Woke isn't dead, but its death grip on Hollywood has loosened considerably.
The proof? Disney did a massive backpedal on "message" movies, crushing a trans subplot in the company's "Win or Lose" series and nixing a sizable gay storyline in last year's "Elio." That film's director spelled it out for all to see.
We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.
That, plus the return of the comedy roast, suggests woke is on its heels. Yet some artists can't stop censoring themselves.
Fear of potential backlash? Career preservation? A misguided quest for the ultimate virtual signal?
Just know that the latest example is downright maddening. Two examples, to be exact.
French director Céline Sciamma is best known for films like "Girlhood" and "Tomboy." She recently revisited both projects, this time with her editorial scissors in hand.
Slice, slice, slice!
Sciamma removed violent scenes from 2011's "Tomboy," which included the movie's final moments. She also snipped out an on-screen slap, according to World of Reel.
The director's censorial ambitions for downsizing "Girlhood" may have involved the "cultural appropriation" charges that dogged the film since its initial 2014 release. That film follows a group of female black teens, a project partly made to highlight a cultural group often ignored in cinema.
The white director defended her choice of subjects during the film's release.
“I have a strong sense of having lived on the outskirts – even if I am a middle-class white girl. I didn’t feel I was making a film about black women but with black women – it’s not the same. I’m not saying, ‘I’m going to tell you what it’s like being black in France today’; I just want to give a face to the French youth I’m looking at.”
Now? She shared with Radio France that she retained "the acts of tenderness" in the film but edited other elements out. That reduced the film's running time from 113 to 88 minutes.
Artists censoring their own thoughts and projects was more common during the Peak Woke Years (2017-2024). This was the New Normal for a while.
Showtime's "Desus & Mero" admitted on their short-lived talk show that they self-censored to avoid blowback. "Saturday Night Live" alum Tina Fey oversaw the removal of four "30 Rock" episodes that touched on blackface-like moments.
Actress Chloe Grace Moretz hoped her 2017 film directed by Louis C.K., "I Love You, Daddy," would stay buried forever after he admitted to sexually exposing himself to multiple women.
Comedians had to watch what they joked about ... or else.
The culture has started to heal since then. That woke sentiment refuses to fade away entirely. Just look at Sacha Baron Cohen's new film, "Ladies First." The Netflix comedy casts him as a male chauvinist who bonks his head and, voila, wakes up in a world where women rule. not men.
Yeah, it's as woke as it sounds, and even liberal film critics loathed it.
Maybe in a few years, Cohen and company will realize the comedy wasn't woke enough and head to the editing room anew.
