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Comment by namecheapTA | Hacker News Reader

A translation of this that works for more people is that what you're calling "woke" casting is the process of turning all characters into "multi-colored Californians". Every character on screen is of different ethnic background, but they all speak and act like second-year acting students from an NYU improv class that are in LA for the summer.

TIL... I just thought "woke" was this generations "cool" or "awesome" and was feeling old.

God, that's a way better usage for the term.

Nah, it's just an outgroup shorthand/slur for overtly progressive messaging.

"woke" used to have a specific meaning, and it's been around for decades, originating in the African American activist community[0]. Like a lot of leftist and progressive vernacular, it's been co-opted by the right and degenerated into a nonspecific anti-progressive slur.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

This is a platitude. Look at some of the projects funded in the last two years and you'll find some of the most esteemed actors, writers and directors of Hollywood.

What, specifically, "woke" attributes has Netflix tripped on?

The issues with Netflix and content creation are systemic, but it isn't an issue with "wokeness," which has become a lazy kneejerk reaction to any media entity.

Watch Black Mirror, you can pinpoint the exact moment that some suit at netflix gained creative control of that show and ran it into the gutter. It wasn't enough to have a show critiquing the existing techno dystopian world we live in, they actually had to make it real by throwing in some techno dystopian propaganda in there too.

There was also this terrible show that got instantly cancelled called Sense 8. The first scene of that show was this absurd sex scene where a woman was having sex with a trans-woman using a dildo and the dildo flops onto the ground and is soaked in some disgusting fluid.

Netflix jumped the shark.

Sense8 came out in 2015. We're doing some real revisionist history if we're going to start claiming that a near decade-old show is attributable for Netflix's decline.

Netflix's decline has been a decade in the making. They've been constantly shoveling out shit. I'm throwing out a number here but I'm guessing 90% of their original programming has been cancelled. They've been lighting the money on fire from the start and it was never sustainable.

EDIT: Speaking of 2015, funny thing, Netflix's valuation is practically at its 2015 valuation

I don't disagree with anything you've said there I just don't think it has absolutely anything to do with "wokeness". That's just the latest meme everyone loves to throw around.

I wont blame wokeness for Netflix's shows being terrible. I will say that for some reason a ton of terribly written shows were greenlit by Netflix and they happened to be woke. I'm guessing that writing that appeals to everyone in your political bubble is easier to get greenlit than actually good writing that might actually make you question your beliefs in some manner.

Yeah sure. The company pushing Chapelle and Gervais transphobic standup comedy and continuing to pay them more money is the woke company. People need to lay off buzz words

the majority of all original programming gets cancelled.

Who is the media company so great that isn’t shoveling out shit? Disney with marvel and Star Wars? HBO where most of the creative staff left recently because of HBO Max strategy? CBS with the 50th CSI, FBI, or Law and Order show?

What was disgusting about the fluid? I’m not sure what it is. However I’m going to venture you don’t find the fluids of heteronormative sex disgusting. More than that. Who cares. I watched the show and don’t remember that scene. I can’t imagine caring about sex scenes in media. They are so unimportant.

Sense8 didn’t get instantly cancelled either. It literally got a second season.

> There was also this terrible show that got instantly cancelled called Sense 8. The first scene of that show was this absurd sex scene where a woman was having sex with a trans-woman using a dildo and the dildo flops onto the ground and is soaked in some disgusting fluid.

Ok, but they also have a very heteronormative show Sex/Life that's equally trashy and lowbrow, maybe the issue isn't the "wokeness?"

I don't know if wokeness is really applicable. Having watched a variety of netflix originals over the years I don't really find correlation or causation between wokeness and quality. I really liked Arcane, and Arcane has a bunch of races and sexualities and poverty levels and even pink/blue/etc hair. I also really liked Stranger Things and it's pretty much an all-white cast in suburbia middle class americana.

> “Arcane has a bunch of races and sexualities and poverty levels and even pink/blue/etc hair”

It’s genuinely funny if hair color is the sure mark of devious wokeness.

The fiber of what’s currently known as the anti-woke moral panic is unchanged since 1965: “There are men with long hair on television now! Somebody needs to protect the children”

If that was wokeness there wouldn't be a problem.

So what is wokeness?

Pray tell why HBOMax and Disney+ are popular then considering there are an equal amount of “woke” shows

Particularly considering the recent Dave Chapelle controversy (and similar), would you really consider Netflix "woke"? They're capitalistic - they'll make whatever sells

There's Woke Capitalism, with a lot of large corporations leaning into it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/opinion/corporate-america...

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