Meditation for Analytical types...
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When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it is time for you to leave, grasshopper.
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I nearly made a reference to Kung Fu, but didn't know if it was as popular in the US as it was in the UK. "Walk along the rice paper my friend."
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I was thinking of the "old" Kung Fu series with David Carradine, of course. It had its following but faded after a couple of seasons.
The "new" Kung Fu series has a pretty Chinese actress who is DEFINITELY better looking than David Carradine, but I couldn't get into the reboot.
The "new" Kung Fu series has a pretty Chinese actress who is DEFINITELY better looking than David Carradine, but I couldn't get into the reboot.
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Since I didn't take that version very seriously, it didn't bother me. It was kind of fun to watch Chris Hemsworth playing a big, dumb hunk.
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Which might explain why the CW Network's Batwoman TV series is SUCH a train-wreck. OK, a costumed but otherwise ordinary human vigilante crime fighter is enough of a stretch on a good day, but the first season had a gay white woman in the role. Then, when Ruby Rose turned out to be a difficult actor to handle, the network simply wrote her out of the second season and replaced her with another lesbian, this time a black woman. And just for funsies, their family is REALLY multi-racial, since the first white Batwoman's father in the series married again to an Asian woman and had another daughter. Again, no problem with that individually, but how many "woke" memes can they fit in that sausage before the skin splits?
AND the white sister of the first Batwoman was a victim of a deranged kidnapper who wanted a companion for his mutilated son, and the years in captivity drove her to be criminally insane, thus trying to make her a victim rather than simply a sociopathic killer.
I said it was like a train wreck. I have watched it in the same way and for the same reasons that I would watch ANY train wreck... morbid fascination. You watch it because you KNOW it will be a disaster, but you can't look away. You know it will be bloody, but you can't take your eyes off of it. As an amateur writer, I watch it because it convinces me that my writing is fairly decent.
The CW network brought us several superhero and costumed vigilante series, some of them not insanely bad (just so-so bad), but they are SO woke that the last I heard, CW was up for sale due to a ratings drop across the board. Right now, Viacom and Warner Media are exploring options. Since Warner holds the DC comics franchise for theatrical movies, I guess that makes sense to combine them.
AND the white sister of the first Batwoman was a victim of a deranged kidnapper who wanted a companion for his mutilated son, and the years in captivity drove her to be criminally insane, thus trying to make her a victim rather than simply a sociopathic killer.
I said it was like a train wreck. I have watched it in the same way and for the same reasons that I would watch ANY train wreck... morbid fascination. You watch it because you KNOW it will be a disaster, but you can't look away. You know it will be bloody, but you can't take your eyes off of it. As an amateur writer, I watch it because it convinces me that my writing is fairly decent.
The CW network brought us several superhero and costumed vigilante series, some of them not insanely bad (just so-so bad), but they are SO woke that the last I heard, CW was up for sale due to a ratings drop across the board. Right now, Viacom and Warner Media are exploring options. Since Warner holds the DC comics franchise for theatrical movies, I guess that makes sense to combine them.
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I watched some teen type series recently, where there was lots of goings on at their school. As the series went on, i think about 40% of the main characters were gay or had a gender bending experience. I couldn't get around the political statement of it all, and as Uncle says, it makes the stories seem fake.
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Yes. The ancient Greeks knew this, but here are the seven types in modern language:
The 7 Story Archetypes, and How They Can Dramatically Improve Your Marketing.
Social Media Today
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There are occasional instances where I don't have a problem with that. In Dune (2021 by Villeneuve) Dr. Liet Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) was recast as a Black female. Ms Brewster made a very credible performance. Nevertheless, many times I find some of this type of re-casting offensive since the characters (fall-out of character to) lose themselves into espousing "woke" politics (as if reading from a script, which obviously they are.)
Just recalled the recasting of Starbuck with Katee Sackhoff in Battlestar Galactica. Didn't have a problem with that.
Not just Netflix, but Hulu and Amazon too. Recently, Amazon just released Season 2 of Upload. We had waited a long time for that. Anyway, the series has been extremely funny, up till the last two episodes, where they went fully "woke". Such a shame.
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Then there is another new series on the CW that I have been watching to try to figure it out because it follows a comic that was introduced after I stopped following comic books. It is Naomi, and to me, the pacing is slow. In fact, I think I have seen soap operas that developed things faster.
Yes, it is a bit woke, though not as bad as the Batwoman series.
Yes, it is a bit woke, though not as bad as the Batwoman series.
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Strange New Worlds Finally Reveals The Enterprise Captain Before Pike
Adrian Holmes brings Admiral Robert April to life on Strange New Worlds.
screenrant.com
I have not seen Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, so I really can't comment (in depth) concerning the "reimagining" of Robert April from Caucasian to African-American, other than to highlight that the media industry is frantically re-writing history to demonstrate how woke they are. The potential concern is that the character (Robert April) may also assume the obligation of projecting wokesim, as has occurred in other TV series, such as Upload. I find this trend to be very disappointing.
(Note: I previously expressed that I did not have a concern with Dr. Liet Kynes being "reimagined".)
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Just as a follow-up: I commented earlier on the train wreck that was the Batwoman series. They are not being renewed. (Oh, boo-hoo, sob sob... that train wreck has finally been cleared from the tracks.)
In some cases it is not material to the story as to what gender or ethnicity a character is. In my primary fantasy series (working on book six, still no takers but I'm enjoying the process), I have a cleric who was originally white, but I decided that it didn't matter so I went back through the stories and retrofitted him to be black. Did that years before the current usage of "woke" was ever heard. Since my fantasy world isn't an "old Earth" it didn't matter. I've been playing with the idea of subtle racism in a world where there ARE actually different races (human, dwarf, elf, etc.) but so far I have not devolved into making a formal parallel with real-life racism.
In some cases it is not material to the story as to what gender or ethnicity a character is. In my primary fantasy series (working on book six, still no takers but I'm enjoying the process), I have a cleric who was originally white, but I decided that it didn't matter so I went back through the stories and retrofitted him to be black. Did that years before the current usage of "woke" was ever heard. Since my fantasy world isn't an "old Earth" it didn't matter. I've been playing with the idea of subtle racism in a world where there ARE actually different races (human, dwarf, elf, etc.) but so far I have not devolved into making a formal parallel with real-life racism.
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Gender changes and ethnic or ancestry changes don't hurt a story if the story is good. If you think about it, many of the secondary characters in the Harry Potter series could have been anything. J K Rowling could have made Nigel Longbottom any race, and in fact several of Harry's friends are Oriental or black, and equally distributed between male and female - heck, even some non-humans on staff at Hogwarts. Hagrid (R.I.P. Robbie Coltrane) was half-giant. Professor Flitwick was (I think) full or part gnome. It makes no difference to a good story.
Where the excrement hits the oscillating rotational atmospheric redistribution device is when you generate characters with wokeness in mind and make it a plot or sub-plot point. So we had the fast-rolling train wreck that was the Tom Swift series, where a gay black genius becomes a super-inventor and pretty much flaunts his lifestyle during family hour (prime time) on TV. To the good side, it only lasted one season. Which was pretty good for us. Since I am known to have a bad case of morbid fascination, I watched some of it. One take-away was that the actors obviously needed to take some kind of lessons on showing more than four emotions on their faces.
The point here is that "woke" can be handled tastefully or not. Case in counterpoint - TV series The Flash, which had a Hispanic ethnicity tech guy and when the actor wanted to try other projects, they found a black ethnicity tech guy. Both were competent actors and their ethnicity was never a major plot point. Unlike the Batwoman series where they replaced a gay white woman with a gay black woman, but the gender preference became a strong plot element. That show was so "woke" that I'm surprised it had as long a run as it did.
Scripted TV entertainment STARTS with the script. Not with ethnicity as inspiration. Not with gender preference as inspiration. With very rare exceptions, though a story may draw inspiration from the characters, it is that the SCRIPT was set in some situation to have those characters present in the first place. Going "woke" for the sake of public pressure or corporate policy usurps the central role of the script in defining the quality of the entertainment offered by the show or series.
Which actually ties into my other bete noir, the insufficient supply of script writers caused by the explosion of demand for content on the explosion of cable, broadcast, and streaming channels. The writing talent has gotten so diluted that there is almost no imagination visible these days. I'm doing my part by writing my fantasy series, but so far, no takers. Who knows? Someday I may find a decent taker. Until then, I write and pontificate.
Where the excrement hits the oscillating rotational atmospheric redistribution device is when you generate characters with wokeness in mind and make it a plot or sub-plot point. So we had the fast-rolling train wreck that was the Tom Swift series, where a gay black genius becomes a super-inventor and pretty much flaunts his lifestyle during family hour (prime time) on TV. To the good side, it only lasted one season. Which was pretty good for us. Since I am known to have a bad case of morbid fascination, I watched some of it. One take-away was that the actors obviously needed to take some kind of lessons on showing more than four emotions on their faces.
The point here is that "woke" can be handled tastefully or not. Case in counterpoint - TV series The Flash, which had a Hispanic ethnicity tech guy and when the actor wanted to try other projects, they found a black ethnicity tech guy. Both were competent actors and their ethnicity was never a major plot point. Unlike the Batwoman series where they replaced a gay white woman with a gay black woman, but the gender preference became a strong plot element. That show was so "woke" that I'm surprised it had as long a run as it did.
Scripted TV entertainment STARTS with the script. Not with ethnicity as inspiration. Not with gender preference as inspiration. With very rare exceptions, though a story may draw inspiration from the characters, it is that the SCRIPT was set in some situation to have those characters present in the first place. Going "woke" for the sake of public pressure or corporate policy usurps the central role of the script in defining the quality of the entertainment offered by the show or series.
Which actually ties into my other bete noir, the insufficient supply of script writers caused by the explosion of demand for content on the explosion of cable, broadcast, and streaming channels. The writing talent has gotten so diluted that there is almost no imagination visible these days. I'm doing my part by writing my fantasy series, but so far, no takers. Who knows? Someday I may find a decent taker. Until then, I write and pontificate.