Nolte: Look at How Non-Woke Entertainment Over Performs

One of the benefits of the toxicity of woke has been a boon for non-woke entertainment, which appears to be over-performing pretty much everywhere.

People hate woke.

People hate woke so much that some of the most beloved movie franchises in history — the golden geese that are supposed to keep laying those golden eggs — are doornail dead: Star Wars, Men in Black, Toy Story, Charlie’s Angels, Suicide Squad/Birds of Prey, Terminator, The Matrix, etc. All destroyed by left’s off-putting, arrogant, spell-shattering woketardery.

What’s more, from where I sit, people are so sick of woke that non-woke entertainment is drawing audiences it would not have otherwise. I’m not saying that the titles below would not be successful without the Woke Gestapo on the march. I do believe, however, that Americans are so hungry for good, old-fashioned art and storytelling that these titles have been embraced a little tighter than we might see in a normal environment.

Here are a few examples…

Yellowstone

This might be the best example…

Currently, creator Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone is the most popular show on TV, and that’s the least of it.

The Paramount+ streaming service was supposed to be built on the insufferably woke Star Trek universe. Instead, the non-woke Yellowstone franchise is becoming the cornerstone of Paramount+, with no fewer than four — four! —  Yellowstone spin-offs: 1883, which launched last year, along with the upcoming 1883: The Bass Reeves Story, 1923, and 6666.

Outside the Yellowstone universe, Sheridan has two more shows in the works for Paramount+:  Mayor of Kingstown and Tulsa King.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

This sucker grossed $805 million domestic. Other than Avengers: Endgame, that’s the highest-grossing Marvel movie yet.

That $805 million is twice as much as any other Spider-Man movie has ever made. Twice!

No question, it’s a terrific movie. But after years and years of left-wing preaching infecting blockbuster entertainment, including Marvel duds like The Eternals, I think people went to see this again and again because it was so refreshing to get lost in a movie and find yourself inspired and charmed by the goodwill of it all.

Top Gun: Maverick

$606 million domestic and counting…

Top Gun: Maverick is almost defiantly anti-woke and, therefore, pure entertainment.

No question, it’s a terrific piece of blockbuster entertainment, but like Spider-Man: No Way Home, part of the experience of watching it is remembering how much fun the movies once were.

Terminal List

 

Amazon’s Terminal List, an eight-hour limited series starring Chris Pratt, was a huge streaming success, and so anti-woke, left-wing fascists at the Daily Beast and elsewhere freaked over it—made it sound like a usual-usual revenge series was bad for democracy or something….

Terminal List’s success is a useful example of an overperformance for one reason: it’s not very good. I gave up after four episodes. But over the 4th of July, it was a non-woke oasis in a desert of woke, so people ran towards it.

Dog

A simple, charming, pleasant story about a troubled Army Ranger (Channing Tatum) taking a troubled dog on a road trip grossed $62 million domestic while the pandemic was still a thing.

Dog has a lot going for it. I smiled throughout and was never bored. But its true appeal is not only that it’s non-woke, it also pokes fun at humorless woketards.

Twenty years ago, Dog would not have stood out as anything special, as anything other than a pleasant movie. But in this woke era, it earned $85 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.

John Wick

These are great, great action movies anchored by a beloved, apolitical star. But that used to be the norm in our culture. Today, John Wick feels like a life raft of normal in an ocean of scolds, virtue-signaling, and being made uncomfortable by two guys kissing.

Hopefully, that never changes. But, if it does, the John Wick franchise will quickly go the way of Star Wars.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.