Forced “woke-ism“ in film Unauthentic diversity of unrepresented communities

By Kaitlyn Jones StaffWriter

Recently in movies and other types of media, companies have been implementing a considerable amount of diversity in their films, which is likely used to gain the favor of the audience or to avoid criticism that come out as being artificial and forced. This phenomenon is something I like to call ‘forced woke-ness’ (woke: the awareness of racial prejudice and discrimination) and has especially annoyed me.

To go further into depth, film companies will add in a few short moments in their movies that imply representation of a culture or community to audience members and therefore avoid criticism and subsequently gain public favor. Most times the c0mpanies are just doing the bare minimum, for example tokenism, or a few members of an underrepresented community to create the appearance of diversity to outer public audiences.

These scenes have almost no purpose and do not actually do anything to progress the plot because they are made to be so subtle. In addition, this means that these companies care more about their reputation and the amount of money they can make rather than the actual communities they are trying to represent.

One example of this occurrence are a few instances in the “Beauty and the Beast’’ live action movie released in 2017. Throughout the movie, and especially in the last 20-30 minutes, there is a small subplot(if you can even call it that) about Lefou and another side character that is indicated to be representation for the LGBTQ+ community. This is one of many scenes added to this movie to address the criticisms made against it so considering that I think that it was added in for Disney’s own reputation. These scenes are so far and few between that the only people who pick up on it are those who are meant to, or in other words, they don’t additionally upset people as well.

Another example is during June, LGBTQ+ pride month, when many companies’ Instagram accounts will put a pride flag in their profile picture to show that they support that community. Many within the community note that as soon as June ends, the companies immediately change their profile pictures back to normal, which is an ongoing joke within the community. This is fake ally-ship considering that these companies are not actually doing anything or taking any action for the community, they are doing the bare minimum to show they are supportive but not actually doing anything.

In my opinion, companies forcing their writers to add in diversityfortheappeasementoftheaudience and other factors removes the whole point of diversity in the first place because they do not sincerely meanit.Ifinditveryinterestingthat we have come so far as a race that we have finally started to capitalize on inclusiveness. Companies are using this as a business strategy, not necessarily caring about the cause.

Personally, I have seen that at least with “Beauty and the Beast” live action or other similar scenes that a lot of the people in the community did not ask for these scenes or even like them to begin with mostly because they noticed those factors I stated before. This inclusion is not even liked by the community because they realized that they are not truly doing anything to support them.

In my opinion film and other companies should commit to being inclusive if they are going to put some in at all because it will be meaningful and not just a cash grab. For example, in “Bridgerton” (for the most part) does not try to explain this inexplicable, unrealistic situation and is very stylistic with it. Its style is not accurate to the time period but that improves the show overall. I dislike that these companies put in the bare minimum amount of effort and then expect rewards and applause for it. Inclusiveness should be meaningful and well thought out.