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Pssst…psssst…yes, you are you aware that there’s a tired whisper circling in certain corners of the internet, gaining traction among self-proclaimed “culture warriors” ? According to them anything that features people of colour and in our case, black people is considered “woke propaganda”. *SIGHS*

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this world despises “wokeness”. I wouldn’t say the whole world. However, I would claim that people who are used to privilege are more likely to throw the word around so as not to admit that the perusal of other cultures, beliefs and way of life are just as important as their own.

Aunt Merriam-Webster defines woke as aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice). The word woke was popularised and normalised at the height of the black lives matter protests that were ignited by George Floyd’s unjust death. The word woke wasn’t a bad or good word. It was just a word with a meaning.

However, I have come to realise that people have taken to using it as an insult, especially when it comes to black representation in media. From my observation, people started throwing the word woke around when black characters were playing traditionally white characters (even though white actors and actresses have undertaken roles as people of colour, be it African or Asian characters for a long time but no one is ready for that conversation as of yet).

Some of the outrage towards the constant replacement of traditionally white characters with black characters was understandable. As an African black woman, I found some of these race swaps lazy and unfair because I wanted original stories created that could satiate my desire to see someone who looks like me being part of a fascinating show. On the other hand, I realise why some traditional and classic characters were race swapped and played by black characters. A child seeing a very popular character with a skin colour like theirs was and is cool and bound to do a world of good for their development.

So after being bashed and criticised by the disgruntled West, many people of colour have branched out to create their own characters and stories inspired by their own cultures. In doing so, they are met with… well ridicule and downright hatred. Most people ragged on their creations by calling the work “woke garbage”. People held this sentiment with Black Panther, Woman King and recently a video game known as South of Midnight amongst a myriad of other pieces of media or entertainment.

Mind you none of the aforementioned movies had anything to do with racial or social justice in any shape, way or form. However, people deemed these films as horrible pieces of fiction riddled with woke propaganda. I remember frowning when I was reading reviews and wondering whether we had all watched the same movies. That’s when I realised that these films had nothing to do with being woke. The world was just disgruntled because in a world dominated by Western ideals, the movies weren’t Western in way. What’s more and perhaps the most likely reason for the world’s discomfort was because… well, I will hold your hands AND legs when I say this…it’s because majority of the actors and actresses casted in the movie were black.

I will utilise the films Black Panther and Woman King as well as the new video game South of Midnight as my case studies for this post. Not that you haven’t already figured that out. When Black Panther hit cinemas in 2018, something shifted. For the first time in mainstream cinema, an African country (even though it was fictional) wasn’t associated with poverty or war, but as a futuristic, thriving and self-sustaining powerhouse. Granted, the movie was far from perfect but it was radically different from the usual tropes. It didn’t centre whiteness and that’s what made the world uncomfortable.

The Woman King, peeled back history’s dusty, colonial curtain and brought the Agojie,  the all-women warrior army of the Dahomey Kingdom into the spotlight. The film illustarted that African women could be powerful, complex, flawed, and brilliant all at once.  They could have identities that weren’t rooted in Western media tropes that usually relegated black women to sidekicks. They were protagonists for once. So why the backlash? Why the lazy label of “woke”? Because power that isn’t rooted in whiteness and men makes people uncomfortable.

I don’t like crying racism at any minor inconvenience, however, there are times when the racism is painfully obvious that it would be an affront to one’s intelligence to classify it as anything but racism. The war on woke is basically summed up to a scenario like this; “A movie or show is woke when the protagonist is a woman or even worse a black woman.”

The West; “IT’S A WOKE MOVIE!”

The definition of woke is a beautiful one. I miss the good old days when it meant something. However, people who didn’t take kindly to diversity misappropriated it and turned into an insult. Now whenever I hear the word “woke” I grit my teeth and sometimes…well, sometimes I jump off a cliff. Sad, but true.

What the word woke actually reveals about the rest of the world…

I firmly believe that people who dub anything diverse or unorthodox to what their accustomed to as woke are reacting to their worldview being flipped on its axis and not learning how to come to terms with it. When one is accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. The world’s version of “woke” is against any group that doesn’t fit their standards of what is socially acceptable.

Certain groups in the Global West deemed Woman King woke because it was somewhat a historically accurate movie that showcased the Agojie of the Dahomey Kingdom. Granted, the movie wasn’t without its flaws but it featured gorgeous and tough black female characters. And that, dear readers was the world’s bane of contention. The world was reeling because the characters were black female warriors. What made the disgruntlement even more ridiculous is that the world likes to masculinise black women. The black women can be masculinised just as long as their masculinisation does not make them the star of the show. The Woman King faced valid critique about Dahomey’s role in the slave trade, which should absolutely be part of any conversation around it. Even so, having layered, messy characters and uncomfortable truths is part of humanising Black history. That’s the point. Representation isn’t about perfection, it’s about complexity…especially to me. If the Woman King was a movie about the Amazonians it would still be labelled as woke, however it will be more acceptable as the Amazonians are associated with whiteness.

The plain truth is that the word “woke” has become nothing more than a smokescreen and a catch-all phrase to dismiss anything that challenges the status quo. When critics call these films “woke,” what I am sure they really mean is “Why aren’t white men at the centre?”

“Why are you telling stories we chose to forget?”

“Why are you rewriting the narrative we built?”

It’s evident that these critiques have nothing to do with political correctness gone too far. It’s about control. It’s about keeping history lopsided and media familiar. That being said, Black Panther and The Woman King aren’t pushing a woke agenda they’re correcting centuries of erasure. They are correcting centuries of awful black representation. Like I said, these films are extremely flawed, especially through the lens of an African but they are a step in the right direction because they can inspire more black stories to be told. They ensure that people can take control of their own narratives.

The South of Midnight was yet another work of art that fell victim to bigotry and being labelled as “woke garbage”. I just want to clarify that I am by no means a gamer, thus my knowledge of gaming is limited to what my boyfriend has told me about it as well as what I have seen him play.

So, one would think people would be excited about a fresh, stylised action-adventure game set in the mystical Deep South, steeped in Black folklore and bluesy magic vibes. But when South of Midnight was released, certain corners of the internet had a meltdown. Why? You guessed it: it was “too woke.”

Yes, again.

It’s okay, sigh in exasperation and say “oh brother” because that was my reaction as well.

The South of Midnight features a young Black woman navigating a surreal, supernatural South, drawing from Afro-American mythologies, blues culture, and Southern gothic aesthetics. It looks nothing like the average medieval European fantasy game that everyone is accustomed to. From what I have observed from the game, there are no swords, dragons, or brooding white male protagonists in chainmail.

Instead, the video game is roots and ritual and dare I say rhythm and resistance, especially after I listened to the game’s soundtrack. The South of Midnight is a whole world that unapologetically draws from African American culture and that is the issue. Yes, you guessed it. The Global West gaming communities deemed the video-game “woke garbage” simply because it wasn’t about European folklore. They couldn’t relate, comprehend or see themselves in this different world. I remember the internet screaming that characters should stop being race swapped and that people of colour should make their own stories…and when people of colour do just that, it’s called woke? Does anyone else find this odd?

Ah yes, that sucks doesn’t it?

The second something features a Black woman in a lead role, or references a non-European folklore tradition, it’s suddenly “woke.”  As if diverse mythologies aren’t real mythologies. As if representation in gaming is a political statement rather than a creative decision. Give it a rest, please! God forbid a fantasy video game has nothing to do with Greek or Norse mythology!

So no, this video game and others of its kind are not woke. They are actually long overdue.

The funny thing is that the gaming, film, and publishing industries have spent decades defaulting to white, male and Western as the “neutral” template FOR EVERYTHING. Anything that deviates from that statusquo is now labelled “agenda-pushing.” Isn’t that weird?

But let’s be honest here, The Lord of the Rings isn’t “neutral.” God of War isn’t “apolitical.” They’re actually both steeped in Eurocentric mythology and masculine archetypes. We just don’t question them because we’ve been conditioned to accept that as the norm.

Thus, when a game like South of Midnight comes in with swamps, spells, and spiritual ancestors and dares to speak in a Southern Black dialect it doesn’t just expand the fantasy genre, it breaks the unspoken rules of who’s allowed to dream and create.

Everything that deviates from what we are accustomed to seeing on the big screen is labelled as woke because it is an alternative. It is ultimately a challenge to the dominance of Western narratives. It is a chance to root power, magic, and adventure in cultures that were once colonised and degraded, not canonised and pedestalised.

When they call it woke…

They call it woke garbage but it’s just a black woman in a film speaking Swahili…

They call it woke but it’s just a video game about a young woman from New Orleans looking for her mother after she got taken by a flood…

They call it woke but the protagonist is just a black woman …

They call it woke garbage but it’s the true and documented history of Mansa Musa…

They call it woke but it’s just a woman who is the protagonist in an action film…

They call it woke but it just doesn’t include European folklore…

They call it woke but it’s just a novel inspired by Nigerian folklore…

They call Annette from Castlevania Nocturne woke but she’s just a character with a history, culture and past just as much as her white counterparts on the show?

However, it’s not woke if it’s a black movie centered around drugs, gun violence, poverty in Africa, war refugees from the Congo and how could I forget slavery?! It’s not woke as long as Black people exist within the bounds of the stereotypes the world has crafted for them and forced on them.

If we aren’t careful, our existence as people of colour might just be woke as well. No, seriously. It’s funny but if you really think about it, it’s true.

“Woke” stories aren’t going anywhere. If anything, “woke” creators are just getting started so clutch your pearls and tug fistfuls of your hair because that is the reality!

– The “Weird” Brown Girl