Movie Critic Chris Stuckman Explains Why Woke Politics Are Rampant in Modern Hollywood

John F. Trent |

Nov 5, 2019

Movie critic Chris Stuckman explains why woke politics are rampant in modern day Hollywood.

During his review of the horror film Countdown, Stuckman recounts a “forced sexual harassment” subplot in the film involving a doctor aggressively hitting on a nurse, and even reporting to his superiors that she was the one who hit on him in the first place in order to cause damage to her career.

Stuckman reveals just why this subplot, which he details “has nothing to do with the movie” is actually included in the film.

He states:

“For the past year, I’ve had multiple scripts that I’ve talked to many studios about and some have showed real interest. … One of the biggest notes I’ve always gotten back is that if you included some kind of social commentary or something that was in the news today or something that people are talking about a lot that might make your script easier to sell.”

YouTuber JosiahRises analyzed this statement saying:

“We’ve talked about how they aren’t using these things because they actually care about diversity and things like that. They are doing these things because they know that they are selling points that they can use to continue to not only drive certain people to the theaters to see these movies, but it’s easy marketing, it’s easy PR. Everyone knows that the mainstream media is going to eat up everything they say about this stuff.”

Josiah continues:

“It’s easy way for them to get the word out even more about the movies. It creates controversy around their movie and all that type of stuff. That’s the reason they are doing this stuff.”

He adds:

“It’s all about money. It’s all about money with Hollywood. It’s so obvious that is the case. And the sooner that we can start using our money in wiser ways and speaking with our wallets to Hollywood then the sooner that we can get changes. But we need to continue to make people aware of what is going on in Hollywood. We need to continue to make people aware that they are not doing this because they care about these things. They don’t. They just don’t. None of these people care about these things.”

I have to disagree with Josiah on this one. It’s not just about the money. Hollywood continues to push these types of stories even when they aren’t financially viable. You can just look at the current 2019 box office as an example.

Terminator: Dark Fate is the most recent example. The marketing for the film saw director Tim Miller refer to fans who were criticizing the initial marketing material for the film as “misogynists.” And the film appeared to replace what had once been male roles in the films with female characters. The movie could reportedly lose up to $130 million.

Men in Black: International is another film where two former male roles got replaced with female characters. The film only grossed $80 million at the domestic box office after a $30 million opening weekend.

Sony Chairman Tim Rothman explained the problem with the film was the strength of the story to Business Insider:

“I think the truth of the matter is the audience really liked that film and the cast was wonderful, Tessa and Chris were great and did a terrific job, but if we made any mistake, I think it probably was that there was not a strong enough idea in the story.”

The film had a 23% Tomatometer critic score and a 58% All Audience score with the average rating from the audience being 3.41 on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, it has a 4.2 user score. I would say that’s the complete opposite of the audience really liking the film.

On top of that Hollywood is green lighting reboots with race swaps and gender swaps seemingly every week. Even James Bond will reportedly see a race and gender-swapped 007 in the upcoming No Time To Die film.

It’s hard to argue that with the ongoing financial disasters that pushing the woke socio-political messaging seems to bring that Hollywood would only care about money. It’s because they don’t just care about money.

Francis Ford Coppola, the director of Godfather, made that very clear in his recent comments about the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

He stated:

“When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration.”

Martin Scorsese also indicated that films were meant to influence young people.

“This is the world we live in. Our children are, I don’t know what they’re doing with those devices. They perceive reality differently. They perceive even the concept of what history is supposed to be [differently]. How are they going to know about WWII? How are they going to know about Vietnam? What do they think of Afghanistan? What do they think of all of this? They’re perceiving it in bits and pieces. There seems to be no continuity of history.”

Recently, The Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau made it very clear how he sees TV and movies.

“Understanding that stories for the generation that’s coming of age can open doors to people and help guide the values of our culture if stories are told well. So to me that’s the part that I feel.”

He added:

“That there are life lessons that are in these stories, that carry on the tradition and speaking to [George Lucas] he felt that the western was the genre that helped teach a generation of people coming of age about the value systems that are espoused by that genre, and that Star Wars part of that responsibility is remembering that part of your audience is a whole generation that’s coming of age and through stories we express our values to the next generation. And so one of the things he said was not to lose sight that this is the main audience for stories.”

Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson also made it very clear that she planned to use her spotlight in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as an opportunity for activism.

“The movie was the biggest and best opportunity I could have ever asked for. It was, like, my superpower. This could be my form of activism: doing a film that can play all over the world and be in more places than I can be physically.”

And it’s not just these directors and actors who believe Hollywood is directly attempting to influence through their movies. CBS News reported in 2014, “Hollywood has long been involved in American politics and social values.”

It’s not just about the money. It’s about the messaging. And as Stuckman points out, it’s a specific type of messaging. It’s “some kind of social commentary or something that was in the news today or something that people are talking about a lot.” And that commentary most definitely has to be of the woke variety.

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