I saw on Twitter today where someone was articulating an idea that is pretty much my worst fear at the moment — they essentially said “thanks, but no thanks” to people like me writing novels with non-white characters in them. Or, more specifically “love interests.”
The heroine of the first three novels in my six novel project looks like of like the above — that is, Nicole Scherzinger.
Well, jokes on you guys, my HEROINE is a POC — or, more specifically, Amerasian.
Now, there is a very specific reason for why I did this which gradually snowballed into something really cool. I needed an excuse for a character to abscond to South Korea later on in the series and what better way to do it than to make his mother — who is the protagonist of the first three novels — Amerasian?
I made this strategic move being only vaguely aware that there would be people in the POC community who would be annoyed that a CIS white male such as myself would do such a thing. I just did what I felt was best for the story, not really thinking about the broader creative and societal issues at play.
There are a lot of different ways this might play out. One is — no one will care and I’m over thinking things. Two is, if this series becomes as big as I want it to, EVERYONE will care and I’ll face something akin to an American Dirt situation.
…or Maggie Q?
Now, one issue that I find myself thinking a lot about these days is marketability. Is there a chance that the very thing I think is a positive — the organic “representation” in the novel, will be seen as too “woke” by some and that, by definition, will turn them off? I hope not.
I am dubious of the whole idea of a work of art being too “woke,” attributing most of people’s quibbles to what they’re watching or reading sacrificing good storytelling for banging a message over the audience’s head. I’m watching Andor right now and even though it’s obviously got some elements to it that might be thought of as “woke,” it’s good enough that I don’t even notice it.
…or maybe Olivia Munn?
It’s just a story. An interesting story that is, unfortunately, taking me some time to get into.
Anyway, I totally validate the criticism of CIS white men “telling the stories” of POC. Ok, I get it. But I’m ornery and, as such, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. The framework of the story is really, really strong and now all I have to do is buckle down and wrap up the first novel.
Given that Ron DeSantis plans on riding his crusade against “wokeness” to the White House — if Trump doesn’t stop him, of course — let’s really dig into what it means to be “woke.”
There is a lot to unpack. On one hand “woke” is an amalgam of abstract fears on the part of people who want a white Christian ethno state. It’s also a catchall for MAGA people to use to hand wave any policy disagreement they have with someone that they can’t wiggle their way out of.
So, in a sense, to be “woke” is whatever a conservative needs it to be to own the libs. But also, I would propose it’s a word meant to be imbued with the general sense of dread that a lot of conservative feel about the dramatic social changes that have occured in America since about the middle of Obama’s second term. From their point of view, everyone not MAGA is aggressively gay now and the “woke cancel culture mob” will ruin your life if you don’t support them “grooming” children to be transgender.
This is all bullshit, of course. But this abstract fear is very, very powerful when it comes to electoral politics — so much so that Ron DeSantis may become our first autocrat because of it. (Again, only if Trump gets out of the way — which isn’t going to.)
“Wokeness” is curious because there is no set definition. Which, I suppose, is what MAGA “thought leaders” want because, lulz, the better to own the libs with. If no one knows what “wokeness” is, then it can be anything as necessary to win an argument.
I guess, relative to people like Ron DeSantis, attacking “wokeness” is a way of Red Pilling the electorate without getting into what that really means. The sense that CIS white people are under attack by transgender POC who rant about “trigger warnings” and “pronouns” is an extremely alarming concept to your typical Christian white people.
Throw in Fox News and Right wing podcasts berating their audience with the boogie man of the “woke cancel culture mob” and, well, lulz, there you go. The gnashing of teeth over “wokeness” is actually a proxy debate over America becoming a majority minority country in the coming years and all the other changes to America society that scare the shit out of Christian white people.
So, I guess you could say that “woke” is everything and nothing. It is what a MAGA person with a podcast needs it to be at any particular moment to scare the shit out of his or her audience that their lives will be ruined by the “woke cancel culture mob” for this or that stray comment.
In my experience, “woke” people — at least one Twitter — are people who frame any discussion relative to if you follow some nebulous orthodoxy that only they seem to know the finer points of. They have all these rules about human behavior that make no sense relative to how people actually act. They come across as easily offended — triggered, if you will — and they attack me for being a ‘CIS white male” who should neither be seen nor heard. It’s always when people come at me from the Left — the woke Left — that I am most at the lost and get the most angry. It’s difficult for me to articulate what exactly these woke Twitter users believe without sounding, well, racist and misogynistic for not agreeing with them. Which, I suppose, makes me unwoke?
The bottomline is, as it has always been –we’re fucked. Get a passport and get out of the country while you still can. Autocratic fascism is very popular in the United States and in the end the only question will be if we have a civil war, become an autocracy or get taken over by a military junta.
American politics at the moment is a shit show and has been for some time. It’s completely fucking bonkers. And, what’s worse, it’s all happening in broad daylight. We see the lights of an oncoming train, we’re on the tracks and we’re just standing there, waiting to get hit.
I keep saying we’re beyond the Event Horizon for autocracy, civil war or military junta and every day I’m reminded of how right I am. MAGA Republicans now openly embrace some pretty basic elements of fascism and they’re screaming at the top of their lungs that they only believe in democracy if they win.
The idea that if Trump is indicted then he becomes a martyr for the cause, forcing Republicans to cling to him even tighter is seriously fucked up. I suppose we can at least be thankful that Trump is such a lazy idiot that there’s every reason to believe his innate laziness and incompetence may at least delay our final decent into fascism.
But there is the counter argument that Trump, unto himself, could force the United States into civil war. It could be that his historical purpose is not to be a transitional figure on our march to fascist autocracy, but the person who just by being a malignant digus causes the country to collapse.
As I keep saying, I just don’t think we’re going to have a civil war. The reason why the country seems to have civil war on the brain is the far fucking Right is made up of a bunch of fucking crybabies who take any perceived slight as the some sort of tyrannical oppression of what they hold dear.
Tectonic forces are at work here, things that are just difficult for one person to process. We’re all living through a massive historical event and as it’s happening to us, it has no value or narrative on a personal basis. As such, it won’t be until it’s all over with and we look back at what just happened that we’ll be able to understand how the fuck it all ended up happening.
Let me again stress — I do not pretend to be able to predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. I’m always wrong. Always. But I’m growing more and more alarmed that Something Bad is going to happen to the United States between now and, say, spring 2025.
The country is tearing itself apart in a pretty conspicuous manner there are two main issues that I just can’t game out at the moment. One is, like I mentioned, is it possible that Trump, unto himself, could start a civil war? And the other is, am I right to have such a low opinion of Blues ability to serve National Divorce papers on Reds if Trump — or whomever — demands Blues bend a knee to MAGA fascism?
I think that we’ll be a lot closer to knowing what is going to happen next after the midterms. That is when we’re going to lurch towards our fate one way or another, depending on the outcome of the vote. If Republicans win Congress, then things are going to get lit pretty quick. Meanwhile, of Blues somehow managed to keep Congress, then, well, the possibility of MAGA political violence will increase significantly.
All of this is part of how fucking bonkers America is right now. Something Big is on the horizon, but the question is: what?
It seems pretty clear to me what Star Wars fans want from the franchise. First, what they REALLY want is their youth back. They want that sense of wonder that came with seeing the Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back for the first time in theatres. All of their complaints about modern Star Wars says more about them and their angst about growing older than it does the art that is Star Wars.
Anyway, it occured to me today that there is a solution to the perplexing issue of how to make a good Star Wars movie — call it the Top Gun: Maverick option. This seems to me the only way to produce a good Star Wars movie and, yet, given Disney is fucking greedy and not run by people who aren’t fans of Star Wars….it’s highly unlikely that it will happen.
There are two reasons why gong the Top Gun: Maverick route for the next Star Wars movie won’t happen.
One, is Disney is greedy and wants to sell toys. So they will do anything to cram as many potential toys into the movies because they see any Star Wars movie is just one big add for the toys that go along with it.
Meanwhile, the other problem, call it the “woke” problem, isn’t going to go away for Star Wars because the franchise is so huge that Disney simply can not resist the temptation to throw in A Message to indoctrinate the little forming minds of all those tykes who will be looking for Star Wars action figures for Chrismas.
But if you somehow pry Disney away from these two issues and just give fans A Star Wars Movie just like Top Gun: Maverick is just A Movie, then I think it would be a huge success. You would have to do the “transgressive” act of having a male lead who saves a princess from the forces of evil using the force. Just be sure that you don’t fall into having to figure out how to blow up YET ANOTHER Death Star.
Please, Disney, be a little bit more original going forward.
One of the more sensitive issues in society today is LGBTQ rights. It’s so sensitive that it’s difficult to even address it without either people yelling at each other or someone getting “canceled” before it’s all over with.
And, yet, it’s definitely something that is tearing the country apart in its own way because the Blues have a very strict orthodoxy about the subject that really alienates people who might otherwise join forces with them to keep our fragile democracy alive.
The issue of LGBTQ rights — and the topsy-turvy world of center-Left expectations about gender — is something that Reds love, love, love to wallow in because it helps push people who might otherwise support democracy into their arms and, but extension, the arms of fascism.
It’s gotten to the point where my center-Right relatives have the notion that the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “turn everyone gay” at the VERY forefront of their mind. That’s all they want to talk about. It’s their go-to talking point, especially when they might be losing an argument about something else. And Traditionalist conservatives are so all-in with the anti-gay orthodoxy of Reds that they’ve completely bought into the notion that the “woke cancel culture mob” is “grooming” little kids whenever it’s not engaging in infanticide.
The whole thing is loopy and corrosive to the point that it’s like nations of the mind that Blues and Reds live in are totally different. And, soon enough, it could be that they live in two different political nations as well. Only time will tell. We may implode into a MAGA Republican fascist state instead, who knows at the moment.
The issue of gay rights is one of a number of hot button topics — abortion, global climate change and gun control to name a few others — that are now so totally loaded that’s its impossible to have any type of conversation about them with someone you disagree with. The two sides have very strict orthodoxies and that’s that. Neither side will compromise, neither side will budge or even listen to what the other has to say.
And it’s things like that which makes me think we’re careening towards a very dark future — one of autocracy, civil war or military junta. Something’s gotta give. We can’t keep this up. The two sides are too far apart and our politics no longer function.
Either we become all Red (autocracy) or Blues tell Reds to fuck off and leave the Union on the state level. What the U.S. Military will do is very much up in the air and there is at least a chance that we may endup with a military junta for a while instead of the other two choices.
Anyway, get out of the country if you can. Things are dark and getting darker by the moment.
What bothers me the most about the concept of the “woke cancel culture mob” “canceling” someone is I honestly don’t really know what being “woke” is and I don’t know what it means, in real terms, to be “canceled.”
I hate the idea that two abstract concepts are at the forefront of the minds of Traditionalists, who are bedrock of any traditional, stable democracy. When you lose Traditionalists, you endup with Good Germans who keep their head down in a fascist autocratic state.
Of course, some of the abstract nature of being “woke” and the power of being “canceled” is by design. The Fox News – Right wing podcast axis goes out of its way to bludgeon Traditionalists with these two concepts in such a way that they live in abject fear of having their lives ruined simply because they’re conservative.
If we all know what “woke” and “canceled” meant, if we could agree on a meaning, then our fears wouldn’t be abstract and, as such, not nearly as scary. But it serves the purposes of the fucking autocratic fascist MAGA Republicans to keep these terms abstract, so, lulz.
Just as MAGA Republicans get frustrated over people like me saying they’re a “threat to democracy” to the point that they don’t believe in democracy anymore, I’m so angry over the rise of fascist MAGA Republican autocracy that I’m really beginning to find the idea — on paper — of a National Divorce rather appealing.
But for the whole bombing ourselves into the Stone Age element of it all – sorting out what constitutes a Blue or Red state alone will be very, very violent — I would be all for it.
Wait, what?
Give me a prosperous, secular Blue Union anyday over an inward looking autocratic fascist MAGA State that was very undemocratic in nature.
I don’t think it will come to that, however. The center-Left just doesn’t have it in them. In the end, wealthy liberals will flee the country — vote with their feet –and get all their My Undies that they hear advertised on Crooked Media podcasts shipped to them in the south of France.
I really like Bill Murray — as do a lot of other Americans — and the idea that we would “cancel” a national treasure like Murray is something I struggle with. The reason is, we all have a dark side, we have all “fallen short of the glory that is Christ,” as The Bible teaches us.
And yet.
We are in a new age where seemingly no one is safe from the wrath of the “woke cancel culture mob.” And there have been some pretty disturbing alligations lodged against Murray over the years, from his ex-wife accusing him of abuse to whatever it was that caused him to fight with Lucy Liu on the set of Charlie’s Angels.
I suppose what bothers me, though, is it’s all kind of murky. So he problematic, it’s not like he married his step daughter, you know? I think the question at the moment is if the current trouble he finds himself in is a mortal blow to his career, or if it will just blow over and be forgotten.
Some of all of this is we don’t even really know what being “canceled” means in the first place. All your typical conservative knows is they fear they risk, an abstract way, their entire life being ruined simply for being conservative. Even though, really, the whole thing is generated by the hot air of Fox News and Right wing podcasts than anything else.
I mean, if you can’t tell me what you’re afraid of, aren’t you really telling me that you just don’t like, in general, the mentality of center-Left people who you don’t understand don’t really want to? You want things to go back to the way they used to be when you were young, only with wifi and Netflix.
But the key thing to remember is many, many of the people who are allegedly “canceled” either haven’t been canceled in real terms — Dave Chappelle, Louis CK — or what they did was REALLY BAD and they deserved it (name any number of cretens who were exposed because of the #MeToo movement.)
My gut tells me that Murray is down but not out. He’s always been a unique fixture in American pop culture and I just can’t see him being totally excised from American life because of what’s going on. At least, I hope not?
All the Traditionalist conservatives in my family want autocracy. They don’t come out and say this, probably because they don’t really think in those terms, but that’s what they want. They want a white Christian ethnostate so they can relax, knowing at last, that they don’t risk being “canceled” by the “woke cancel culture mob.” If they can stop libtards from “grooming” children and demanding everyone be gay, all the better.
The interesting thing about all of this is they stress that they “just want to be left” alone while also saying how much they support the marketplace. There is the marketplace of ideas, you know, and that’s where things get interesting in regards to all this abstract fear about the “woke cancel culture mob” ruining their lives simply because they’re conservative.
A lot is being conflated about “wokeness” because it serves the purposes of Fox News and all those myriad of Right wing podcasts that breathlessly give their listens the latest talking points to “own” libs like me. What is “wokeness” but the marketplace of ideas working quite effectively to decide what is, and isn’t acceptable behavior?
But that’s now how my Traditionalist relatives see things. They conflate the growing hard power of MAGA Republicans with the nebulous soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob.” They are so overcome with the abstract fear that they will be “persecuted” simply because their views don’t follow the conventional wisdom media narrative that they are gleefully willing to give up that most basic of American rights — democracy. They don’t like how things are changing and they want to go back to when there was no doubt that white Christians were on top.
They don’t know exactly what the problem is, but they do know that they are enraged by the “crisis at The Border,” how powerful the “gay agenda” is and how it seems no one plays by the rules anymore and everyone expects a handout, to boot.
All of this is very, very murky because there are a lot of moving parts to all of this. Not only have there been a lot of people who have been justifiably “canceled” for doing some pretty shitty things — especially to women — but there have been other, Hollywood types, who have been “canceled” simply because they have been outspoken conservatives.
I think the thing that really bothers one of my Traditionalist conservative relatives is the corporate “sensitivity training” that they apparently have to undergo on occasion. They blame Biden for how much they hate this, even though, lulz, sensitivity training is the free market doing it’s thing. A private company decided that it was in its best fiscal interests to make sure its employees were aware of the changing sensitivities of the modern age.
If we are honest with each other as a nation, I think we would all come to the painful conclusion that we need a National Divorce. I don’t want one, and definitely don’t want a civil war that would result, but I also know I don’t want to live in a fascist MAGA Republican autocracy. As such, should the time come that Blues face a choice of autocracy or National Divorce, I don’t think the latter should be entirely off the table. It’s definitely something to think about seriously in late 2024, early 2025 when it becomes clear that Republicans are going to strangle what’s left of American democracy with a gleeful, deranged look in their collective eyes.
I do not think it will come to that, however. I don’t think there will ever be a moment — even if it’s absolutely clear that MAGA is going to turn us into a Russian-style autocracy — when Blues will be willing to put on their big boy pants and honestly think about secession. We just don’t have it in us. We don’t have any leadership and what the moment it’s clear as to what’s going to happen in the United States in 2025, the liberal intelligentsia is going to be the first out the door for Canada and beyond.
It happened when the Nazis took over Germany and it’s going to happen with the United States.
The only reason why it’s not a foregone conclusion is it hasn’t happened yet. There are too many variables that I can’t game out. A lot of unexpected things could happen that may change the context — or even punt the problem down the road a little bit. We were very, very lucky in 2020 because of a combination of the political consequences of the pandemic and Trump being a lazy moron who was too stupid to pull basic autocrat plays.
A prime example of what I’m talking about.
So, I suppose, it’s possible we might be lucky again.
But I doubt it. I can’t predict the future — no one can — but my mind keeps coming back to how all the macro metrics point to something pretty dramatic happening in the United States in late 2024, early 2025. What that might be — autocracy, civil war or military junta — I just don’t know at the moment.
Regardless, the point is — a lot of what is considered “wokeness” is simply a concrete manifestation of how Blue states and Red states interpret the American experience so differently as to be two different nations, at least in their minds.
The great irony is, of course, that the process of having a National Divorce — civil war — would be so horrific that it would burn off “wokeness” by the time it was all over. People on both the Right and the Left would probably appreciate what’s really important in life and neither side would have to fear being “canceled.”
A few million people might have done in order for us to gain that “freedom,” but lulz.
Now, before I end this rant, let me be absolutely clear — I’m probably a prime candidate to be “canceled” if my dream of selling my first novel becomes a reality and it’s as big a success as I hope. I’m a very flawed person who has done things that probably wouldn’t pass muster with the “woke cancel culture mob.” Despite that, I sure would rather live in a free Blue Union and the white Christian ethnostate of Trumplandia.
It’s been an open secret for ages that Bill Murray has a dark side. And, yet, to date, his persona has been such one of a lovable eccentric that we’ve collectively agreed to look the other way. In particular, there was the allegations of domestic abuse against him by his ex-wife and the bad blood between Murray and Lucy Liu on the set of Charlie’s Angels.
And, yet, the last year or so has not been kind to Murray. First, there was the turmoil around Aziz Ansari’s movie that Murray was set to star in. Now, as I understand it, Geena Davis has also suggested that Murray acted inappropriately with her at some point.
I don’t know what to tell you. It’s something of a conundrum because it’s easy to see Murray’s fate becoming yet another partisan issue in the woke cancel culture mob wars that we seem to be engaging in now. There will be plenty of people who are willing to forgive Murray for his transgressions because we’re all human and we all screw up. Meanwhile, there will be more Left leaning people who will want to throw the book at Murray for being a dick and HE CAN NEVER BE FORGIVEN.
We live in interesting times. It will be interesting to see what happens next for Murray. Will this bad behavior gradually be forgiven….or this it? Are we going to be in the post-Murray era?
The problem with defining “woke” is it’s such a hodge-podge of different concepts that are framed relative to the needs of the Far Right. So, it’s difficult to come up with any clear sense of what it means in any practical basis.
But I guess another attempt to define it would be:
Woke, to be:Having a heightened awareness of past and current structural problems in regards to racial and gender inequality, with a particular emphasis on LGBQT+ rights.
Yet, that is not the whole picture.
Perception is a very powerful thing. And, at the moment, the perception among a lot of white conservative men is that they risk, at the hands of the “woke cancel culture mob” being “canceled” simply for being conservative and or believing in traditional heteronormative values.
This is where the idea of being “Red Pilled” comes from. For a lot of white conservative (Christian) men, there is a real fear that they are something of an endangered species with the “woke cancel culture mob” demanding that everyone become gay.
The problem is, this is a situation generated, in part, from a combination of technology and generational changes in societal expectations. It’s all happening so quick that your typical middle age CIS white man, as they say, simply can’t process or “grok” what the fuck is going on.
There is a book from the 1970s, called The Forever War, which probably is ripe for Chris Pratt to star in the big budget Hollywood adaptation. As I understand it, part of the plot is some dude coming back to earth from some sort of space war and everyone on the planet is a gay hippie. Seems like the type of subject matter a conservative like Chris Pratt might really like.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say, in part, about The Forever War.
Almost entirely through luck, Mandella survives four years of military service, while several centuries elapse in real time. He soon becomes the objectively oldest surviving soldier in the war, attaining high rank through seniority rather than ambition. He and Potter (who has remained his last link with the Earth of his youth) are eventually given different assignments, meaning that even if they both survive the war they will likely never meet again due to time dilation. After briefly contemplating suicide, Mandella assumes the post of commanding officer of a “strike force”, commanding soldiers who speak a language largely unrecognizable to him, whose ethnicity is now nearly uniform (‘vaguely Polynesian‘ in appearance) and who are exclusively homosexual. He is disliked by his soldiers and he assumes this is because they had to learn 21st century English to communicate with him and other senior staff and because he is heterosexual.
Engaging in combat thousands of light years away from Earth, Mandella and his soldiers need to resort to medieval weapons to fight inside a stasis field which neutralizes all electromagnetic radiation in anything not covered with a protective coating. Upon return, the strike force learns this is the last battle of the war. Humanity has begun to clone itself, resulting in a new, collective species calling itself simply Man. Man is able to communicate with the Taurans, who are also clones. It is discovered that the war started due to a misunderstanding; the colony ships were lost to accidents and those on Earth with a vested interest in a new war used these disappearances as an excuse to begin the conflict. The futile, meaningless war, which had lasted for more than a thousand years, ends.
Man has established several colonies of old-style, heterosexual humans, just in case the evolutionary change proves to be a mistake. Mandella travels to one of these colonies (named “Middle Finger” in the definitive version of the novel) where he is reunited with Potter, who had been discharged much earlier and had taken trips in space to use time dilation to age at a much slower rate, hoping for Mandella’s return. The epilogue is a news item from the year 3143 announcing the birth of a “fine baby boy” to Marygay Potter-Mandella.
Anyway, as I keep saying, we’re past the event horizon for something really, really bad happening at some point between now and, say, spring 2025. I don’t know what it will be, but it’s going to be bad. It could be civil war, autocracy or military junta.
All I know is — barring something I can’t predict — MAGA is going to try to steal the 2024 election in a very brazen manner and Blues either bend a knee or demand a National Divorce.
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