Screamface
Well-Known Member
The issues are deeper than it being "woke." I admit I don't fully understand the term and how it applies to TLJ. One thing to be aware of, is that the audience picks up on things, or at least certain segments pick up on the intentions of the filmmakers. Often when it's not all that clear to nail down.
It's why one female lead action film will come and go with no complaints. Then another gets criticism from "toxic manbabies who just hate woman" who just enjoyed the previous female lead action film. There are ways agenda-driven, woke, storytelling affects the way the writers write the story and people pick up on it.
This is something that is often not clear, the writing can be infested with politics and agenda. It's not just, "a female character did this." It's deeper and ingrained in the choices the writer makes. Audiences are savvy enough to pick up on this in a subtle way that is hard to pin down.
One of the clearest ways "woke" writers intentions manifest is not being able to just write a strong female character who is competent. They have to write an incompetent, failed or bad male character for the female character to outshine. Tear down a man to show the female character is better. It's such an overused cliche. However, it betrays the writer's intentions. They don't want to show that a female character is competent. They want to show she's better than a male one.
While TLJ doesn't have a super clear scene, the entire premise of the script is that the male characters are wrong. Always. The female characters are right and better, always. The audience notices the culmination of these things across the film.
They would never have written the young female hero going to the old white man for advice and guidance. They have nothing they can pass on that can help. They're injecting modern politics. The other day Obama said old men cause all the worlds problems and if woman ran everything, everything would instantly be better. It's that meaningless woke ideology at play in this film and the audience can tell.
Rey goes to the old man. A failure, he has recognised his failure and given up. The galaxy is suffering due to his failures, the failures of other Jedi (men) and he's walked away, washed his hands clean. There's also an undertone of criticising organised religion. Ultimately old man realises he is wrong and the young woman will fix everything on her own.
The writer reduces the character of Poe to nothing more than a thin stereotype of a cocky male action hero, who breaks the rules and ends up saving the day by doing so. His entire plot is about taking him down a peg. It's about exploring this stereotypical archetype than having an actual story.
This isn't helped by the way Holdo is written. A new character, completely unlikeable, with no justification of why Poe or the audience should trust her. He just should. "But what would be different if she was a male character?" This is where the subtly comes up. You just know the intentions of the writing. Female authority is more planned out, rational, male is on the fly, emotional and irrational. There's a gender dynamic at work in the story. Highlighted by the female authorities wearing evening gowns into battle. To show they aren't just other members of the Resistance. They're fabulous woman. Star Wars previously showed the woman in battle in appropriate uniforms, equals. This wants to highlight the feminity with the costumes to underline the gender dynamics.
Finn is reduced to a bumbling character, who gets lectured at throughout the film. Former child slave learns that slavery exists. That horse racing is bad. His entire plot is just wasted on achieving nothing and for Rose to teach him lessons. "Man is dumb, woman has much to teach him." The film also tries to inject some modern politics of, "capitalism bad" there are no good or bad guys. Which goes against the clear cut world of what Star Wars is at its core. Good vs Evil. Not, "you're both bad, it's your perspective."
Hux is reduced to a fool. The First Order is written is to say "they're competent, conquered the galaxy off-screen." Yet the film will never show them to be competent. They just have a lot of power. We see giant ships, fleets and they all do nothing. Hux is disrespected constantly. By Poe, Snoke and even his own men snigger at him. There's no way the writer would write competent villains with costumes inspired by the Nazis. That's not woke, if he did, he'd fear that'd come across of condoning actual Nazis. He has to treat them poorly to make it clear that space Nazi's are wrong. The villains can't even be written as strong Villians, the writer is too concerned with them representing the patriarchy or something like that. They have to be taken down a peg.
Snoke openly mocks Kylo. The film presents Kylo's fall as being the fault of the previous male generation with Luke attempting to murder him. It's completely against Luke's storyline, his character and the Jedi way. Yet the "woke" writer has to show violence from men to the next generation causes them to be bad. Kylo fell because of the failure of men. Does he need Rey to show him how to be good? She's good at everything, automatically.
The entire film is permeated with choices made by a "woke" ideology. They may not be explicitly stated or clear but to many people that pick up on it. Even if it's somewhat on a subconscious level.
I could go on, the young female can effortlessly go to the dark side of the force without consequences. Is this highlighting that she has a greater ability to deal with emotions? She can do more? When men get angry, they lose control, toxic masculinity like Kylo. Rey is more evolved and balanced. More in touch and intune. Even Luke can see it. Kylo needs Rey. She doesn't need him. Now on its own, this isn't a big deal, but when the entire film is steeped in these ideas, it then becomes highlighted and hard to sperate out.
