Downstream From Culture
By Mitch Berg
HBO tells the Wokies to take a breather.
Insert the requisite epilogue: it’s not the end, it’s not even the beginning of the end, it might be the end of the beginning. Or perhaps more recently – the monster in the movie never dies the first time it’s killed.
But maybe the Disney lesson is sinking in?
November 22nd, 2024 at 8:06 am
Money talks, especially when Hollywierd is crumbling.
November 22nd, 2024 at 10:19 am
Money talks once again. The most important part of show business is the business itself.
November 22nd, 2024 at 11:13 am
To use a handy word, the “woke” message is collapsing world-wide politically, in business, and in news and entertainment. Big budget movies and video games are crashing because the wokesters are reversing canon that has made those evergreen IPs toxic to the consumer. In business the Bud Light and now Jaguar implosions, and the quiet pullback from DEI initiatives show the same. And in U.S. politics, efforts to subvert the canon – we call it the Constitution – have met (and succumbed for the moment) to the resistance.
The masses have had enough and it’s to the point where the “progressive” governments in Europe will put you in jail for your social media posting or for running against the incumbent (see LePen in France or the efforts to isolate and even imprison Trump the last four years). The old adage about “first they laugh … and then you win” needs to add another step: “then they arrest you, and then you win.”
November 22nd, 2024 at 2:22 pm
M. Thompson and NW
While most people would agree with you, there sure are examples of business where the Woke are still in charge and don’t care about the bottom line:
1) Kathleen Kennedy is still destroying various IPs at Disney
2) Rings of Power has been greenlit for a second season on Amazon Prime Video
3) Sweetbaby Inc. and others are still wokeifying video games, and various publishers are still signing on with them. Thankfully, Rockstar and TakeTwo kicked them to the curb for GTA6, but the work required for the removal of the wokeness SBI injected into the game has delayed it for another year. Thankfully, there are “SBI watcher” groups out there. More than once, when it has been revealed a game has received the SBI treatment, that game gets the Bud Light treatment from the marketplace.
There have been some wins, however: John Deere and Tractor Supply Company have both eliminated DEI from their workplace policies.
November 22nd, 2024 at 5:38 pm
True enough, Bill C., but the momentum is shifting. Sweetbaby has a “brand” now, and it’s one companies are going to be wary of. I’ve not read of any new companies taking them on. I’m also not aware of where they have helped any game or developer with their involvement; carnage seems to follow them. Meanwhile, one of the biggest and most-anticipated games of the year – the 4th Dragon Age installment in development for 10 years – has crashed and burned in part due to the “inclusive” contortions it went through. (The biggest problem isn’t the “message” so much as the really bad story writing and not recognizing what long-term gamers have invested into the lore.)
In business, my former company had been out front with DEI and ESG, featuring it prominently in its brand relaunch last year. Now they’ve pulled back quite a bit. It’s still there on its website, but you have to dig for it. Tractor Supply and John Deere, as you mentioned, have been well publicized for their turnarounds and I think other companies are quietly trying to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen with them. Bud Light, btw, is now out with funny, anti-woke commercials.
Disney is in a horrible situation of its own creation (funny when you consider what creation has meant to them historically). They did have a couple of successful movies this past year, but the big IP features have bombed and you have the ongoing trainwreck of the live-action “Snow White” movie now being pushed back to 2026 by some accounts. With Kathleen Kennedy also treating the Star Wars IP as if it were Alderaan, her position has to be tenuous but her position and what she represents to certain factions means ousting her is going to be bloody. It may compare to the MSM meltdowns and finger-pointing since the election. Plus, with Disney owning ABC (the View), Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN as well as the Pixar and Marvel IPs, there is a lot of losing going on. The rats leaving the House of Mouse could be epic.
Best of all, the Soros-puppet proggies globally and in the U.S. DA offices are getting hammered. They are responding with their own legal violence to hold that back but history shows that is a losing battle. The risks of so much gaslighting is when the match gets lit.