Politicizing Non-Political Things

I’ve been known from time to time to scold the woke-scolds…and it’s that time again.

If someone wants to start a story with political preaching, I get it.  It may not sell well, but it can probably find a niche audience, and at least that audience knows what it is in for.

My issue come when the woke-scolds want to retrofit stuff that was never about politics and try to shove their version of the world down our throats.  Usually it’s one screeching harpy getting into a position of influence, and then shrieking about it loud enough that everyone else just goes along because they a) are afraid to say something, or b) just want the harpy to shut up.

Three stories recently have come under scrutiny for straying from good storytelling and going into uber-woke territory.  The first is the new Alien TV show on FX.  Now call me crazy, but the original Alien, and its sequel, Aliens, is about scary space monsters that are near unstoppable and can burst out of your chest.  The humans have to use their intelligence to beat these primal creatures of horror.  However, Noah Hawley has announced his series will be about…wait for it…inequality.  *BARF*

Then there are Captain America and Loki, both Marvel franchises produced by a studio who seems to have forgotten that it was this kind of preaching in the 1990s that so hollowed out the Marvel fanbase that they had to sell off key parts of the franchise(X-Men, Spiderman, etc), leading to the current legal issues getting Spidey an others back into the MCU.  Captain America, for example, tells folks that the American Dream isn’t available to everyone, ragging on every imagined slight under the sun.  Loki, on Disney+, has decided to let us all know about Loki’s sexuality, as if any of us cared.

Think what you want about the role of Captain America and the sexuality of Loki, but none of that has a place in our already-established stories.  I know this will be shocking, but the average person goes to fantastical stories to escape the political bullshit they already get shoved down their throats.  And yes, I’d say the exact same thing if Captain America came out as a MAGA-flag waving redneck or Loki decided he needed to wax episodic about the benefits of finding a good church.  No one wants this shit.

Again, start your own fucking stories.  Is it really asking so much that we get some level of escape from this crap?  Does everything have to be political or preachy?  A backlash is coming from all those who only want to be left alone to enjoy their favorite stories without being preached at in ways that are not in accordance with the characters or story, and the first part of that backlash will be these franchises going broke.  Again.