Don’t sleep on Hulu’s “Woke”
Too often we are swept away by the humdrum of everyday life. We create routines and daily habits in an effort to establish order and safety. These same efforts can become a double edge sword when we allow them to limit how we react to unfair actions and injustices. The tv series, “ Woke” is a great example.
It peels back the layers of shallow tv and does a deep dive into the muddy waters of society.
The show makes a big splash with its first episode being the catalyst for our protagonist. At first our protagnist is portrayed as someone who is not affected by the limitations often put upon Black people. He sees a white fan on the bus and brushes aside the shock that his favorite comic strip is made by a Black man. Right after, he tells a Black fan that being Black has no influence over his medium. It isn’t until Keef is assaulted by the police that he sees his place in the world. This event pulls the rug from underneath Keef’s feet and pushes the series forward.
What we see next is our protagonist struggle to find his place in the world now that his eyes have been open to ugliness of reality. This journey is what makes
the series is fresh and innovative because it challenges our viewer to question if our social norms are morally right. We don’t often see this in American TV. Most American shows have a white protagonist who struggles with either love or finance. Not since the show “ Dear White People , which first aired on Netlflix in 2017, has a show focused on addressing race. Each episode of “Woke” is designed to get us talking about race- our moral stance, the limitations it places upon society, and the ways that it affects the mental health of Black people.
Race and police brutality are hot button issues. Race is a social construct created by white people in order to create a hierarchy system where they are the top. Police are a means to enforce this system. For hundreds of years this system has worked effectively to oppress Black people. The recent deaths of Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor have sparked to international criticism of this system.
The show “ Woke” does a great job of capturing the social awakening in America through its protagonist Keef. He has to question his place in the world and decide if he is okay with with implications of this. I think Keef is a great example of all of us. His struggle to go back to business as usual allows us to see what it means to be ‘woke” in a sleepy nation. It means to constantly face the decision to do what it right or to conform to American politics.
The questions asked in the show and how the show unfolds is satirical genius.
Objects are used to express the protagonist’s inner thoughts. As a noncontroversial Black man Keef would never have a problem with his literary agents making his skin lighter in photos in order to appeal to a white audience; but Keef’s interaction with the edited photo and the photo calling itself Sammy Sosa ( a famous baseball player who bleached his skin), let us know Keef really does have a problem but just does not want to be the person to speak up in the situation. A photographer is not supposed to be okay with edited a person skin to look more white. The group of people who hired the photographer should not be okay with their photographer making their client look more white. The event lets us see how inherently deep society’s bias against Black people is, and how easily it is brushed off by indivduals.
Keef is like a bad car wreck and like any bad car wreck we can’t look away. We want to know what caused the accident, if anyone was seriously hurt, and then drive away knowing that we are better off. It is a look at are own mortality and chance to do some personal checks and balances.
The show is based off an actual person. Keith Knight is a Black cartoonist and the story told in Woke is inspired by his life experience. Viewers can relate to the series because of this. We are entangled in someone’s life. Someone who could be your neighbor, your friend, or even you. If you can’t relate to Keith maybe you can relate to someone else in the show.
“Woke” gives us plenty of different faces. You have Keef’s best friends and roommates Clovis ( T. Murph) and Gunther(Blake Anderson). Unlike Keef, Clovis is a cis Black man who really seems to have a firm grasp on just how America views Black men. When Keef and Clovis find a white woman’s wallet Clovis, against Keef’s wishes decides to abandon the wallet because he knows that since the wallet is empty and he is Black, there is a high chance of him being accused of stealing. He also subtly exploits the sterotype that all Black men look alike or play a sport when dating nonBlack people.
Gunther is what we would consider a “white ally”. He seems very liberal . When Keef creates a buzz with his “ Black people for Rent” cartoon its Gunther who seems to be the most upset. However the question Gunther must face is if he upset because white people are being racist or because white people are coming to him with their racism. Like many “allies” and social liberals Gunther gets a pass for being nicer than other white people not because he is dismantling an oppressive system.
Ultimately the show is proof that you can run from the truth but you can’t hide. This is because our conscious and the actions of others set us up. “ Woke” is not some sleepy bedtime story that you watch before bed. It’s a mirror to our most basic truths that forces us as an audience be frank with ourselves. It’s a circus — just like America.