if you are lying by some genetic or other trait. She is on the run and every week, and has run ins with an unbelievable amount of crimes that she Gumps into. She uses her gift to solve the mostly murders. (crimes).
Looks like the Rockford files including the intro and outro credits and has a new plot and characters each week. She even drive around in a 1968 Barracuda Stars the fun Natasha Lyonne.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14269590/
My husband and I like that show.
Apparently mining Walz’s previous statements for stolen valor is the hip new pastime:
https://www.dossier.today/p/stolen-valor-tim-walz-launched-political
It is my understanding from the media that DingDong and Putz have already won. No contest. Trump knows it and he isn’t even campaigning. He has thrown in the towel…a man knows when he’s beat.
Really..this D party today is indistinguishable from the old Soviets. Next we will hear that Waltz golfs all holes-in-one every single time, saves lost children and Kamela not only has surpassed Hawking in math physics, has cured cancer but also whips fifty tigers every day.
Who do these fucking people think they are fooling?
Who do these fucking people think they are fooling?
Approximately 130 million persons, give or take 20 million
Oh you are not far off with your tongue-in-cheek above Suthen…
There are more…its a hard press and it is evident that majority want a Mommy and Daddy
Who do these fucking people think they are fooling?
P.T. Barnum?
Music for CPRM.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kNzzlkerTMw
CPRM would have done a much better job on the animation.
“Hey, this thing actually works!”
https://nypost.com/2024/08/08/us-news/golf-cart-rigged-to-simulate-drunk-driving-goes-wild-runs-over-5-people-at-nj-police-fair/
No word on the breathalyzer results.
I had a friend who used to be a cop, and they had an event where they had people drink, tested their BAC, and then drive a golf cart. His wife tried it. She was well over the legal limit, and… drove perfectly. 🙂
an event where they had people drink, tested their BAC, and then drive a golf cart.
Around here, this is known as “The annual church fund raiser”.
Practice makes perfect.
If you are a regular drinker, and drink your known amount, you will pass everything skills wise.
When you drink a bit over than normal amount, that is when you will get a DUI.
WKRP Comments and Requests 1
What’s so shocking or unusual about a drunken teenager in Wildwood?
Trump is having a press conference right now. Yes he rambles, but he’s got a decent grasp of facts and figures. I think he needs to keep up that contrast of putting himself out there vs. hiding in a closet somewhere.
I’m also seeing this in the context of being genuine. Like him or not, he’s the same guy in every situation. He’s not a scripted TV production with ever changing accents.
I doubt he’s capable of it, at least in public, but he should say something like “I know I rub some of you the wrong way (queue pussy grabbing joke), but what you see is what you get. I’m willing to face hard questions from media who will twist everything I say. They are fake news. I don’t change with the wind like my opponent, who won’t even face the media because she knows she’s a loser who would fail bigly.”
I don’t know that he has to say that explicitly. I’m watching now, and he’s just speaking off the cuff, answering every question, and he’s super comfortable. I think long term that’s a plus.
Yet, at the same time, they have a Democratic Vice President scheming with the ‘Alt-Right’ to…become president with the help of Big Business?
It’s not the dumbest of ideas… but yeah I see it not working in this fictional world.
I don’t know that he has to say that explicitly. I’m watching now, and he’s just speaking off the cuff, answering every question, and he’s super comfortable. I think long term that’s a plus.
I watched part of his performance at that black journalist thing. Somebody here must have linked to it; I never would have looked for it on my own. Anyway, much of what he said was nonsense, but his delivery was perfect. Calm, steady voice, as if he was explaining something simple to a child.
Hmmm…
And as I said the day after the attempt on his life, I hope “they” (SS, staff, whoever) don’t put him in a protective bubble and stop him from getting out in public as much as possible. He thrives on it.