By: Thomas Horvath

In recent years, many have debated about political messaging in entertainment. This discussion became much more of a culture war during the 2016 election when suddenly everybody seemed to have a political opinion. This was also one of the first elections with modernized social media, with many people spending more time on Twitter and YouTube than watching the news. Maybe this could be attributed to his past in entertainment, but with Trump’s presidency, every celebrity seemed to feel that they had to be political and preach to the masses about what was right and what was wrong. The line between entertainment and politics became further blurred as to where it is more common for a movie to not have a message in your face than for a movie to be apolitical. 

It would be naive, however, to think that movies did not have messaging before modern times. All movies have a message of some type since most directors want to tell a story and message they feel passionate about. Movies like Wall-E and Avatar are both very pro-environment movies, and movies like these were and still are beloved by the masses. But why did movies like this turn out well-received, while movies that are heavily political today get much more scrutiny?  Many would blame that on identity politics, which can be somewhat hard to define, but it tends to mean more preachy, in-your-face, and one-sided ideas than broader ones, such as keeping Earth healthy. Identity politics in movies also tend to focus on character traits, such as being gay, a racial minority, and other immutable traits. This often leads to movies being called “woke,” which many people who use the term can’t exactly define, but basically boil it down to being politically correct.  Some movies do flop after going “woke,” and the reasons normally are from censorship in foreign countries that aren’t as tolerant of people of other races and homosexuals as we are in America, or just general disinterest in the movie. However,  some of these movies actually end up being successful, like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which was liked by people on both sides of the political spectrum. Movies like these show that subtlety is important, and that shoving a message that not everybody agrees with down your audience’s throat is not a good way to get a successful movie. With politics being so prominent in daily life, people now want to watch something that doesn’t make them feel bad for who they are but lets them escape into a story separate from the real world.