No, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is not “too woke”
In a previous blogpost, I expressed my frustration regarding people who cannot comprehend the film’s plot line; considering the rising conflict, climax and resolution are clear-cut, there is no excuse to not understand it. While you may not be a fan, I am certain you still have a brain.
I thought that was the most frustrating “criticism” against the film. I was wrong.
I just found out some people find the film too woke. Why? Because many of the characters, especially the main ones, are Asian-Americans and two of them are queer.
That is it. Not because the film is politically brazen, but simply because it features minorities as characters.
From what I observe, such people can be divided into three groups: bigots, self-hating people and edgelords. While they have different motivations, they are all hypocritical.
They love accusing the so-called “postmodern liberal communists” of obsession with identity politics. And yet, their mouths start frothing when the media acknowledge minorities’ existence.
Let me summarise the film: it tells the story of a woman who unwillingly gets involved in an adventure that traverses parallel universes; her fight against a multiverse-destroying entity perfectly echoes her struggles running her small business, dealing with tax audit and maintaining relations with her husband, daughter and father.
While the film does have Asian-American and Queer identities as themes, they are not the only ones. It also deals with mental health, generational trauma and the philosophical meanings of existence.
The film has quite a handful of subject matters, the Asian and Queer themes are almost mere details; regardless of the characters’ identities, the story would still be thematically compelling. The film’s personality is neither Asian nor Queer.
And yet, those people act like Asianness and Queerness are the only things the film has to offer.
Every time they see non-stereotypical and mundane depictions of minorities in the media, their knee-jerk is to scream, “Forced Diversity!”. For them, this is nothing but affirmative actions.
Because they are too busy whimpering about the representations, they end up disregarding the stories in their entireties… and that’s definitely the case here as well.
If that’s not obsession with identity politics, I don’t know what that is.
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