Media Review & Entertainment

By Kyra Thompson

Image: Deposit Photo

If you have engaged in the “culture war” at all in the past few years, you may have begun to notice a common phrase emerging; “Go woke, go broke.” For anyone unfamiliar with such terminology, it simply describes the phenomena of large corporations using their platforms to preach a progressive message and then watching their numbers tank. But is this phenomenon a reality, or is this just wishful thinking on the part of conservatives and nostalgia fanatics? 

I would venture to say there is plenty of evidence to back up the “Go woke, go broke” concept. The ever-growing list of woke-infested products which have failed miserably is becoming very difficult to ignore. More and more movies and TV series are not simply adopting the philosophies of the left but they are actively telling their viewers that if they don’t like it, they are bigoted, racist, and sexist. And after looking at the ratings and revenue, consumers are not having it. 

• She Said: A movie based on the true story of the two females that were instrumental in starting the #metoo movement brought in only $11.2 million after spending $32 million.
• Amsterdam: According to multiple critics, the star-studded film was a subliminal jab at Trump– an $80 million jab that ended up only making $31.2 million at the box office. 
• Bros: This film was so explicitly a LGBTQ propaganda piece that it had to explain it was “historic” in its marketing campaign. It bombed at the box office making only $14.8 million on a $22 million budget. And the director even acknowledged the failure, blaming homophobia for the poor performance.  

Then there are the many franchises with huge loyal fan-bases that are openly opposed to the changes happening to their beloved stories. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and The Matrix just to name a few, have all received public backlash for pushing the ideas of the left. In addition to this, reboots of popular children’s classics like Aladdin, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast were heavily laden with CRT, neo-gender ideology, and anti-traditional family messages. 

Disney has been so aggressive in their social activist evangelism, that you would think their salvation nearly depended on it. Not to mention that their leadership has been openly vocal about their goals for indoctrinating youth through the content they produce. But what is truly remarkable is how they have not yet noticed the trend of absolute flops. 

Movies

• • Lightyear: Which featured a same-sex couple and kiss, spent $200 million and barely made $155 million in the first week, nearly costing the studio $100 million dollars. 
  • Strange World: Which boasted of being Disney’s first animated film to have an openly LGBTQ main character, tanked upon opening. Pulling in a startling $24 million even after Pixar spent close to $180 million to make it. 
  • Eternals: Laden with gender-bends and race-bends, the director openly admitted the movie was intended to be woke. It was Marvel’s second-lowest grossing film next only to The Incredible Hulk. 
  • Thor: Love and Thunder: This was another open promotion of same-sex attraction and LGBTQ evangelism and even though the numbers at the box office weren’t as bad as some of the other films on this list, the percentage drop from the last Thor film is telling. 

TV shows 

• She-Hulk: Takes every opportunity it can (and then even some it can’t) to tell its viewers how oppressed and underrated women are constantly. From the ratings, I’d say viewers would rather have a good plot then just have feminism preached at them for 8 episodes straight. 
• Ms. Marvel: Is all about an empowered middle-eastern woman, full of more feminist ideology with added favoritism to Islamic beliefs opened to a low viewership of only 775,000 households. When compared to other Marvel shows like Loki (2.5 million), Moon Knight (1.8 million), and WandaVision (1.6 million), that is dramatically low for the studio’s typical performance.

All of this doesn’t even include the disappointment expressed by many fans over the woke attitudes being inserted to shows like Doctor Who and Star Trek, and other woke movie reboots like Charlie’s Angels, Terminator, and Ghostbusters. That is a lot of misfires and failures in a diverse collection of movie styles, franchises, and unique environments. It’s hard to draw a connection between the failures and any other factor. But one thread runs through all these bombs; they are unapologetically– no, even proudly woke. 

To be clear, the outcry of so many is not against diversity or even the unnecessary gender swaps. The American public has made it clear that we are accepting of diversity and equality as evidenced by franchises like the Fast and Furious series and even the success of Marvel films like Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. But there is a difference between including diversity in a good story and forcing everyone to accept your movie as a good story simply because it is diverse. 

It’s the virtue signaling that I truly believe has turned off so many of the American public to so much the media being released recently. And when you look at the extensive amount of flops and public outcry against the ideologies being pushed in so many of these movies, I’m hard pressed NOT to see a trend. But, I don’t want to shove anything down anyone’s throat, I’ll let you decide for yourself since the companies don’t seem to be able to pick up the message. 

Editor’s Note: The financial data for these films presented in this article can be found at here and here. 

The opinions in this article are specific to its author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the entire Counter Culture Mom team.

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