One thing I notice a lot lately is people complaining about TV shows and movies "going woke". I can understand the complaints to a point. If the work is historical, changing the demographics of the characters can drastically reduce the engagement of an educated audience. Gone With The Wind gets a lot of hate for racism, but change any of Scarlett's demographics and the story does not work in a historically accurate setting.
I've opined in previous blogs about diversity for diversity's sake. Tokenism is another term for it. I think this is what a lot of the complainers are referring to. As writers are building the world of their fiction, diversity can happen naturally, as it does in the real world. It doesn't need to be shoehorned in.
There are shows I think of as having diversity for diversity's sake. I just don't watch them. If asked why I don't watch them, I would avoid using the word "woke" because that's become perceived as the cry of the -ist or the -phobe.
All "woke" really means is aware of social injustice. Not everyone who is woke is a fanatic about it, seeing the KKK around every corner. Not everyone who feels a show or movie is diverse for the sake of diversity is a hater. People, talk to each other. Communicate in a respectful manner. You might learn something.
(And some of these fictional worlds were woke from the get-go, there was no becoming or going about it. Just saying.)
