By Brandon Smith
When was the last time you saw an original story out of Hollywood that was worth watching (not counting Top Gun: Maverick)? When was the last time you experienced creative storytelling that did not involve the co-option and retelling of a previous work? When was the last time you saw a protagonist that was relatable, interesting and endearing? Hell, when was the last time you were actually excited to go to the movies or relax in front of the television to watch something new?
Reboots, soft reboots, remakes, live action remakes, re-imagining, gender swapping, race swapping, “rainbow washing” (making classic straight characters gay for virtue signal points): This is a list of new media tropes that have invaded entertainment in the past six years and all of them have been used so frequently that productions can now be quickly identified as woke propaganda by a mere two minute trailer.
The fascinating thing is, almost all of these productions fail miserably. In recent weeks alone we have seen the attempted woke re-writing of history with The Woman King, which fell flat at the box office after opening week, not even making enough money to cover production and advertising costs.
Then there was the gay romantic comedy “Bros” which imploded, causing the lead actor, Billy Eichner, to flip out on social media and blame “homophobia” (somehow he actually believed a movie filled with gay orgies was going to appeal to mainstream audiences). Eichner went on to argue that people MUST go see his movie in order to make a “political statement.” This was the same argument made by Woman King actress Viola Davis – Don’t see the movie because it’s well made, see the movie so you can stick it to conservatives.
Why not just tell a good story instead?
We have seen the biggest budget TV series in history, Amazon’s The Rings Of Power, crumble in the ratings with its intersectional messaging. We have seen the cancellation of the gay Superman comic book title Son of Kal-El, likely due to low sales. Marvel shows and films are consistently bringing in weak audience numbers and the SJW disaster that is Disney Star Wars can’t write a hit production to save their lives.
The bottom line? Consumers have near-zero interest in leftist media. As I have said in the past, “Get Woke, Go Broke” is not just a mantra, it’s a rule these days. But why are leftists in entertainment so incapable of producing anything resembling exciting content? Why do they suck so bad?
Well, they follow a losing formula, and that formula works something like this:
1) Co-opt a classic franchise or character that has preexisting audience appeal. Never try to create anything original if you can help it.
2) Market the new film, TV series, comic, etc. as a return to nostalgia to get audiences excited.
3) Get rid of as many straight, white, or male characters as possible and replace them with token diversity. (Also for some reason they like to get rid of all the redheads).
4) Portray men as weak and incompetent. Portray white people as stupid or racist. Portray black people as constant victims. Portray women with overtly masculine character traits, but also as victims at the same time. Make everyone in charge a woman, or gay, or both. If a man is in charge, make sure he is being controlled by a woman. Make sure your main character is constantly lecturing everyone else and the audience about leftist virtues.
5) Make sure there is a perfect pie chart of ethnicity in every single scene despite the statistics and demographics of a place or time. It doesn’t matter if a story is set in an ancient viking village in the north of Europe or in the elitist estates of Victorian England, minorities must be represented as main characters despite all historical fact.
6) If a classic male character cannot be changed without alienating potential customers away from spending their money, pretend he is a major part of the story to trick people into theaters, then make him weak and pathetic, the opposite of a hero. Or, just kill him.
7) Steal plot points, story beats and even dialogue directly from other more creative films and productions. Pretend you came up with all that stuff on your own. Or, do a reboot, and copy an older production directly while adding your own woke changes wherever possible.
8) Now, market the product as a “re-imagined version” updated for “modern audiences” as a justification for abandoning all canon.
9) Immediately start attacking anyone who MIGHT criticize the product before they ever do so. Make the customers and the fans into villains if they refuse to give you their money. Accuse them of bigotry and blame your inevitable failure on racism, sexism, misogyny, etc. It wasn’t your fault that your story bombed, it is the fault of “incels” and “boomers” and all the uncultured swine out there filled with hate. They sabotaged you. They are the problem.
10) Rinse. Repeat.
Yes, it sounds pathetic but this is the state of entertainment today and it has been a pervasive problem for several years now. The industry has always had a bit of a progressive problem, but in the past this was balanced out by more conservative business interests. Today, the business interests are the same zealots as the production interests. But beyond that, liberals used to be more creative in general, now they are devoid of all imagination. Why?
My theory is that as progressives turned increasingly to the social justice cult, a wave of narcissism has suffocated any and all potential for creative freedom. Even if they had it once, it’s all gone now. Narcissists tend to have no imagination, and the woke ideology is essentially a religion for narcissists.
Social Justice is a system of belief that uses victim status as a currency. It tells its adherents that each one of them is so special and unique that the world revolves around them and their identity, that their “personal truth” is more important than objective truth. It tells them that they are entitled to respect and admiration from everyone regardless of their lack of accomplishment, lack of knowledge, lack of talent, lack of beauty, lack of intelligence, lack of experience, lack of propriety, lack of restraint, lack of kindness, etc.
These people have no class and no shame and they think this is a virtue, a strength. You are supposed to idolize them for it and if you don’t then you must be a fascist. How are leftists supposed to compose stories that hold our attention and touch our souls when they are so self absorbed?
Storytelling requires several things in order to be successful, and they are all things that leftists have no concept of. They include:
1) The ability to self reflect, but also the ability to write characters outside of yourself. If you have to see yourself in every single character in a story and if every story has to amplify your personal ideology, then you are a narcissist and you should abandon your dreams of writing NOW.
2) You need an inherent sense of story flow. Some people are naturally good at playing music. Good storytelling is a lot like music in the way plot points and emotions ebb and flow. Either you have the knack, or you don’t. It’s not something that can be learned.
3) You cannot tell a story with the intent to lie and propagandize. It is selfish and disrupts narrative flow. Even if the basic premise is good, the content will feel false and sometimes dated to audiences. People can sense when they are being lied to, or preached at. They might not know it at the time, but they will not return to your stories in the future. Their intuition will tell them not to.
4) Stories are usually built on basic archetypes – Archetypes are inherent psychological constructs that help human beings relate to each other and also help us relate to foundational morals and principles. Archetypes exist across cultures and across geopolitical boundaries. If we didn’t have these constructs in our heads from birth, we would have destroyed ourselves thousands of years ago. You cannot change archetypes. They are eternal. Try to change them or deconstruct them and you will fail.
5) Subverting expectations is lazy and cowardly. Truly talented storytellers can meet audience expectations while still surprising them along the way.
6) You are not entitled to an audience. The audience owes you nothing. Either your story is good and they relate to it on an emotional level, or your story is garbage and they don’t relate to it. It’s as simple as that. People are not required to consume your product to make a “political statement.” And they are not evil for refusing to spend their money on propaganda. If you enter into storytelling with the intent to create conflict with your audience, then you are probably a bad storyteller.
Media and entertainment are the modern method of passing on ideas and exploring debates within our culture, and when only one extreme viewpoint is represented within our story lexicon this creates chaos and imbalance in society. The woke movement has utterly poisoned our cultural well and it is incapable of addressing the basic functions of reflection. We cannot look at ourselves honestly through stories when liars and narcissists are in change of the storytelling apparatus.
I am working in my own small way to bring back the tradition of popular American storytelling with my graphic novel campaign ‘Mountain Hollow.’ I don’t have a multi-billion dollar company behind me, but I guarantee I can write circles around any leftist in entertainment today. And this is what we need more of right now – Clearly, woke media does not sell and does not represent the vast majority of the public, so, we must make media that DOES. It’s not enough to complain about the problem, we have to actually do something about it in order for things to change.
Nothing pisses off leftists more than when you offer the public an alternative to their narrative.
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I feel like Hollywood is the entertainment version of all the other dying or forced cultural and social identities of the failing empire. It’s a desperate grasp by desperate people to be relevant and yet offer nothing of substance, void of creativity and basically soulless. I think Brandon’s explanation of Mainstream entertainment is quite accurate and can be extrapolated to every other institutional structure in both a national and global sense. The bottom of the barrel is what we have now.
So much of what you conveyed in this article I have felt for years. I’ve watched numerous series here in the UK this year and have felt the same afterwards. It’s boring and been done to death. Nostalgia has desecrated modern day entertainment. I can’t remember the last time I watched something and felt I was there with the lead protagonist and wanted them to succeed in their endeavours. Characters today are so unlikeable. Is that on purpose or simply the product of a bad storyteller?
I’m in the middle of a fictional writing project that I really want to do something with. It has no political affiliation and doesn’t preach or seek validation. It’s character driven all the way through. But what avenues are there for going against the grain as it were and getting a foot in the door anywhere? I’d love to try and do something with it and don’t want to accept that it is impossible. If it’s good storytelling there has to be a way to share that and gain an audience of like minded people.
I watched the new Thor movie last night and it was terrible. I think they are trying to run the whole franchise into the ground because all movies released after Endgame were ‘meh’ in my opinion.
Here is a money making idea:
Create a website that gives movies a “woke” rating, say from 1 to 5 to signify mild to extreme wokeness. Especially coveted would be a rating of “WF” for Woke Free.
Someone should make a website that doesn’t allow any critic reviews for entertainment but only ‘user’ reviews so that there is a complete unfiltered score from the general population.
Tulsi Gabbard has had enough of the Democrat party. So she’s leaving. This is what had to say which she begins to sound more Libertarian than a Dem or Repub:
“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.
I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people.
Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not.
Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite.
I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party.
If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me.”
I worked in Hollywood myself for 7 years, eventually leaving in disgust with all the woke garbage. That and the fact that it is almost impossible to break through the distribution stranglehold unless you bend the knee to their perverse dictates.
But fans at least are finally waking up. One of the biggest hits of the year for American movie nerds, aside from Top Gun Maverick, is a Tollywood (Indian) movie called RRR. I never liked Indian movies myself growing up, despite my parents always playing Bollywood films in our house (way too melodramatic and cheesy for my tastes). But on a whim I checked our RRR and can confirm that it is EVERYTHING that Hollywood should have done with Star Wars and Marvel movies. Check it out. Despite the language and cultural differences, it is universal. Fastest 3 hours of entertainment I’ve ever experienced. If you can, download the original Telegu version off a torrent. Best version. If not, the Hindi dub is on Netflix and is 90% as good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8DrqysqFmc
Well, I’ve heard there’s a Woke, PC version of Top Gun for all the Beta lefty guys in the pipeline. It’s called Top Bun.
So not Broke back buns?
The leftist Hollywood garbage is just a microcosm of the whole Leftist political and cultural message: a product that, increasingly, no-one wants.
“… why are leftists in entertainment so incapable of producing anything resembling exciting content? Why do they suck so bad?… The woke movement has utterly poisoned our cultural well and it is incapable of addressing the basic functions of reflection… Nothing pisses off leftists more than when you offer the public an alternative to their narrative.”
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It is vitally important for all of us to understand Leftists and the Leftist (Dark) Gospels and Dogma on a psychological and psychic level.
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In fact, this very psychological dynamic is a fact of Life in ALL circumstances and with ALL people. Everyone you know, including yourself.
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The fact is that all people project out to the World what THEY THEMSELVES are inside and within their core self. In other words, look at what someone is doing to and on the outside and they are telegraphing what they are – inside.
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For example, if you are a loving person (inside) you are continuously projecting love outward into the World. And one can feel that.
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If you are an envious person… you are projecting envy out into the World. (And people quickly pick up on the fact that you are envious of them or something else).
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And if you are a person filled with hatred or emptiness… you are always projecting hatred and emptiness out into the World. You hate people… groups of people… people who disagree with you…etc. You are empty inside and so you devalue people – outside.
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And for Leftists? Ask yourself: What does a Leftist today stand for?
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They hate the traditional family. They hate traditional values.
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And what does that really mean about them? They hate… THEMSELVES. There is no love within them. They project hate out into the World because is it Hate that lives within them.
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And what else do Leftists ‘stand for’ today?
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They hate Peace. They hate even the idea of Peace. They want war. They want conflict chaos. They lust even for nuclear war as a supposed signal of their misplaced ‘virtue’.
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And what does that really mean about them? They hate Life. They have given up on their lives. And they want everyone else to give up on Life, too. They are Anti-Life. And they have no trouble with the taking of life… whether than be from war or from the beginnings of Life at abortion. The hatred of Life because of the hatred… within.
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Remember, if you want to know what’s really inside of someone just watch what they are projecting out into the World.
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That is is psychological finger print. That is the psychic finger print. And ultimately, that is their Karmic fingerprint.
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Quantum physicists have determined that we are projecting or ‘leaking’ our own person energy out into the World at every moment. There it is, right there.
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Leftists have become the Party of Hate because they hate themselves. They will never acknowledge that. They will not even understand that about themselves. But that doesn’t change the reality of what is going on.
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That’s why it is important for non-Leftists to NOT become hateful as well. For you will turn into the very thing that you can’t stand about someone else.
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We do need to protect ourselves from the damaging influence of Leftists. But beyond that, we must feel sadness for what they have become and that they are so empty inside. It’s not our job to ‘fix’ them.
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None of these words are to demonize Leftists. They are what they are. By their own deeds.
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Our job is to understand them in a context of what we are dealing with in the World today.
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And should we feel the urge… pray for them to one day see the Light. In more ways than one.
Hey Roundball, I just wanted to let you know that I liked what you said so much that I printed it so I can read it again later.
Wow ! very deep and well said.
-It’s a subject that warrants a lot of exploration. “The audience owes you nothing.” Perhaps this explains the woke culture better than anything.
-Can’t get people to agree with your message?
-Can’t get people to laugh at your jokes?
-Can’t get people to laugh at your shit music?
-Terrorize the audience or Stockholm them into believing the above. The latter requires a much more practiced and a steady hand such as big money, intel and govt agencies.
-Dr Toby subsack article dovetails so nicely with this piece. It is an amazing article and explains why the so called audience goes along with this crap. Its like a high school clique and its more important to believe in a lie then be ostracized from the group. Remember these woke cults, vax cults, etc have no real power without the audience. It’s also why the left can’t meme.
https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/society-must-be-defen-estrated?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Leftist “entertainment” is divisive and devoid of imagination because it represents Leftist’s ideals. They do employ a lot of fantasy though, because their reality is in fact a fantasy.
My wife and I really liked The Witcher series on Netflix. It does have a lot of woke elements, but the hero maintains his morals throughout while many others crumble in the face of a conquering army of what are essentially communists. Their claim is that they want to free all men from the aristocracy and offer just a slightly better life to the common peasant versus their current feudalism.
I find a lot of other great stories in the video game industry. It was the last bastion of Western male dominated entertainment. This culminated in leftist described “Gamergate” which was really just backlash against the same concepts and ideas that have decimated Western films; LGBTQ and diversity injections into everything for no real reason at all. These typically don’t enhance the storytelling and only end up turning off audiences as they are artificial constructs without reason for being included outside of the diversity & inclusion offices demands for it.
Thank you for this article Brandon. A quote 4 the leftist.
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” -Samuel Adams-
This was a great read! Excellent primer for future conversations when discussing the issue with others.
Keep up the great work Brandon. I am currently in school studying the use of rhetoric in persuasive writing.
You have inspired me to try my hand at writing a few ethical papers of my own.
Thanks!
Vote with your wallet as they say. Stop going to the movies, patronizing any firm that supports ho-wood and their products, and maybe do what I’ve done stop watching any American TV. There’s money in those TV ads.
Hi Brandon,
Please consider reaching out to Ethan Van Sciver and Comics Gate on youtube, (if you’re not already part of that crew). They promote original crowd funded works every week on their Monday night live stream. I’m doing something similar myself, as an author of two sci-fi novels, I’m currently working on an invention I call iRPG – Single image RPG games that can help promote both comics and art in general. If interested please check out AlphaChannel.Games. My novels, printed and audiobooks are at AshleyFox.Ninja. Sincerely wishing you the best of luck.
I actually tried to contact them but have not heard anything back. They probably get a lot of requests to look at people’s projects, though.
I think the last movie I saw that I really enjoyed and had my imagine at full attention was “National Treasure” It had adventure, villains, excitement, love, patriotism, and etc.
It has been a horrific trend, but we do have recent examples of excellent projects that buck it – none of these are perfect, but all have good writing that ignores (or at least very minimally tips a hat to), the current framework of hollywood entertainment”
– Ted Lasso
– The Expanse
– Bosch
– Lincoln Lawyer
– Reacher
– Upload