"Woke"

I recently participated in a few discussions in regard to the word "woke". Frankly, I hate the term (for no other reason than the fact that it's grammatically incorrect. It's a past-tense verb, not an adjective.) I have since seen some lines being drawn by other authors. But here's the thing. There are a number of twisting of arguments being used here.

When someone is critical of "woke", the vast majority of the time, it's a criticism of the practices associated with word in its pejorative sense. And how I personally define that pejorative form is this:

Self-centered performative pseudo-activism.

In regard to film/TV/literature, it's also lazy writing. I'll elaborate with an example.

Star Trek Discovery - Season 1.

Showrunners: "We're super proud of our diverse bridge crew!"

- Ok... so what are their names?

Showrunners: "What?"

- What are the names of this diverse group of people on the bridge? Because the scripts for much of the first season refer to them only by their station. They're called "ops" and "tactical" and "conn". What are their names?

Showrunners: "Uh..."

Reality: They didn't think of them. It didn't even occur to them. They were just placeholders who checked off boxes. A black one (Lt. Januzzi), an Asian/Arab one (Lt. Gant), a robot one (Lt. Narwani), and... oh yeah... the HELMSMAN (Lt. Detmer, who was in 5 SEASONS OF THE SHOW), etc. Because the showrunners actually contacted a well-known Star Trek novel author by the name of David Mack to write a tie-in story for Star Trek Discovery, gave him the first few scripts from the season, and he also noticed that the majority of the bridge crew had no names. HE had to come up with names and backstories for them in order to include the characters in the novel. Those names and backstories were eventually used by the writers and castmembers of the show.

The showrunners and writers never even thought about the characters as being well-rounded, complete, and complex individuals. They were nothing more than boxes that were checked off for whatever singular trait that they were chosen to represent. THAT is an example of "woke".

Being critical of "woke" doesn't mean that you're against diversity or anti-woman or racist or any of these other ridiculous claims.

If you're opposed to "woke", you're not against diversity. You're against bargain basement lazy presentation of diversity. If a character is only there to function as a stand-in or representative of a particular trait, that's checkbox diversity, and the boxes that are being checked aren't for people. They're for traits. If the only thing even remotely interesting or unique about the character is that singular trait (they're "The black one," "the gay one," "the trans one," "the disabled one," "the autistic one," etc.) to the point where, if you removed that single trait from their character, there would be virtually nothing left of them, they're not a real character. They're just a placeholder to pull out when you want to address the issue that their singular trait represents. They're the convenient voice of the collective. They're not an individual.

 One of the most blatant indicators of this is when a character starts a line with:

"Speaking as a [insert inherent trait here]..."

From that point on, anything that they say is no longer their belief or opinion as an individual. It is the implied (often self-appointed) representative voice for the group.

"Woke" is lazy. It's reductive. It's condescending. And it's self-centered because the people who tend to promote and encourage these practices are looking for the quick and easy route and doing it in order to get praise and recognition for themselves. It's not about the messages. It's not about the diversity. It's not about anything other than the idea of "Look at ME. Praise ME. Look how diverse MY creation is. Look at what I DID. Look at how progressive I AM. Look at how much better I AM than all of these other people."

It's one of the reasons why the messages that are included are so often condescending, coming across as lectures or preaching. The self-righteousness of the creator of those stand-ins is setting the tone of the delivery of the message. They're the wise one and you're just the ignorant masses who need to be lectured or preached to in order to get you to think the right things.

Real diversity is including a variety of characters whose most interesting thing is something that they've created or said or earned. If your character can be described in detail in regard to their skills, talents, accomplishments, their job, their personality and that particular inherent trait that they have can be described by saying, "They also just happen to be [insert trait here]", then you have real quality and organic diversity in a character group and you have an actual individual instead of a collective stand-in.

Are there some people who are fine with "woke"? Sure. If the messaging being thrown at them is something they are agree about, they see no problems with it. They're not being lectured. They're just having their existing beliefs reinforced. It's preaching to the choir. In instances like that, you'd have to go pretty far to even lose them (Though Doctor Who did a pretty good job of that by the end of the last season. Even some of their most avid supporters in the media started saying that the episodes were beginning to feel more like lectures that you had to sit through instead of entertainment that you actually wanted to watch.) And, let's be honest. There are some people who are perfectly content with superficial. Just the fact that there is someone representing a particular trait is good enough. And that's fine.

If you read all of this and still have the knee-jerk reaction of thinking that my criticism of "woke" means that I'm an anti-diversity -ist/phobe/whatever, I can say outright that you're wrong, and if you read my novels you would see as much, but I know full-well that there's clearly nothing I can say or do that will actually change your mind.

Such is life.