The OP's argument was that modern movies are political propaganda supporting "wokeism", so a concrete example where Hollywood movies are often - intentionally or otherwise - effective propaganda for America's gun glorification and violent self defence lobby despite actors involved in such projects insisting they are personally against gun violence seems to be the direct opposite.
On the other hand, many people [not involved in this thread] have cited the example of a black, female 007 as 'wokeism'. This does not appear to be an example of Hollywood filmmakers being insincere in their belief that black females should be cast in roles traditionally not occupied by black female actors, and it's rather more evident some objectors for whatever reason simply don't want them cast in that role.
Which is a moot point really, since my original point was that the objection was for whatever reason to the scripting and casting decision itself, not to the possibility that the filmmaker might be insincere in supporting black characters (there are people who rail against Hollywood for that, but they tend to be dismissed as obsessively 'woke' themselves)
One is that it's allegedly racist in itself ("It's a black role for a black actor") and the other that it's superficial tokenist wokeism and against the natural order of things. ("It's a black role for a black actor.")
In related news There was controversy in the UK this week about a famous Jewish actor complaining that former Israeli premier Golda Meir might be played in a new movie by a non-Jewish woman.
I find this all quite strange. The whole point of art is imagination. Expecting actors who are playing to a stereotype to actually be that stereotype makes as much as demanding that only real retired spies can play James Bond, and only real time travellers can play Doctor Who.
But perhaps that's not a popular view. These roles are tribal totems and morality markers, and casting against that reveals how they operate.
The real problem is the nature of status and hierarchy. Conservatives get very uncomfortable when status and hierarchy are challenged, and many liberals assume they're challenging status and hierarchy when really they're just challenging a certain ordering, and not the abstract principle.
Personally I find too much US media output has a lot in common with plain old everyone-is-a-warrior fascism. I'm really bored by big dumb movies and TV shows which are all about spurting blood and super-athletic ultra-violence in the pursuit of some dystopian Randian mix of self-defence and self-interest.
I don't care if the actors are male, female, white, non-white, gay, trans, or cyborgs. I do care about what they're doing, and most of it isn't that interesting.
Hollywood films allegedly being "woke propaganda", which was the claim which started this "what do you mean by woke?" subthread. Films which glorify guns are categorically not examples of Hollywood anti-gun propaganda; if they are any sort of propaganda at all, as opposed to just stuff that sells, they are clearly very non-'woke' pro-gun propaganda.
> I don't think it's necessarily an example of that although for some people perhaps it is. But the fact that Hollywood has excluded such people from such roles and then they take a specific role that was developed by a white man and put a black woman into it "because it's time", and make a big noise about how wonderful they are for doing such a thing is near the epitome of insincerity and hypocrisy in my opinion. I don't have a problem with them deviating from a checklist of skin color, genitalia, and sexual preferences for traditional roles like this (are all the previous 007s the same height, same hair color, same eye color?), I have a problem with them endlessly going on about how wonderful they are, how all those other people are racist and sexist, for us only to find out that hey it's not the redneck from West Virginia who has been writing and producing and acting in these exclusionary Bond movies all these years. Turns out it was Hollywood all along. And the "fix" they congratulate themselves for is not to actually put effort into develop characters and roles and stories that different people have the opportunity to make their own and different audiences can build a following with. They just do the cheap "this character is now a black woman" thing. I realize not everybody sees it that way, but that's my opinion and I don't see how it's invalid or based on bigotry
Do I think Hollywood not casting certain people was a Hollywood decision? Yes. Do I think they deserve massive congratulations for casting Lashana Lynch? No. And if you want to argue the black 007 character wasn't actually that great or big a deal, fine. I'd largely agree with you on both points.
But for many years prior to Lashana Lynch being cast, there were people insisting that the idea of a black 007 was "woke propaganda or "political correctness gone mad" that should be opposed. I think it's something of a heroic stretch to suggest that their real objection of the anti-'woke' crowd to the casting of a black 007 was that Hollywood ought to have done it much earlier.