Gather 'round, ladies and gentlemen, for it's time for the latest chapter in the ongoing story of how conservatives are so weirdly angry and obsessed about "wokeness" that they are just making stuff up out of thin air to justify it.
You've probably heard all about the film adaptation of Wicked, right? It's everywhere—you can't open an app without being bombarded with people's posts about the film.
Of course, that kind of viral attention doesn't always translate into box office success, but in Wicked's case? Hoo boy, has it ever—but not in the minds of conservatives.
The film has had a record-breaking opening weekend, raking in $165 million, more than any other Broadway adaptation every made and some $15-$20 million more than the film cost to make. And that's just the first weekend.
But to hear conservatives tell it, the film is poised to tank.
I see the Right have discovered Wicked and are trying to cope. ‘Go broke’ 🤣👌🏻
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— Gemma Clark ( @gemmaclark.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 3:14 AM
The idiocy began after yet another one of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo's admittedly overwrought and effusive interviews about the film, in which they gushed and cried about the beauty of the film and its meaning to queer fans, especially given that the source material The Wizard Of Oz has been an iconic part of queer culture for literally 85 years.
This has all outraged conservatives, who mocked the video with all kinds of homophobic rhetoric and the phrase "go woke, go broke."
Naturally, this quickly spread to far-right propaganda network Newsmax, on which a commentator contended that Grande in particular was going to ruin the movie with all her "woke" "DEI" rhetoric, whatever that means.
The Newsmax commentator contended that all those touchy-feely, warm fuzzy Grande and Erivo interviews are going to end up ruining the film's success:
"I think it's Ariana Grande inserting herself and making things go woke."
"And as you know if you go woke, you go broke, so I don't think this strategy is going to work, especially with big-box retailers like Walmart breaking away from the ideology of DEI."
"This is a bad strategy for the movie!"
Okay, well, counterpoint—and I cannot stress this enough—the film has already earned nine figures.
Of course, people who live in actual reality found this whole thing ridiculous.
What a small demented world these people live in!
— easysilence7.bsky.social ( @easysilence7.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 5:44 PM
Nothing says "broke" like "third highest opening weekend in 2024." Only movies above it were Deadpool (which was pretty gay, honestly) and Inside Out 2 (which I haven't seen so I don't know how gay we're talking.)
— Synthwhoa ( @synthwhoa.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 3:54 AM
Anyway, as several people online pointed out, conservatives said the same thing about the Barbie movie and we all know how that went.
Good luck, conservatives. Sorry you're all so furious about being under siege from wokeness even though you just won every house of government two weeks ago, you absolute weirdos.