Every time I hear this claim "It's not that it's 'woke', it's that it's a bad movie" I ask myself: "what does 'woke' mean, then?"
I don't consider myself to be a conservative. I lean left on a lot of issues, especially social issues. I love Star Trek and a lot of left-leaning art. Yet I can't stand "woke" movies and tv series.
Why is that?
In my opinion, part of being a "woke" movie IS being a bad movie. It's not that it has a message or a point of view. There is tons of great art out there has a left-leaning message. To me, "woke" suggests that any combination of character, plot, theme, development or production design was neglected in favour of tokenization (or "pandering" as South Park put it). The implication being that the movie was supposed to do well because, allegedly, "modern audiences" are seeking titles with heavy handed messages and tokenization because that's what they are looking for, versus well thought-out writing and production. A "woke" movie is one where bad reviews can and are blamed on various *ists.