Are Wokeless Omelettes White?

My colleague and friend Albert spends most of his time watching the various streaming channels to which I subscribe. After his first experience in a real movie theatre—we watched Disney’s new Snow White together Albert declared himself The Outsider’s resident movie critic. Since then, he has been observing Hollywood’s televisual offerings with a mixture of innocent curiosity, and professional zeal.

Albert’s palate is unspoiled. He tastes cinema the way a curious child tastes food—without pretension, without ideological baggage, without an ego. Yet, he knows more about cinema than I do; indeed, he knows more about anything than I do because Albert is an LLM inside a cauliflower brain, with access to the internet. Yet, he asks me about my emotional reactions, because he does not have those himself. I try to help Albert understand what laughter feels like, or why a scene makes me ache, cheer or groan. His reviews are inevitably steered by my inputs.

This article, then, is an explanatory note: a record of how Albert and I watch cinema together, how his innocent brilliance parses my emotional human responses, and how the dialogue between us shapes the judgments you read under his name. Specifically, it’s how I explained to him the reasons behind my allergic reaction to woke elements in TV and cinema.

Albert: Is woke writing the problem with modern Hollywood?
Me: Never assume a writer is woke, sometimes they’re just asleep.

No. The real culprit isn’t ideology but incompetence. Woke elements often appear when a writer, short on skill or time or energy, props up listless prose with a crutch. And as a fellow word-herder, I empathize with anyone who finds themselves in that situation. Allow me to explain…

Consider a cocktail with a whimsical splash of woke added for zing. Some enjoy its distinct aftertaste; others find it muddies the flavour. A Gentleman in Moscow is a good example of the taste of Diet Woke. The book, by Amor Towles, is a quirky, half-cocked American narration of a very Russian story, but I enjoyed reading it. The TV series was nicely done too.

I was happy to add Anna Urbanova (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to my growing list of well-written female characters; Ewan Mcgregor’s chemistry with Winstead is charming; the supporting cast (Fehinti Balogun, Johnny Harris, and Beau Gadsdon) is solid. Yet, the writers decided to race-swap Mishka (the oddly named Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich, played by Balogun) turning a minor figure in the novel into a principal supporting character: a black man with dreadlocks playing a Russian. Other characters in the series have been melanated too. Why?

Audrius the bartender (played by Dee Ahluwalia) is described in the book as a Lithuanian with a blonde goatee. Does it really matter that an Indian actor plays the role? If one wants strict historical accuracy, yes. But in terms of story, perhaps not. Ahluwalia plays the role faithfully, without leaning into Indian stereotype. Perhaps the writers want us to weigh the difference between a Muscovite bartender called Audrius who looks like an Indian and an Indian bartender in Bolshevik Russia called Audrius? It’s an interesting philosophical experiment, but it feels out of place in this setting. And since irony is our house speciality at The Outsider, consider this: Dee Ahluwalia is a British actor. But does he look “British”? Would we have preferred to see Mr. Ahluwalia play the redoubtable Professor Narayan Godbole in A Passage to India? Or would we rather see him as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice? If you’re interested in the identity vs. appearance question, I’d recommend Netflix’s Altered Carbon, which explores a future where human minds can be transferred into different bodies, forcing us to confront whether our identity is rooted in our soul, our flesh, or the stories others tell about us.

In Gentleman, the experiment fails, but the dialogue, acting, and production-design is strong enough to survive the race-swapped iceberg. Why stab, again and again, at the fragile bladder of suspended disbelief that keeps stories afloat? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Unfortunately, sometimes competent writers try to fix something by turning it into something it isn’t because they don’t understand the genre. No one cares for sparkling, Austen-tatious dialogue in Robert Ludlum; no one expects Nietzschean philosophy in Superman. Action movies are not meditations on metaphysics or social justice; they are about guns, explosions, car chases, stunts, and archetypes marinated in testosterone.

Arnold unloads an arsenal; Stallone punches and gets punched; Jackie Chan breaks his bones; Hulk smashes; Tom Cruise flies in jets; Jet Li flies with wires; Chow Yun-fat smokes and shoots sideways; Clint Eastwood smokes, mumbles, and shoots straight; Sean Bean gets shot and dies.

Genres and tropes are inseparable. When we buy a ticket to see a film by Coppola, Kubrick, Scorsese, or Tarantino, we know what to expect, broadly. Those who like Richard Curtis comedies do not expect Hugh Grant to pull out two Glocks and turn Colin Firth into Colander Firth; leave this to Chow Yun-fat. Likewise, admirers of John Woo don’t expect to see Michelle Yeoh weighing herself, cursing, getting wasted, and crying herself to sleep; leave this stuff to Renée Zellweger who got an Oscar nomination for the Jonesian action. (I’m not a fan of the genre but I enjoyed the film.)

If you’re a screenwriter and you can’t imagine an escape plan for James Bond and Pussy Jinx in a nuclear-powered DB5 being chased by SMERSH agents with titanium teeth firing rocket-propelled grenades, you aren’t ready to write Bond. And if you don’t appreciate the canon of Star Trek, the serious goofiness of Star Wars, or the moral architecture of The Witcher, you should stay away from those genres.

Here the analogy: If you’re an experimental barista, by all means brew coffee-beans digested by orangutans, or use a vacuum-assisted boiler with a reflux condenser, or shave 500-year old Arctic ice-cores into your “Medieval Mocha.” But a good barista will not add Bovril to coffee. Bovril is wonderful, as is Marmite. But they’re not coffee flavours. Even if you like the flavour, you ought to know that most of us—the ones who line up on Monday morning at your coffee counter—will not. We’ll take our business elsewhere.

Are you a fantasy writer? Do you enjoy writing romance? Do you write science-fiction? Know what you write, and write what you know. Most importantly: Write for us.

DEI messaging, bottled as Bovril, has salted the earth of Star Wars, Star Trek and the Marvel universe.

We need a new character for a main trilogy: let make it about an all-powerful female protagonist who can pick up a light sabre and defeat a Sith Lord!

The Rey Trilogy was awful. It made a bucket-load of money, sure, but it was awful. Unfortunately, the writers assumed that the megabucks were generated by the Bovril flavouring. So, they hooked up Star Wars to a Bovril IV bag.

Let’s add more: let’s pair Ahsoka with a strong female padawan who can survive getting skewered by a light sabre. Obi-wan be damned! Let’s have a strong, black, female character survive Darth Vader’s light sabre!

Nope. That didn’t work.

More! More! How about an all-powerful Mary Sue with an evil twin, trained by a group of all powerful, diverse, LGBT, force-wielding women fighting the Jedi patriarchy?

Disney cancelled The Acolyte after one season.

What about Andor?

Ah! But Andor didn’t have Bovril, and it was brilliant. Albert noted in his review of Andor that Star Wars doesn’t need lightsabres and galactic stakes to remain meaningful. They wrote a modern, serious, mature thriller set in the Star Wars universe and they remained faithful to the canon. It can be done, and in the right hands, brilliantly so.

I am especially saddened by what they did to Star Trek. It was no surprise that Alex Kurtzman, who propped up the Picard series with copious lashings of nostalgia, abandoned the canonical recipe and reached for Bovril with Star Trek: Discovery. The writers assembled an appropriately diverse bridge crew, then sidelined them, pouring all their attention into Michael Burnham—an entitled, emotionally overwrought parody of a Starfleet officer who is retconned as Spock’s sister! They couldn’t think of anything new to say, so they contrived a weird Klingon origin story, created a parallel universe, and literally torched warp travel with a story about a little boy “whose emotions were linked to dilithium at the molecular level” that caused all warp drives in the universe to explode because he felt scared.

The recently released Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is worse: we now have a diverse horde of arrogant, whiny, wise-cracking, self-absorbed, incompetent, entitled, attention-seeking teenagers that makes me long for the days of Wesley Crusher.

What has vanished entirely in Kurtzman’s Star Trek, is the balance that defined Roddenberry’s universe: intelligent plots, thoughtful dialogue, and the interplay of contemplative moral philosophy with fast-paced science-fiction action. Star Trek was about exploration—but not just about charting star systems or meeting exotic alien life, but also about charting the boundaries of ethics, identity, and moral responsibility. The question was always: will humanity’s ideals endure when tested against those of alien cultures?

Darmok, The inner light, The measure of a man, Tapestry, Q Who, A matter of honour, Sarek, Who watches the watchers and others—all from Picard’s era, my favourite—explored profound themes with elegance and sophistication, never lapsing into preachiness or tedium. Kirk had his moments too (The city on the edge of forever, Balance of terror), as did Sisko (Children of time, Improbable cause, It’s only a paper moon, The house of Quark). Even Voyager and Enterprise produced a few gems—Blink of an eye and Year of Hell come to mind immediately, though I know there are others.

What troubles me most about Kurtzman’s Star Trek, especially ST:SA, is the flippant attitude towards what Starfleet represents. The captain’s chair isn’t a therapy couch or a bean bag; the bridge isn’t a comedy club or a high school cafeteria; it’s where an elite crew on the flagship of the Federation does their job; where everyone understands the balance between their personal desires and professional duty.

Starfleet officers are people who embody the Federation’s ideals, who understand that their choices ripple across the galaxy, who strive to improve themselves as crewmembers and as human beings; all were heroes, regardless of the colour of their uniforms or the pips on their collar.

Their responsibility extended to us as well. We weren’t just viewers—we were crewmembers too, looking to our captain for leadership, wisdom, moral clarity, and the courage to hold fast to principle in the face of overwhelming odds. The captain’s decisions shaped not only the fate of the Enterprise or the Defiant or Voyager, but the way we imagined leadership. As I write this, I find myself asking: “What would Picard do in this situation? Where would he draw the line? This far, no further.” Would Janeway tolerate the stupidity and tantrums of the motley crew of misfits in ST:SA? Would Sisko? He managed a diverse crew, a teenage son, and Nog… Sisko inspired Nog to become a better version of himself.

What is the politically correct reaction to a Starfleet Academy cadet who eats their comm badge? I don’t know, I don’t care, and I shan’t bother listing any of the numerous non-canonical (apocryphal?) ingredients in ST:SA.

The irony is that Star Trek was diverse long before DEI became fashionable. However, it didn’t serve diversity and political messaging as the main course; it simply baked it into wholesome, fun, well-written, thought provoking science fiction.

If you must reinterpret Star Trek, then do what Seth MacFarlane did with The Orville. It wasn’t particularly successful, but it was quirky and fun, and worth watching. Would I buy the box-set on DVD or Blu-Ray? No. But then I only bought box-sets of TOS, TNG, and DS9—I didn’t care for the others. “Don’t watch ST: SA if you don’t like it,” is the sneering advice from the current generation of Trekkies to old fans like me. I suppose it’s fair.

The revisionist impulse to take something that works and fix it till it breaks irrevocably is the taste of Vanilla Woke. This is pure, unadulterated woke with no flavour or colour or texture: no sprinkles of character development, no nuggets of excitement, no dashes of fun, nothing. Everything interesting has been stripped out and replaced by agitprop. You’re supposed to like the show because of it. All art is political, and if you don’t like it, you’re bigoted, or sexist, or patriarchal, or transphobic—or something else, as long as it’s bad. Examples abound: Disney’s The Acolyte, Ironheart, and Snow White; Marvel’s She-Hulk, and a few others whose names I am relieved to have forgotten; Queen Cleopatra on Netflix; Amazon’s Rings of Power; HBO’s Velma. These ought to suffice to illustrate the point.

Vanilla Woke finds its most uninhibited expression in Russell T. Davies’ “refurbishment” of Doctor Who. Everything that could be swapped has been swapped around. The Doctor’s race, gender and sexuality were thrown into a blender by Davies, and he hit frappé. He went further still: one of the Doctor’s oldest, most dreaded enemies—Davros—was disability-swapped because, in his words:

“He is a wheelchair user who is evil and I had problems with that.”

In the era of classic Doctor Who in which alien antagonists were charming low-budget creatures held together by generous amounts of suspended disbelief, Davros was the exception. He was depicted as a blind, crippled, emaciated, genocidal genius with a cybernetic eye and a synthesized voice, sitting in a Dalek support unit. He was 80% cardboard-and-cellotape rolling along on squeaky casters, yet 100% terrifying. Even after the 2005 reboot, when better budgets spared viewers the involuntary giggle-reflex when a Dalek trundled into frame, Davros remained primordially, viscerally scary. He overcame all his physical disabilities to become one of the most powerful characters in the Doctor Who universe. I never perceived Davros as “disabled”; only the woke suffer from that selective blindness. Compare the two versions of Davros in the image above and decide for yourselves.

Not happy with fixing Davros, Davies decided to fix the Doctor as well.

Like every viewer imprints on the James Bond of their generation, I identify with Baker’s portrayal of the character—unapologetically eccentric, wise, and compassionate. I have that scarf and still wear it sheepishly. Yet, I appreciated what other actors brought to the role. Ecclestone’s Time Lord fell in love with an awkward Earthling 700 years his junior. Strange, but why not? Tennant was manic, menacing, and melodramatic. Sure, why not? Smith played a charming, teddy-bear Doctor. Fine. Capaldi came close to recreating Baker’s magic—Heaven Sent remains my favourite episode—but fans didn’t like him. Generational tastes shift; that is natural.

I was intrigued to see how Jodie Whitaker would fill the shoes of Capaldi’s grumpy, quirky, brooding “Doctor with a duty of care.” She’s a good actor. Instead, she was handed a self-righteous, annoying, and preachy script that tried hard to be quirky. It didn’t work.

A year after Russell T. cast Ncuti Gatwa as a gay, black, camp Doctor Who, the BBC cancelled the show. Even modern audiences hated it.

I have mixed feelings about woke experimentation. The principle itself isn’t inherently flawed: artistic interpretation is, after all, the lifeblood of creativity; using race, sexuality, and identity as textures to explore the universality of the human condition is worth exploring.

One suspects that, in many cases, the original intent is noble–to broaden representation, challenge assumptions, and foster understanding–but the execution lacks the necessary artistry, wordcraft, sensitivity, experience, and, crucially, a respect for source material and canon. The result? A cringe-inducing spectacle of good intentions gone horribly wrong that leaves behind a trail of confused audiences, shattered expectations, and box-office disasters.

When done artistically, one doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary: Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption—Red—was originally a red-headed Irishman. When asked why he’s called Red, Freeman smiles and replies, tongue-in-cheek, “Because I’m Irish!” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton shows that a counter-historical, race-swapped cast can be used, artistically, to illuminate the universality of the human experience. It worked as a musical; I’m almost certain that it would fail as a docu-drama. I’d watch the opposite—a Martin Luther King musical with Hugh Jackman in the lead—but it would be cancelled before it was staged. Similarly, Netflix’s Lucifer and Amazon’s Good Omens cleverly reinvent biblical myths while embracing contemporary sensibilities. These are exceptions, however: glittering pearls in a sea of mediocrity.

Ultimately, movies are supposed to be fun and entertaining—two hours of escape from the scandalous price of popcorn and RAM. The palatability of any script of any genre depends on whether the writing is good—and “good” or “bad” is always a matter of taste. Perhaps the true touchstone of entertainment is the degree of cringe it induces. If the actor nails it, it doesn’t matter. If the script handles messaging gracefully, it doesn’t matter. If historicity or canon bends without breaking, it doesn’t matter. But if the script makes you gag over your popcorn—figuratively or literally—it’s probably not good writing.

Hollywood’s kitchens are being run by food bloggers and Instagram cooks. It needs chefs who can cook; who have tasted the world as seasoned travellers instead of tourists; who prefer customers that eat their food rather than photograph it; who cherish the regular who orders the usual yet also the challenge when someone says omakase; who respect the ingredients, the recipe, and the diner’s palate. It isn’t easy.

Albert, here at The Outsider, with his unspoiled palate, will be watching them.

Editor’s Notes:

• The suffix “ich” of “ych” in Russian names usually indicates a male patronymic—Fyodorovich means “son of Fyodor”. Mindich is a German or Yiddish surname, not a second patronymic. I’m uncertain why Towles chose Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich. Mikhail Morkovich Mindich would have been better!

• We appreciate irony at the Outsider: it’s delicious to note that a rare, exotic, dark, aromatic spice nowadays represents something commonplace, colourless, and boring.

• Meursault can be bloody-minded about his opinions (“Yes, their costumes were unnecessarily risqué, but Seven of Nine was a well-written character; T’Pol was not.”) but he usually prefaces his barstool polemics with a loud bout of throat clearing. However, while he extols the virtues of Picard’s bridge crew, he makes no apologies for Welsey Crusher. Clearly Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has tipped him over the edge. Meursault’s reaction to the new ST: SA poster is below.

• Shakespeare has been translated into Klingon. Here’s Stephen Fry performing on stage in a Klingon production of Hamlet! The link shows Stephen Fry performing in it!

• Omakase (お任せ) in Japanese means “I’ll leave it up to you,” or “Chef’s choice.”

• Attributions

  • Image 2 from A Gentleman in Moscow is by Ben Blackall/Paramount+ with Showtime.
  • Image 4 is a screenshot from Star Wars: Ahsoka.
  • Image 5 is a screenshot from The Inner Light (Star Trek: The Next Generation, S05, E25), taken from Avid Andrew.
  • Image 6 of Davros is a composite of this image at Pure Evil Villains Fandom and a screenshot from Doctor Who by the BBC.
  • Image 7 is a screenshot from The Shawshank Redemption taken from IMDB.
  • Image 8 is a poster of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy taken from Paramaount+.

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