Acting Woke

Ever wonder just how far the "woke" thing is going to go? As ridiculous as it is already, the stupidity will only get worse. Imagine what will be its ultimate conclusion. But first, consider what "woke" means. It began as a black slang term; to be woke was being aware of social and racial injustice. Picked up by leftist elitists, it is now broadly used to define politically correct thought and actions which can lead to "canceling" those who do not follow the same politically correct thought and actions of the woke mob.

To put it simply, woke is nothing more than censorship and repression, period. It affects every single segment of our society and has ruined (and continues to ruin) many lives and careers. Once the woke door has been opened, once the whole idea of it becomes acceptable by a major part of our popular culture, it eats away at every part of our lives. Every occupation is affected. And yes, ultimately it will eat its own.

Let's use actors as an example, since so many of them have happily embraced wokeness these days. For centuries an actor could and did portray anyone of any race or culture and there was nothing wrong with it. Why?

Well, it's called "acting" not "being." It's PRETENDING to be someone you're not. You didn't have to be Italian to portray Romeo, you didn't have to be Danish to portray Hamlet. You didn't have to be Mexican to portray Zorro. You didn't have to be Spanish to portray Don Quixote or Carmen.

Katherine Hepburn, Myrna Loy, Paul Muni, Boris Karloff, and Marlon Brando were among those who played Oriental characters in the movies. (And yes, I use the term Oriental because I can see nothing offensive about it and I refuse to go along with those who take delight in arbitrarily changing our language.) Look at the range of ethnicities Brando played on screen; everything from a Mexican revolutionary to an Italian godfather.

The list goes on and on, but the point is by today's woke standards an actor can no longer play a character who is of a different nationality or ethnicity than he or she is. To do so is to engage in "cultural appropriation," (another baloney term of the left) and subject to being CANCELLED! Your whole acting career can be destroyed if you portray an ethnicity that isn't your own.

But if it bothers the woke to have actors playing characters from cultures that are not their own, it isn't a stretch that the same politically correct mob would object to a healthy actor playing a character with a disability. Jane Wyman played a deaf-mute woman in Johnny Belinda (and won an Academy Award).

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By today's standards this could be considered appropriating a disability for her own personal gain and benefit. The same could be said for Patty Duke in her role as Helen Keller, and Dustin Hoffman playing an autistic savant in Rain Man.

Acting by definition is pretending to be someone you're not. Charles Laughton played Quasimodo without having to be a deformed, deaf, hunchback in real life. Robin Williams didn't need to be gay to play the part of a homosexual in The Birdcage. Tom Hanks played a homosexual in Philadelphia and he played a man with learning difficulties in Forrest Gump and to my knowledge Hanks is heterosexual with normal brain function.

We're going to get to the point where an actor or actress (yes, in my world a woman who acts is an actress.) will not be able to pretend to be anything that he or she isn't in their real lives. Errol Flynn wasn't a great marksman with a bow and arrow, and yet he portrayed Robin Hood. Flynn wasn't even English for that matter. He couldn't do that part today.

Wokes certainly can't allow actors and actresses with traditional genders to play transgendered people. Only the transgendered can play transgendered. But wait a moment. Why is it okay in real life for a person to appropriate a gender, but it isn't okay for an actor to do it in a movie or play? Mull that one over.

In wokeland only real gangsters will be gangsters on screen. Only real superheroes will be allowed to be movie superheroes. No more phony appropriation of anyone in movies anymore.

Just be what you are. That leaves only stories featuring empty-headed egocentric liberal actors. If that happens at least we won't have any more negative portrayals of conservatives on screen.

A silver lining.

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