[jibal]

If I weren't already well familiar with the diverse critic reviews on RT, claims that the critics are "woke" (or equivalently, have a "Californian" "political agenda" that "overrates" movies with a message) would be reason for me to value their views over self-selecting "audience" reviews, which I find to be mostly shallow and uninformed, and with a good dose of provincial bigotry as part of the "political balance". I personally am not looking for "political balance", certainly not as that currently manifests itself in the U.S.

And if paid critics are no stranger to lobbies (or the movie industry as a massive sector with lobbies ... it's a bit hard to parse), I see no particular reason to expect them to have a political agenda that overrates movies with a message--I don't think those are the ones that make big bucks for the massive sector. (I'm more interested in indie fare, or at least stuff with more character and depth and less CGI and juvenile superheroes vs. supervillains.) Much more likely is that this spew reflects a political agenda.

[vintermann]

I thought "Californian bias" was a great term precisely because it isn't quite the same (or as shallow) as "woke". How could the movie industry not have a Californian bias? So much of it is made in that very peculiar culture, peculiar even by American standards.

And yet if you hated that sort of thing, why (or how?) would you become a movie critic? Can you imagine being a classical music critic and intensely disliking Vienna? (Another damn peculiar, damn influential culture, by the way).

[Gareth321]

I agree. It is clear and self-evident that movie critics have a California bias. I cite Emilia Perez (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/emilia_perez) with a 71% of critics recommending the movie. This movie won *91 awards* this season. This is, by any objective and subjective metric, an atrocious film. Audiences gave it 17% on Rotten and 5.4 on IMDB. Why did this movie win so many awards and positive reviews from critics? Because it has a trans person as the lead. That's it. The bias is on full display with this movie.

[vintermann]

But that is more about "woke" than California. My point was that California is peculiar in far more complicated ways than merely being more trans-positive. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't seem especially "woke" to me, but he seems very California. Scientology is hardly "woke", but it's very California. Steve Jobs, same. Utterly weird culture, if we hadn't been so extremely exposed to it. We think of so many things as normal, even though they're not normal at all in our actual lives where we are, but they're normal in California. (Well, more normal). That was Vienna too. It goes way beyond a simple culture war dichotomy.

[viridian]

I completely agree. Feels a bit ironic that not only do anti-woke conservatives seem to implicitly believe California = woke, but this unnuanced read is apparently held a plurality of liberals as well.

[viridian]

A California bias is not the same as being woke. 6 time Oscar award winner and 14 time Oscar Nominee film La La Land wasn't especially woke, but it was damn near manufactured in a lab to appeal to the exact sort of sensibilities that are held by Academy members.

The focus on careerism and social climbing, the nostalgia for an era of media since gone by, the melancholic reality of how damn near impossible it is to succeed as an actor or musician, these aren't woke ideas, but they do reflect the general sentimentality of the people in the greater LA area.