Variety: Woke Festivals Punish “Problematic” Films

Conservative News DailyJanuary 19, 2023

The Hollywood press is just as biased against conservatives than NPR, The New York Times, and other similar outlets.

It’s worse than that, though.

Entertainment reporters have either been passive observers as the woke revolution swept through Hollywood and cheered on freedom speech suppression. Take a look at how websites like Variety, TheWrap.com and The Hollywood Reporter present speech-related narratives.

Netflix employees are staging a walkout protesting the streamer’s defense of Dave Chappelle’s stand-up special rife with transphobic and homophobic commentary. #NetflixWalkout https://t.co/DNnTQcfSj6 pic.twitter.com/7HTSKQA8Oo

— Variety (@Variety) October 20, 2021

Next, add up the number of passionate op eds supporting comedians’ rights to tell their jokes in their own way. It’s a great feat to find any.

Yet the case of Meg Smaker’s “Jihad Rehab” Reporters from Hollywood are beginning to see the horrors of woke groupthink.

Finally.

The film follows four Guantanamo bay detainees as their struggles to reintegrate society. It won a slot at the Sundance Film Festival and received rave reviews before the woke Left took over.

Critics complained a white woman like Smaker had no business directing a film about Muslim culture, ignoring Smaker’s extensive ties to the Arab world. Others said the film could put the participants in danger even though they were informed about the film’s content and had the ability to decline Smaker’s invitation.

Many critics hadn’t even seen the film but still attempted to silence it.

This embarrassing spectacle continues to cause havoc. Team Sundance has apologized for showing the film last season. The cancellation was still covered by liberal news outlets like The Atlantic and The New York Times with a sense of outrage.

Variety tells a different story. film festivals now avoid “problematic” films. Festivals are meant to be a space where artists can talk freely, explore controversial topics, and engage with the public without worrying about box-office numbers.

Today’s festivals steer clear of films that might provoke a minority of the woke brigade.

All of this is happening now. “microscope of scrutiny,” Marc Simon, a veteran film finance lawyer, observes: “These are complicated times.”

…In fact, that quick-to-capitulate reflex underscores a new, unspoken modus operandi in which festivals — once the bastion of provocative, button-pushing fare — are desperate to avoid controversy and the wrath of any identity-focused Twitter mob.

Terracino is a gay filmmaker whose most recent film, “The Last Man Standing”, is the focus of this story. “Waking Up Dead,” Multiple festivals rejected him, even gay-friendly galas that had previously accepted his work.

It’s not an accident, Terracino says.

The director claims some were offended that his film’s gay lead held transphobic views at first, and that the character “bonds with a white woman.”

“Here I am, a gay Latino filmmaker, and I have to answer about bull**** racial politics?”

Similar “problematic” films are a non-starter for many festivals today, we’re told. Terracino warns fellow liberals about what lies ahead in the raging cultural wars.

“I think a lot of artists of color very soon are going to regret this woke ideology,” Terracino says.

Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, as well as other entertainment news outlets, will follow suit? Variety’s article on festivals, and recent coverage that allows for free speech “Jihad Rehab,” This suggests they may.