It’s one of the most riveting exchanges of any film, courtesy of 1976’s “Marathon Man.”
Is it safe?
Tell me what the “it” refers to.
Is it safe?
Yes, it’s safe, it’s very safe, it’s so safe you wouldn’t believe it.
Is it safe?
No. It’s not safe, it’s… very dangerous, be careful.
Hollywood deemed the Woke Mind Virus as very dangerous. Be careful. And, boy, were stars ever careful.
Now, a few artists raged against it from the jump, like comedians John Cleese and Adam Carolla. Others bowed to its will sans hesitation. See Halle Berry and Scarlett Johansson, two superstars who spat out Hostage Video Apologies™ after accepting trans character parts.
Stephen King made an obviously true statement and scurried to the pages of The Washington Post to apologize after the mob came for him.
Meanwhile, the industry’s film and TV pipeline mostly avoided the subject. Instead, they did the woke mob’s bidding.
Slowly, some cracks appeared in the surface.
Cate Blanchett’s 2022 drama “Tár” featured her character blistering a student for his woke posture.
“If sanity ever returns to the American culture, writer/director Todd Field’s brilliant and hypnotizing Tár will be remembered as the only honest document of the disgraceful Woke Era.” https://t.co/Urg2FQ1S45
— John Ocasio-Rodham Nolte (@NolteNC) February 1, 2023
The 2023 drama “Dream Scenario” with Nicolas Cage found the Oscar-winner playing a professor grappling with cancellation for the craziest reason – he began appearing in people’s dreams where he behaved badly.
Very badly.
Still, Hollywood by and large refused to defend itself during the woke era. Some stars self-censored. Others yanked their creative works from the public indefinitely. Most prayed they wouldn’t be canceled next.
Now, as the woke era recedes from view, some stars are starting to speak out against it. Take Jennifer Lawrence, appearing in the awards season drama “Die My Love.”
The Oscar winner shared that she and fellow A-lister Emma Stone are working on a Miss Piggy solo feature. The wrinkle?
“So, during lockdown, one of my good friends who is not in the industry—it was also kind of around cancel culture,” she recalled on The Tonight Show. “It was like both things were kind of happening at once. We were all locked up in our rooms, naughty people were being locked up in prison.”
Lawrence explained, “Miss Piggy is a feminist icon, and she said it would be so funny if Miss Piggy got canceled. Now, that is not the plot, necessarily, but it got the wheels turning.”
A progressive starlet like Lawrence wouldn’t dare admit anything of the kind just a few years ago. Now, she has permission to say that without expecting professional blowback.
More importantly, we’re starting to see the Woke Mind Virus on the big screen. And it’s far from flattering.
“After the Hunt” stars a never-better Julia Roberts as a professor torn between a friend (Andrew Garfield) and worrying if an academic star’s accusations against him are true.
The story wrestles with MeToo hysteria, Identity Politics, Cancel Culture and more. No easy answers are supplied in the smart but confounding film. But, for once, just “asking questions” is a valid pursuit.
The recent box office dud “Eddington” also explores woke culture, from the George Floyd riots and BLM’s rise to pandemic insanity. The film’s flaws are easy to spot, but it courageously tackled subjects most artists fear going near. It also gets some of the year’s biggest laughs by mocking woke nonsense.
This overdue examination isn’t relegated to the States.
Last year’s “Douglas Is Cancelled” featured a British-based tale centered on the cultural scourge. The show’s rollout allowed its actors, including star Hugh Bonneville, to explore the issue sans punishment.
If there was a sin, even if it was a sin of syntax, or a sin of verbal mispronunciation, or misquoting, it’s too late – the tide has already started, and it will not stop until there is blood. That’s usually the pattern. The reason I wanted to engage with this, apart from working with this wonderful team, was that it shines such a clear spotlight on exactly that – this tiny thing that was apparently innocuous becomes the centerpiece for a national debate, certainly an industry-wide debate within our context.
Which brings us to actress Sydney Sweeney.
The starlet looked the Woke Mob in the eye and refused to blink. The “Christy” actress recently appeared in an American Eagle jeans commercial where she coyly made a “jeans/genes” pun tied to her physical beauty.
The dwindling woke mob raged for weeks, but Sweeney refused to apologize for a harmless ad. Days ago, a woke interviewer nudged her to apologize for the ad.
The actress never blinked, and the woke movement suffered yet another body blow.
Would she have been so brave back in 2020, the peak of woke hysteria?
We’ll never know.
Either way, the changing cultural temperature made her stand acceptable, even fashionable. Perhaps Hollywood could start making more movies about a cultural scourge that upended their industry.
