The anti-woke backlash the reboot of CW’s 4400 is currently facing is not new. Over the last decade, people have been getting their panties in a bunch over diversity in films and television.
Before the series even premiered, people were complaining about its predominately black cast. From calling the casting racist to criticising the CW for being “woke”, people have had a lot to say.
One of the justifications I’ve seen used from the outrage machine is the various iterations of the percentage game. So according to the machine, black people only make up 14% of the population of America and therefore having a large per cent of the cast being black is unrealistic.
If you applied the percentage game to all minorities, we would never see any progress or main character representation in the arts. LGBTQi+ and people of colour exist in the real world and enjoy sci-fi and fantasy shows too and it’s great to see more shows choosing to tell stories that include us.
Claims of racist casting are nothing new though. People have been wringing their hands over the “woke” and gay” agenda for some time now. Marvel’s Black Panther received similar backlash for its mainly black casting. Other shows and films have been criticised for casting women, people of colour and LGBTQi+ people even in minor roles.
Star Wars
Toxicity reared its ugly head in the Star Wars fandom when Samuel L Jackson was cast as Jedi, Mace Windu in The Phantom Menace. Fans were upset that someone who cursed in his other movies and played a drug addict that one time, shouldn’t be allowed to play a sacred Jedi.
Prior to the release of the Last Jedi, Kelly Marie Tran who played Rose Tico had racist comments aimed at her for being an Asian female in the films. Someone went as far as to update her Wookieepedia page with some nasty stuff. See the image below:
Even after the film was released she was subject to backlash and bullying. In the end, she quit social media. John Boyega who played Finn also received some serious trolling and hate based on his race.
Star Trek
It’s not just the Star Wars fandom that has shown its toxic teeth. Star Trek: Discovery received backlash over its casting before it even premiered. Some so-called fans raged about the casting of Sonequa Martin-Green. They couldn’t wrap their head around a black female lead. Despite having the chance to warm up to a female lead since Kate Mulgrew sat in the captain’s chair in Star Trek: Voyager back in 1995.
And of course, Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz play a gay couple on the inclusive Discovery ship. People wrote the show off for its lack of heterosexual white male leads. Some went as far as to call the casting decisions “white genocide.” The histrionics over this were ridiculous.
Doctor Who
And of course, let’s not forget the outrage from the Doctor Who fandom when the BBC cast Jodie Whittaker as the first female Doctor. The internet was ablaze and the fandom meltdown was a sad and laughable sight to behold as people vowed to never watch the show again.
To add insult to imaginary injury, the BBC followed up by casting a person of colour as the Doctor’s long-time nemesis, The Master. The show was written off as “too woke” and yet, it thrives.
I’ve noticed the collective group think from various fandoms, the same phrases being used over and over to justify their opinions. The comments on Twitter, Reddit and YouTube from people saying they want to watch a show to escape from reality, without being subjected to woke bullshit. So do we! Why do these people believe a show with black, brown or LGBTQi+ people immediately equals “woke”? I wonder if these same people would say this to real people in the real world.
Give it a chance
As for 4400, we are only two episodes deep and I’m watching to see what the writers have in store for the characters. The show has LGBTQ+ and disability representation which is a huge plus point on its side. Will it pass my four episode test? I loved the original series and want to love this one too. Whether I make it past the first four episodes or the first season will be based on the writing, not the colour of the cast.
Online isn’t real life
Offline is a place often referred to as real life. A place where getting caught up in groupthink is limited to the people you interact with on a regular basis, the books you read, the TV shows you watch and of course family and friends.
It can be a great space where you have the opportunity to think for yourself, apply critical thinking and reach decisions based on reasoning, analysis and your own moral compass.
There is some deliberate race-baiting happening online. Some YouTubers are happy to make their money that way. These people are quick to call you racist or assume that you are about to call them racist if you challenge their opinions. People who are easily led should take a pause and try to think for themselves before joining in with the anti-woke groupthink and ask themselves these questions:
- How do I really feel about this topic?
- On a scale of 1-10 how much does this bother me?
- Will this still bother me in 1 year, 3 years or 10 years from now?
- Am i being groomed to think this way?
If the CW hired decent writers for any of their shows maybe people wouldn’t automatically assume that new shows have a built in agenda. I’m not bothered by diverse casting, I just want a good plot and actors that can act.
Either you don’t get it or you are purposefully writing misleading things just to further the agenda. Look…I am all for equal rights for everyone. I actually vote progressive when I vote. 99% of people are NOT irritated because The 4400 has a lot of black cast. People are irritated because it has done nothing but show the white people as villians and the black people as poor victims. Nearly every white character is almost comically racist. That definitely irritates white people a lot. What if a black person watched a show where all the black people were only portrayed as criminals? Yes, I am aware that used to happen and when it did…it was wrong. Well, it still is wrong to do it today…even to white people.
Shows like this need to stop turning everything into some sort of lesson. It has gotten so bad in the last year that you could play bingo with it. If you see a black person then they are definitely going to get victimized by a white person. If you see a white person interact with any person of color then that white person will learn how they are privileged. If you see a LBGQT character they will struggle with their identity and might also face some sort of victimization from a white person.
What is funny is that you will rarely see a POC victimizing anyone on television these days. They are held in too high esteem.
The funny thing is…I am as left wing as they come and I still thing television has gotten ridiculous with WOKE nonsense. How the heck can it get so bad that even someone as progressive as me thinks this way? That is the real crazy part.
Terri, When you use right wing talking points like woke and agenda, it makes me doubt your lefty credentials.
If you actually watched the show you would know that a few scenes of over zealous guards roughing up some black people is not the premise of the series. This stuff happens in real life to black and white alike. There is no agenda there. Did you see when Noah got roughed up? What’s the agenda there?
There is a right wing race baiting agenda to discredit positive diversity moves. America has become a cesspit of backwards evangelical thinking, taking away women’s rights to choose and people are focused on diversity in TV shows whilst their tights are being eroded. Poorly educated Americans are nothing but cannon fodder. Educate yourself to what’s really going on.
Well, Jason, I supported Bernie Sanders for POTUS in both 2016 and 2020. I believe in universal healthcare, a living wage, and think Citizens United was one of the worst supreme court decisions in history. I don’t think I could get much more left wing. You also indirectly implied that I was uneducated, or “poorly educated,” yet I hold a doctorate degree and have twelve years of college behind me.
I am not some racist, right-wing crazy. I actually support diversity in television. However, most of television just seems to be about diversity today and that’s about it. They are about as subtle as a anvil. Believe it or not, left-wing people that actually support diversity efforts can still get tired of seeing it done in such an overt, ham-fisted way that it actually becomes ridiculous.
This isn’t just about the 4400, though that was the most recent offender that I’ve seen. Nearly every television show for the last year has been about the evil white people learning about their underlying racism. Even white characters that had never shown an ounce of racism previously suddenly learned they were committing microaggressions. In fact, I actually can’t think of one show that didn’t devote at least an episode (or even whole season) to this exact premise.
Look, I get that it does happen in the world. However, usually the way they portray it on television is not at all realistic. It has gotten so “after school special” on television these days. I’d be fine with it if they could do it in a way that felt realistic. If they have a character that showed racist tendencies in the past and had to learn their lesson. However, that is never the case. I guess it is hard for me to explain without going into specifics.
More and more often you just can’t watch the show anymore due to the shear amount of work propaganda being shoved down your throat. The new 4400 is one of those shows. It’s unwatchable.. How just how can you do such a poor job when the original 4400 series are the base to work from. It’s like watching a Martin Lawrence movie without the jokes and the lady next door used to be the guy next door.
This woke shit needs to stop it’s corroding everything. I watch to be entertained not consume political garbage that has no place in a good story. Why does it have no place you ask? Because IT IS IRRELEVANT. It’s about a story and the choices people make from the beginning up to towards the end of the story. I don’t care who used to get a dirty look from a white grandpa in the park and how it made you feel or why that day she renounced grandpa’s entirely because she could no longer take the feelings of oppression from park grandpas (white ofc) and now she only likes grandmas. We don’t need to know that, you are in the entertainment business so entertain! Stop with the woke bullshit and tell stories how they are without adding the unnecessary ingredients. If a story is real those subject will always have a place just not all of them in the same time.
There is diversity and there is forced diversity, forced diversity serves no one well. A smart writer would be able to tell these stories without forcing the diversity down the viewers throat. The new 4400 hundred will only preach to the converted who will pat each other on the back over how great the stories are but those that need to acknowledge the uncomfortable parts of history and of society today wont be watching this. Effectively by usung a sledgehammer the message the writers and producers hoped would get out isn’t and the show will fail as a result.
I remember the original series featured a black character in a very major role; Mahershala Ali was the most memorable character in the show and also had an (if tragic) inter racial romance.
Regarding the casting of Star Wars; notice the trio of heroes were a woman, a black guy, and a Latino guy – while the major villains were both white males.
What is ironic is that one of the reasons Kelly Tran’s character was practically erased from the last episode in the Star Wars saga was because apparently John Boyega didn’t like the romance his character had with her in the second film.