Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know they’re the good guys, but the writers don’t have the brains to come up with interesting allegories, or even super-transparent ones like the half-black/half-white dudes in the TOS episode. All they can muster up is character dialog like, “Wow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!” Yeah duh, I live in this time period and I’m not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)
Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray let’s say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. That’s not how it was, kids. The black housewife in 1953 Ohio would not have a white maid, although she might work part time as one in a white household. You don’t raise social consciousness by painting a fake picture of history to avoid upsetting your audience. That does no service to the people who still feel the effects of those times.
But oh right, I forgot, the point is profit not genuine social consciousness - sorry, my bad.
There are two kinds of wokeness I complain about:
Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know they’re the good guys, but the writers don’t have the brains to come up with interesting allegories, or even super-transparent ones like the half-black/half-white dudes in the TOS episode. All they can muster up is character dialog like, “Wow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!” Yeah duh, I live in this time period and I’m not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)
Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray let’s say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. That’s not how it was, kids. The black housewife in 1953 Ohio would not have a white maid, although she might work part time as one in a white household. You don’t raise social consciousness by painting a fake picture of history to avoid upsetting your audience. That does no service to the people who still feel the effects of those times.
But oh right, I forgot, the point is profit not genuine social consciousness - sorry, my bad.
/edited for grammar