As per the title, are there any feature or TV length productions from 2019 to the present that you think are diamonds in the rough? Any that truly put good writing and characterization first and don't have any woke gender or anti-populism/Republican nonsense?
If they do have any political leanings, are they at least not so preachy or heavy handed about it?
I think the discussions on this site about the overwhelming proliferation of heavily left leaning politics in pop culture are compelling.
However, I thought it would be cool to highlight the gems that break free of that nonsense and bring the depth and creativity back to these mediums.
It'd be nice to show people examples of good works out there so that they know they're not alone in just wanting good entertainment and know that it's still possible. Even if said works don't quite have mainstream popularity.
So I'd love to see what examples of good TV shows or movies free of wokeness or are at least not overly political you can think of.
I'd actually like to recommend a competition show: Forged in Fire. Blacksmiths forging blades in extremely limited periods of time and having them tested.
Any of the Discovery/Food Network competition shows are still reasonably safe. One exception is Worst Cooks In America, which featured a tranny with really bad HRT voice who kept talking about kinky sex during the show.
Oh man that show got 27 seasons lmao. Are you talking about this person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Burrell ?
No, there was a worst cook on the show, I forgot the name but it was a few years ago. It's a shame because I liked the show but my policy is that once a troon or pronoun person shows up on a non-news show, the show is dead to me.
Sounds like a good policy. Not my type of show, but I do like a lot of Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. That and Carnival Eats are my favorite "comfort shows", just something nice to turn on and watch for a little bit.
Seconded.
It's very formulaic. And the COVID era episodes where they make contestants wear masks in the forge but the judges don't piss me off.
But otherwise it's pretty decent.
Actually, being completely honest, I haven't seen anything post-Wil. What I have access to only seems to have eight seasons, before Wil left.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Spy x Family
Yes! I just endorsed Frieren in a comment.
SXF is great, but not without flaws. Still 9.9/10 of course,.
If you're looking for TV that's not subversive/queer/woke/diverse in any way, made post-Covid, and not competition shows or documentary, it pretty much doesn't exist in English anymore. You're going to end up watching anime and reruns.
'If you're looking for TV that's not subversive/queer/woke/diverse in any way, made post-Covid, and not competition shows or documentary, it pretty much doesn't exist in English anymore.'
Best answer.
The Northman.
Good movie. Reminds me to check out the story that inspired Hamlet
I've heard good things about the whole movie, but the storm trooper town guards in this clip really is ordinary for much western live-action choreography.
Find yourself some anime my friend!
Sousou no Freiren is god-tier goodness. She's a 1000+ year old elf who slaughters demons. There's not one speck of "woke" in it. It is 'high fantasy' at it's very best. LOTR level world building included!
There's lots of great anime coming out of Japan and even Korea. Wokeness has not infected them yet.
Frieren is good, but there’s no way this isn’t an exaggeration.
Of all decades of media to consume why would you choose the last five years? Are you purposefully trying to watch slop?
I don't consume media much anymore, but, one of the best movies I've seen lately was Godzilla Minus One. No diversity (everyone is Japanese, as it's set in Japan post WW2), good story and characters, good messages, and extols the virtues of the Japanese people. I thoroughly recommend it.
I hear people rave about House of the Dragon, but while I know it’s nerdy pettiness I refuse to support GRRM til he finishes the books. The only more modern shows I watch are Blue Bloods and Yellowstone. If you ever want more classic shows I can be more help lol.
Didnt that show have a random black targerian (you know the white family that only inbreeds)
No it's a different house from Valeyria. They race-swapped House Velaryon. They also have random black dudes in the background. Which is funny because there are no black people in GOT so where did all the random black people go?
Yea. I’m just saying what I heard but they say they explain it well although I think it’s dumb. If you wanted to include black characters or non white ones in that world there are countries you can use.
I haven't and will not watch the Fallout show. What did they do to the Brotherhood of Steel? I'm almost afraid to ask
I have watched it so can tell you:
The BoS are shown as strict by the code knights but when they are actually 'in the field' they falter either running away from monsters, getting one shot in power Armour by a 'convenient' Armour flaw to literally harming themselves so they don't need to go out in field missions.
It's Fallout 4's BoS but worse, the better versions were either 3's for the divide between Lyon's and outcasts or NV with their one just trying to survive.
I'm actually getting reinvested more into Fallout thanks to the finally released Fallout London Mod.
That mod just seems to shit on what Bethesda can make, thankfully it doesn't look like it turned into another Fallout Frontier and console players are only mad THEY can't play it too.
Don’t blame you. I still need to play fallout. I love Skyrim and I’m told it’s like Skyrim in a post apocalyptic setting. I used to want Skyrim to be adapted but not anymore. Dont want anything to be mainstream at this point.
House of the Dragon has multiple aggressively queer actors including a troon and a pronoun-type nonbinary.
I heard about that. I’ll probably just read Fire and Blood.
HotD is not a rage. It's ok. It is super slow. You would do better to watch all episodes at once.
Oh and it's woke.
For House of the Dragon: Season 1 was alright. I'm not completely caught up but so far season 2 seems a lot like the later seasons of Game of Thrones, it even has changes to the Fire and Blood book like shoehorned lesbian romance out of nowhere.
I’ll get the book used along with Dunk and Egg but it annoys me he can’t finish ice and fire u by t works on everything else
Definitely, he's either written himself into a corner or he's just being a lazy piece of shit.
I could respect it if he would just say he is stuck or give another writer his outline and notes and let them finish. Him working on all these side stories is really annoying for people who read the books
He did say he got stuck getting everybody where he wanted them to be.
And he got upset because some people only care about Winds of Winter
HotD didn't piss me off, but I found none of the characters likeable after a while. everyone just seemed miserable the entire time.
I want to be clear, these aren't the most amazing ever or anything, but I rewatched them a few months back after an extremely disappointing experience with modern entertainment (Ambulance, don't fucking watch that cancer), so they're fresh in my mind. Yeah, I don't watch many new movies.
Boss Level (2020). Not perfect, but free from a lot of modern bullshit, has a masculine lead (male, since you have to specify nowadays!), a hero's journey, and even a message of fatherhood. Also, although not directly videogame related, sort of captures the feel of a video game. Pretty good, nonwoke, nonstop action movie.
Baby Driver (2017). Slightly outside of your window, but still worth a mention. Another fun action movie, without any woke nonsense. Quite fun, and has some great scenes. Here's a scene from the movie, relatively early on. Is he slow? And the song.
It wasn't a 10/10 but the movie Blackberry has zero politics (or even black people) in it at all. It's an interesting and funny look at the rise and fall of the Blackberry phone and the hurdles they hit. It's worth a watch if you like silicon valley type success stories and 90s nostalgia.
If you're only looking for English-speaking media, the only recommendations I can think of is Bull (2021) and.... hmmm... let me take a look....
Oh, here are a few more....
Arcadian (2024) , stars Nicholas Cage and is a good picture with a strong father figure centering around raising two boys in a post-apoc setting.
The Channel (2023) , bit of a low budget heist flick but it has some extremely well designed and staged action scenarios, about two brothers trying to pull off a heist and get out of town while everybody is after them.
Corner Office (2022) , zero wokeness here. This is an extremely understated film with stark but witty comedy. Whilst it's not a film for everyone, if you're a fan of Jon Hamm it's well worth a watch.
Old Henry (2021) , absolutely right proper badass film starring a straight White male in an uncompromising story.
Mad God (2021) , not for the weak-willed or easily disturbed. If there was ever a visceral and visualised depiction of the worst possibilities imaginable in hell, this is that film.
Pig (2021) , another Nicholas Cage film. This is a brilliant film. It's odd but sensible, and heartbreaking, and engaging, and Cage turns in an actual award-worthy performance here. It's a great film. Don't let anybody spoil it for you and don't read any descriptions before you watch it. Just go in blind.
The Tax Collector (2020) , this is a gruesome but interesting flick about the cartel underlings responsible for collecting fees from gang districts. It has some disturbing imagery and violence at times, but it's also a pretty good film, very similar in tone to Harsh Times.
Underwater (2020), very mediocre lovecraftian horror flick, but surprisingly not woke. Unfortunately it stars Kirsten Stewart. But, she doesn't have to do much acting since most of the time is spend attempting to run or swim away. Reminds me of a modern version of Deep Star Six with a Cthulhu twist.
Wrath of Man (2021) , absolutely superb Guy Ritchie film, which is a remake of the 2004 French film Cash Truck starring Albert Dupontel from the excellent Chrysalis and Irreversible, and Jean Dujardin who starred in the OSS 117 films; ironically the French film is also a remake of the Australian film Money Movers from 1978. All three films are excellent, but I think Money Movers is probably the most tension-ridden of the three, and it's just as violent as Wrath of Man. Both are well worth a watch.
Now if you don't mind non-English films, those are available aplenty. Lost Bullet 1 & 2 are both decent films, I prefer the sequel with the souped up turbocharged Renault; it's such an awesome car that really steals the show.
The Roundup trilogy starring Ma Dong-Seok are some of the best crime-thriller-mystery-action-comedy films made. I have a hard time deciding between which of the three films I like most, but they're all really well done and extremely satisfying.
Sputnik is also a pretty good Russian sci-fi mystery horror film, and Enforcement is a Danish film that is basically a modern version of Walter Hill's The Warriors but from the police's perspective set within a Muslim community as they are on the verge of rioting. It's an awesome film that basically highlights that stereotypes exist for a reason and that those same stereotypes will likely save your live.
Also, All of Us Are Dead is a good South Korean zombie series, well worth watching. Hunt (2022) and The Killer (2022) are also really good films as well; I especially liked The Killer, as the main character was just no-nonsense and badass, and it reminded me a lot of the 2017 film Paradox starring Louis Koo and Tony Jaa. But Paradox takes some serious twists and turns, whereas The Killer is a lot more straightforward.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and minor shoutout to Mosul (2019) , almost forgot about that one. Pretty good film from a unique perspective that... well, I don't want to give anything away, but it's about some guys hunting terrorists, but there's a lot more to it than that. It's definitely badass and uncompromising, though.
'Hunt (2022)' is very good – excellent acting.
Wow what a unique and unheard of concept. I shall check it out and absolutely not for research purposes.
Great list btw. The foreign movie list is great. Only seen a few from those, and if those are any indication, the rest will be fantastic.
Better Call Saul, as well as the Breaking Bad sequel movie El Camino. Better Call Saul put in some irritating things in the last season, but relatively speaking managed to be what I imagine will go down in history as the last non-woke show unless this country changes drastically in the future.
Bloodshot from 2020 starring Vin Diesel has some stuff I don't like, like some clear diversity casting, but it is not about anything except being fun and entertaining, and there is really no "message" being pushed. It shocked me and my mom when we watched it that it was as entertaining as it was and was just a fun movie that wasn't pushing anything. It really is worth watching. It feels more like a movie you'd see in a theater in like 2008 rather than 2020 in terms of just being pure Blockbuster, popcorn entertainment.
There was a short period in the 2020s where Family Guy might have still been edgy and not politically correct. I haven't watched in like 2 years or so as I saw the direction it was going; but around 2014 or 2015 or so Family Guy got way better and the writers were semi based and they had a good run up until recently that I'd consider their best and funniest episodes they ever made.
Edit: Just confirmed, it is 2014 with the season 13. I think there was a changeup in the writers room after the show started getting negative backlash like replacing Brian with that mafiosa dog, and the new writers went back to edgy jokes and even poking fun of woke culture. I can't say exactly when this golden age ended, but like I said, I started seeing it gradually get woker, and my concept of time is totally screwed up anymore, but it's possible there were a few good seasons in the early 2020s and 2019.
Forgot about Better Call Saul. Great show. Family Guy definitely has its moments like when Brian got in trouble for his tweet
Nobody, also with Bob Odenkirk, was pretty good IIRC. Old man Christopher Lloyd with a shotgun, too.
Archer?
Once you start paying attention, you realize just how subversive it is.
To be fair, there's a big difference between 'wholesome' and 'nonwoke.'
You can have nonwoke stuff that's still degenerate, and I'd say Archer fits that bill. It's hilarious, it's irreverent, it's politically incorrect, it's degenerate, and basically every single character is a gigantic piece of shit who is terrible and immoral. It's not wholesome. OP didn't ask specifically for wholesome though.
Literally, all IK about it was the WFB reference in one of the trailers lol
The early seasons were pretty good but the most recent ones do show infection.
Many such cases. :(
Pam = slay the hambeast
Funny, I'm actually currently rewatching that. Archer is great.
Delicious in Dungeon is about cooking D&D monsters. It's been good so far.
Try Asian movies (from Korea, Japan, China).
I haven't watched all of it yet, but from what I've seen so far the Shogun remake does a surprisingly good job of sticking to what's in the 1975 novel and not shoehorning in anachronistic modern political faggotry.
2019 is almost near the end of the Trump presidency. Definitely not.
Clarkson's Farm is enjoyable if that kind of content is your cup of tea. You're not going to get anything woke in Clarkson's vicinity. Though watching someone deal with Bongistan red tape will raise your blood pressure.
Godzilla Minus One was preachy and political, but in a timeless way that isn't centered on anything modern. And it was probably one of the best movies I've seen in years, completely obliterating the "save the planet" slop the Legendary movies have become.
I didn't hate GvK very much but I hate Kong in general so it was gritted. Them focusing nearly the entire next movie on him and the humans (who suck in every movie except Godzilla 2014) turned that one into actual trash. Especially as the writing gets worse every iteration thanks to the guy behind Death Note (American) doing it.
An Italian film called Unicorn Wars*. I have now seen three Italian movies, and they were all ... something else, but in a good way. The Army chaplain is no joke.
*Not to be confused with Genndy Tartakivsky's Unicorn: Warriors Eternal which is fun, as was Primal.
If you're into Italian Stuff: La Mafia Uccide solo d'estate was just delightful.
I watched it in Spanish, not Italian, which mean the rampant hand gestures hilarious.
Thanks, that sounds awesomely bonkers, too.
The other two I saw were Allegro non Troppo and one whose name might be "Lock Them Up", but I'm not sure - it's a live-action comedy about some prosecutor with long curly hair who has lots of enemies in high places, so ... he gets them all locked up.
Once Upon a Time In Hollywood wasn't bad, but from a technical perspective from what I've seen of modern films I don't like the way they film them. Flat lighting and undersaturated color, and a lot of close-up shots with very few wide-angle establishing shots.
Probably because they film stuff now with the expectation people will watch it on their phone instead of on a big screen in a theater, and everything has to be close up to be able to see it on a phone screen.
Ted lasso is super woke.
Interracial age gap relationship with an older childless woman.
Girlboss who values her job more than her boyfriend/nearly fiancée.
The whole gay acceptance subplot.
The anti-African-immigrant pity story. Basically anything involving that character.
Ted lasso being divorced and leaving his kid to go work overseas for no particular reason.
The stereotypical wise black woman trope used in season 2 that’s barely mentioned again in season 3. The depiction of therapy as a whole.