I saw this comment on a facebook review the other day that the film was ‘woke’ and everyone took the piss out of them, because of the whole boring thing how ‘woke’ is just anything that certain people don’t like etc etc, but then it got me to thinking, it actually is ‘woke’. Let’s begin then
I’m going to assume that you’ve seen the film, and you probably already know, but just to point out my thesis, the word ‘woke’ was originally used by black revolutionaries (or whatever they were) in the USA in the 70s to refer to people who had ‘woken up’ to the fact that the system was against them. If I was a decent writer I would go and do some research on those guys, I will one day, but nobody pays me for this…
But this is also kind of a review, so I’ll start off by saying that I loved the film, I finally saw it last night, really enjoyed myself for the whole nearly 3 hours. Like all PTA films, it’s not actually realistic, it’s more about themes, which makes it more relevant to real life in a way.
The best example is the silliest thing about the film. It’s based on a novel by Thomas Piketty which is set in the 90s, so presumably the first part of the film is set in the 70s when there really were revolutionary terrorist groups (but who are the real terrorists lol) whereas this film is set now so young Leonardo di Caprio was doing terrorism in the Obama era?
I’m’ actually the same age as the old Leo character and the ‘radical’ movement in the USA at the time was Occupy Wall Street
That actually pissed me off at the end how she is ‘going to a protest in Oakland’, more on that later
But it makes the point that it’s the same struggle, and that is what ‘woke’ means. Same with the awesome fascist Christians. I mean the bad guys and the good guys are really cartoonish, it’s PTA, but also it makes the bigger point well. There really is a fascist power structure beneath the surface, and although if you have the money and status or even if you keep your head down you don’t have to see it and can live in this ‘democracy’, but that’s not what is really going on.
So there. The movie is ‘woke’ case closed. Now fuck off
This actually comes on to my main problem with the film, there’s a big question that it doesn’t really confront. It does seem ridiculous the idea that there was a radical group running around robbing banks and doing terrorist attacks on military bases and so on in the 00s, maybe I missed it or it was covered up, but there actually were those in the 70s
And the question is, is protesting and so on ‘woke’?
Like all power to them, I live in East Asia and haven’t even heard of any marches, and if there was an anti government one here, I wouldn’t go along just because as a foreigner it would be more trouble than it’s worth if anything happened, probably not just for me. But I’d imagine that the 70s people would have found my generations marches and activism and the current generation too. I think that I’d fall down on the side of non violent resistance, I mean that has worked in really dangerous situations, but it still has to be resistance. I remember when I was a student I went along to a few marches and felt so at the time. This is a clever thing that I’ve always wanted to say, now’s my chance!
“In Italian, the word for a march is ‘manifestazione’ from ‘manifestation’. The idea is that it’s a manifestation of power, and of course it comes from the idea of all of the workers going out into the street together to manifest the fact that the actual power was with them, the marches I went on was a lot of people out to make a statement, but then they would get extra police in, and kettle us all in, so what was manifesting then
the state could of course send in the troops and kill a bunch of people and get rid of these actions, but that would mean that they wouldn’t have workers, and the soldiers would have to do the work, and then they become workers not soldiers’
The second bit I added on, but the bit about the words is pretty clever, eh?
Another interesting part of the film is that the revolutionary characters are pretty unsympathetic. Like real life, the stuff they are on about generally makes sense to me and I kind of agree, but just like myself, and why I don’t do much probably, it’s kind of confusing what they are actually on about. There’s a whole debate there about what you should do, like there is stuff that definitely just works better, like there is still a fight for basic rights for a lot of people, I loved how Leo was a prick to his daughters mates because he wasn’t a bigot, but that trans kid, like he’s this washed up old pisshead, he doesn’t really know or care about that. As a fellow washed up guy, I really liked how her mates were much cooler with stuff that would have been a problem when I was a teenager, like there’s a bit of envy that they have a freedom that took real bravery when we were kids.
I’d imagine that it’s still not a picnic being non binary or even gay, but it’s not some alien thing that we were told it was.
Anyway, that’s quite a lot of thoughts, overall
A rip-roaring rollercoater of a movie! 5/5
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