To not be able to stand film and TV nowadays because it always has an agenda?

[mintlily]

I've noticed that I can only bear to watch TV shows and films produced until roughly 2008.

It feels like everything nowadays has some kind of moral or political agenda. The writers are either trying to show off how enlightened they are, or condition you to accept their certain neo-Marxist world view. Virtually ALL dramas have an LGBT, feminist or anti-racist agenda, delivered with 0 subtlety or nuance. And the way it is done is so patronising and disrespectful to historical writers and figures - as if we 21st century people are the moral arbiters of history, and must overlay our more enlightened worldview on their bigoted work, which was surely produced in ignorance. It's also patronising to the intelligence of viewers, as if we need everything censored for our innocent eyes and can't make our own moral judgements. There is something puritanical and unartistic about it, like the Victorians censoring art to not corrupt the masses.

For example:

The new Little Mermaid deleting the line "men don't like women who blabber" from Ursula's songs. Ursula is a villain. We can cope with her being sexist, for goodness sake - we know that we're supposed to think she's wrong. The writer didn't need to fret that children would internalise the worldview of the villain.

Anne of Green Gables and her gay best friend. Why? This is not the genre to deal with LGBT issues. The author had no interest in this subject (as far as I'm aware).

Call the Midwife and it's pro-abortion stance. As if CATHOLIC MIDWIVES IN THE 1970s would have been pro-abortion?!

It's nothing to do with your actual views on these subjects. I just find that TV and film lacks the nuance and intelligence that it used to and I actually can't bear to watch any of it anymore, as it just feels so soulless.

Yes yes the point is the meaning of the word woke has gone beyond the original meaning and now means so unsocially aware you feel the need to preach to others in a leftist authoritarian right think way. Particularly when marginalising women and black people and gay people to push forward a new most marginalised group of middle class white young people.

No, actually, they were not necessarily pro-choice. I understand that many people find that hard to believe, but it's true.

I think this is a really interesting question, because it seems to be the case in television/film, and I know it's the case in publishing.

And you are right I suspect, because in publishing, the stuff that typically doesn't have the agendas inserted is often what is most popular. They aren't doing it to sell books, that's for sure.

That was what woke meant, 30 years ago or so.

It's now acquired a rather different connotation, of people who believe they are promoting social justice and see the light, but in actuality seem to be completely blinkered, often really cut off from the causes they think they are supporting.

When people complain about the woke, they aren't complaining about social justice, they are complaining about people who are hypocrites, clueless, or virtue signalling, claiming to push a social justice agenda which is often quite misguided., and accusing those who don't share their perspective of being bigot of some kind.

Being "woke" isn't counter cultural - it's the establishment position that prevales in universities, corporations and the media

Spot on

This sums up my feelings

lmao bumping your old thread to post some old meme you found on Facebook how insightful.

Wooooooah. So nasty and confrontational. Yes, I saw this meme and it reminded me of this thread, so I posted it. So what?
Some people on MN are so catty 😵

The remark about counter-culture up thread is very astute. When people talk about agenda driven content or "wokery" these days, I tend to think what they are identifying is the pervasive "establishment" position on a range of issues.

And it is neither left nor right, but a befuddling mix of both and neither. It simply seeks to protect its own position, which is why a lot of the "wokery" actually ends up being detrimental to what it's supposedly attempting to do.

I find this a lot with race and ethnicity. It's as though a characters' ethnicity or religion is the defining thing about them, and I find it very neo-colonialist. We've lost that "everyman" perspective in writing that we used to do well in Britain.

Stories no longer really reflect ordinary people's lives, no matter what race, class or religion you are. It is this that, I think, is underneath this sense of an "agenda".

Add to this, the strange modern hyperinflated understanding of "drama", which escalates and escalates until you end up with an airplane crash in a soap opera, and that's why people are just being lost.

So the interesting question here is what is counter-culture in this climate? Well, in an age of Marvel and magic and fantastical historical reimaginings, probably the very ordinary.

MN? Catty? Why do you seem so surprised, it's the default setting for the majority!