Bill Burr, the comedian — or perhaps I should call him an ex-comedian —is still pretty angry at me.
That’s because all the way back in February, I said that he had gone rogue. He got really sad. That was after he suggested that the healthcare CEOs of America might deserve to be murdered.
On Thursday, Vulture — which still surprisingly exists — published an <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/bill-burr-woke-politics-billionaires-left-right.html">interview</a> with him.
“I want to ask about politics because it has been an interesting few months for you in this arena. You’ve had a few things happen, including Ben Shapiro talking about going to one of your shows and complaining that you’re becoming ‘woke,’” Vulture began. 
 
“He doesn’t even know what that word means,” Burr insisted. “His definition of woke is white liberals’ definition of woke, and they didn’t even know what it was; they just took the word from black people. That’s the worst thing about our people — not only do we take from other cultures, we don’t even take the time to understand the definition. He went there to be annoyed so he can then have something to talk about and then he can make money off dividing his own country. Those people, it’s treasonous what they do.”
“The fact is that it worked for what his goal was: for it became a thing online where a certain portion of the right complained about how you’re woke —” Vulture posited.
“Racists. They’re racists,” Burr complained. “They send pictures of monkeys to me and my wife. They’re f***ing horrible people. And they’re cowards, and they never say it to your face. &#8230; What I’m finding is that people keep trying to categorize what it is that you’re doing. Like that idiot Ben Shapiro: ‘He’s woke now!’ That f***ing guy. He was trying to bring me into his fold. At one point, the guy liked me. And then when I didn&#8217;t, all of a sudden I&#8217;m a, I mean, I&#8217;m supposed to look at that guy like he&#8217;s an adult?’
Vulture: “Do you feel misunderstood if people take your words one way or the other?”
“No, I&#8217;m not, mis — I’m deliberately misunderstood,” Burr moaned.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2251-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Okay, a couple of quick housekeeping notes there. First, I don&#8217;t need to pay to go to your comedy show to be annoyed. There&#8217;s a lot of stuff in the world that annoys me. And typically, I don&#8217;t shell out hundreds of bucks and then take my wife and my friends to a show in order to be annoyed. I&#8217;m sorry; you did a bad show, and a bunch of people didn&#8217;t laugh in Florida, and then you fussed like a child and then walked off the stage. It was really ridiculous.
That&#8217;s on you, dude. You probably should give the people refunds because they paid for Bill Burr at Red Rock. Instead, they got Joy Behar at some dive bar.
You used to do jokes like this. “Look at the WNBA. They&#8217;ve been playing in front of 3 to 400 people a night for a quarter of a century. Not to mention it&#8217;s a male-subsidized league. We gave you a league. Where are all the feminists? That place should be packed with feminists wearing jerseys, flashing it &#8230; going nuts like the guys do in the upper deck &#8230; ‘Me on the jumbotron. Am I doing it?’”
Or: “Women failed the WNBA. Ladies, ladies, name your top five all-time WNBA players. Name five WNBA teams. Name the WNBA team in your city. You can&#8217;t do it.”
Or: “You don&#8217;t give a f*** about them. They play night in and night out in front of nobody. It&#8217;s a f*** tragedy.”
That&#8217;s what you used to be. But now your latest material is like this: “Then they&#8217;re talking about looting, but CNN and Fox News are not going to bring up the insurance companies that are just going to keep everybody&#8217;s premiums and still give themselves a bonus. Free Luigi!”
Or: “For conservative people to act like they&#8217;re not the biggest babies also is hilarious. Have you seen this? My people? Whitey, we&#8217;re all upset. There&#8217;s enough of us to get it going, trending, anyway. (laughing) We&#8217;re upset about the new Cinderella movie. ‘The actress playing Cinderella isn’t white. There&#8217;s no prince. They changed the story. What am I gonna tell my kids?’ The things my people get upset about. ‘What am I going to tell my kids?’ Well, talk around it the way you do, the way we talk around the real history of this country.”
I&#8217;m glad he&#8217;s laughing at himself because nobody else is. Man, what a fall.
Not liking your show isn&#8217;t “treason,” you doof; you&#8217;re not the president. You&#8217;re the guy who came in second in the Billy Corgan lookalike contest because you showed up sloppy drunk and forgot to shave again.
Here&#8217;s what I mean by wokeness: There is a definition, and I&#8217;ve explained it over and over and over again on the show. It&#8217;s not my definition. It&#8217;s the definition that Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic — who literally wrote a book on Critical Race Theory — laid out in explaining the basic principles that match up with wokeness.
One: racism is ordinary, not aberrational.
Two: Our system of white over color-ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material.
So you put those together for wokeness. What that means is that the system of America is designed to create racially disparate outcomes. Any proof of racially disparate outcomes is evidence of the malignancy of the system.
There&#8217;s another element of wokeness that is self-contradictory here, that there is a racial essentialism that stops you from criticizing as unfactual the viewpoints of others. “You don&#8217;t understand because you&#8217;re not black,” or ‘You can&#8217;t understand because you&#8217;re not gay.”
This ends conversations and contradicts the fundamental basis of wokeness, because the basis of wokeness is that everybody is basically the same, which means all group outcomes should be the same, which means any inequality of group outcome is evidence of systemic inequity.
But then wokeness will also posit that racial groups are so different that you can&#8217;t even talk to one another. You can&#8217;t even criticize the viewpoints of members of another racial group. It&#8217;s a bizarre defense mechanism.
I call Bill Burr woke because he is. He believes that America is a deeply racist place and that it&#8217;s embedded in all of our social systems, and the evidence of that is our economic inequality, and therefore, it&#8217;s probably okay to shoot healthcare CEOs.
And if you criticize him as woke, it&#8217;s because you don&#8217;t really understand the term “woke” because black people invented that term, and when white people use the term “woke” as a descriptor, it’s cultural appropriation.
Oh, how times have changed. 
Bill Burr used to tell this joke: “The black guy who brought up leg-shaking, saying, ‘Elvis took leg-shaking from us.’ It&#8217;s like, ‘Really? Leg-shaking? No, nobody thought to do this. Black people came up with that. You telling me that? I&#8217;ll even give you that. Let&#8217;s say you came up with that. Where did that black dude learn how to do it? Didn&#8217;t he watch some older black guy do it because he&#8217;s the same color? He&#8217;s not stealing. He&#8217;s just carrying on the tradition. But if Elvis does it. Oh, what the f***. Now he&#8217;s the biggest thief ever.’ That doesn&#8217;t make any sense to me.”
The current Bill Burr would presumably call that Bill Burr insensitive and unresponsive to the needs and definitions of black people, which is amazing, because Bill Burr is whiter than a painting of a polar bear in snow on a white canvas.
He&#8217;s the most annoying form of a woke person: a white lib, the kind he likes to criticize. The white person who apologizes for being white by pretending that he can speak on behalf of black people about the systemic privileges of being white.
While pulling down millions of dollars to be an angry thumb of a human.
So Bald Rumpelstiltskin over there — who gets mad when you call him by his real name — is still pissed off. I didn&#8217;t enjoy his comedy show last year, and he thinks that my wife and I and our friends paid to attend his show just so that I could criticize him.
Here&#8217;s the thing. On a random weekday night, if I&#8217;m going to a comedy show, I&#8217;m going because I want to laugh. We paid to attend your show because you used to be funny, and then you transed yourself and turned into a white, bald, allegedly male version of Sunny Hostin on The View screeching at me about income inequality and racism.
You&#8217;ve decided that you&#8217;re a victim and that everyone you know is a victim and that America is cruel and nasty, and you&#8217;re deliberately misunderstood just because you won&#8217;t put on a great show anymore.
I used to enjoy watching Bill Burr. But now watching him is like watching Robin D&#8217;Angelo, but even whiter and even faker and less funny and with a screechy Boston accent to boot.
You turned into Billy, the piss-drunk woke leprechaun. Good luck with that, dude.
Listen, I hope you turn it around. I really do, because the world needs better comedians, and I like a lot of comedians that disagree with me, including Louis C.K. and Dave Chappelle.
But we don’t need 57-year-old men trying to earn street cred with fellow kids by turning into a human embodiment of those stupid “In this house” lawn signs. That makes me sad. It does.
And yeah, you&#8217;re being a woke jackass.

Shaq’s Fun House

Bill Burr Went Woke. Now He’s Whining About It.

Ben Shapiro

Bill Burr

comedian

Comedy

Woke Culture

In 2017, “Saturday Night Live” uncorked a riotous “‘Woke Jeans’ commercial” tied to the growing woke movement.
The clip proved an exception to the mainstream comedy rule. Woke was more or less off limits to “SNL,” Late-Night hosts, and film comedies, despite a dearth of material.
Insane cultural rules. Virtue-signaling politicians. Identity Politics gone wild. The comic possibilities seemed endless.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Levi&#039;s Wokes - SNL" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/adPXDTvADD0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Nothing to laugh about here. Move along. Only Comedy Central’s “South Park” regularly targeted the cultural scourge via PC Principal, trans athletes in women’s sports, and related gags.
Now, things are changing. It’s suddenly acceptable to mock the progressive overreach.
The new movie “Eddington” takes direct aim at woke, along with COVID-19 restrictions, conspiracy theorists and BLM sloganeering.
Director Ari Aster’s film isn’t one-sided or brimming with lectures. It takes us back to May 2020, a time when the George Floyd riots were raging across America and government rules made citizens mask up to stop the virus’ spread.
<div id="attachment_955565" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-955565" class="wp-image-955565 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-11-14-AM-5738-1024x576.jpg" alt="Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in “Eddington” (2025) A24. Square Peg Productions. 828 Productions. IMDB." width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-11-14-AM-5738-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-11-14-AM-5738-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-11-14-AM-5738-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-11-14-AM-5738-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-11-14-AM-5738-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in “Eddington” (2025) A24. Square Peg Productions. 828 Productions. IMDB.</div>
The story unfolds in a fictional small town in New Mexico, one about to be rocked by dueling social contagions.
It’s uncomfortable to watch and often hilarious, mocking both Alex Jones types and white teens desperate to be woke. The latter ape the progressive talking points of their big-city peers, desperate to fit in and appear cool.
Heck, one newly woke teen just wants to “get” with a pretty girl, and he’ll virtue all the signals he can to make that happen.
The film’s biggest laugh? A white teen explains his “privilege” to his parents, and his father snaps back at him.
“Are you a f***ing retard? You’re white.”
Aster’s films aren’t blockbusters, but his arthouse musings represent mainstream artistic values. And, yes, he went there. So much so that a New York Times <a href="https://x.com/matthewschmitz/status/1947120245329576009">film critic</a> literally <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/ny-times-eddington-director-mocking-blm/">cursed him out</a> for inserting those gags in his film.
<blockquote>“F*** you, Ari Aster. Really, seriously. It’s so easy to mock these things. People are still dying from COVID. We may no longer be living in a pandemic… I just don’t find it funny, and I find it really important for people to, I think white people should interrogate their f***Ing whiteness, and I think Ari Aster should start.”</blockquote>
Triggered.
<div id="attachment_955653" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-955653" class="size-large wp-image-955653" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2215538204-864x576.jpg" alt="CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 17: (L-R) Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal, Ari Aster, Joaquin Phoenix and Austin Butler pose during the &quot;Eddington&quot; photocall at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 17, 2025 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2215538204-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2215538204-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2215538204-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2215538204.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Andreas Rentz/Getty Images</div>
The recent horror-comedy “Ick” from provocateur Joseph Kahn also tees-off on woke overreach. The story follows another small town where calamity strikes. This time, the danger comes from a mysterious plant-like substance that goes from benign to deadly.
The menace allows Kahn to satirize American culture, conspiracy mongers (again) and that woke mind virus. Virtue signaling takes it on the chin, as do students talking like an unproduced Lena Dunham sitcom.
It’s far from flattering.
Those eager for a deeper dive into woke excess can read “The Sandersons Fail Manhattan.&#8221; Author Scott Johnston’s biting satire follows a rich New York family caught up in the city&#8217;s progressive mania. A fancy prep school is desperate to recruit its first trans student, while the story&#8217;s patriarch must learn if his colleague is gay enough to satisfy key DEI requirements.
<div id="attachment_955657" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sandersons-Fail-Manhattan-Novel/dp/1250384788"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-955657" class="size-large wp-image-955657" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-12-42-PM-5680-384x576.jpg" alt="Cover Credit: St. Martin's Press" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-12-42-PM-5680-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-12-42-PM-5680-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-12-42-PM-5680-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-12-42-PM-5680-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-12-42-PM-5680-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-12-42-PM-5680-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-12-42-PM-5680-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Cover Credit: St. Martin&#8217;s Press</div>
While “Eddington” and “Ick” take shots at woke, “Manhattan” is a full-on assault against Identity Politics and its cultural tendrils. No apologies.
Even comedians can shred woke pieties from major platforms without fear of reprisal and tell jokes that the woke mob deemed off limits.
Last year, the comedy roast format roared back to life with Netflix’s “tribute” to NFL great Tom Brady.
More recently, stand-up comic Shane Gillis proved that anew. Gillis, starring in Netflix’s rowdy comedy “Tires,” is a walking, talking testament to woke’s cultural decline. The comedian got hired, and promptly fired, by “SNL” for crude comments tied to Asian culture. Rather than fade into obscurity, Gillis went back to work, rebuilding his career.
His star rose so high that “SNL” invited him to host the program – twice – without censoring his rebellious streak.
<div id="attachment_955665" style="width: 835px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-955665" class="size-large wp-image-955665" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225471382-825x576.jpg" alt="HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - JULY 16: Shane Gillis speaks onstage during the 2025 ESPY Awards at Dolby Theatre on July 16, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)" width="825" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225471382-825x576.jpg 825w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225471382-300x209.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225471382-768x536.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225471382.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 825px) 100vw, 825px" />Kevin Winter/Getty Images</div>
More recently, he emceed the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shane-gillis-destroys-the-espys-and-wokeness">ESPY Awards</a>, mocking woke sacred cows like former soccer player Megan Rapinoe, a progressive scold synonymous with virtue signaling.
“Megan Rapinoe could not make it tonight … nice.”
A few media outlets grumbled about his “problematic” material. No Cancel Culture-style punishment ensued, nor was he forced to make a “hostage”-style apology.
Now, a rare voice eager to mock the woke mindset returns to do more of the same. “Beavis &amp; Butt-head” creator Mike Judge took an early swing at woke with his failed 2009 ABC sitcom “The Goode Family.” The show proved ahead of its time, teasing a hard-Left clan who strained to be better than, well, everyone.
Now, Judge is using his “King of the Hill” reboot to satirize gender fluidity, cultural appropriation and more on Hulu starting August 4.
Judge isn’t as merciless as Johnston, but his “Hill” gags give the game away. One episode finds wokesters attacking Bobby Hill, now a young man and overseeing a fusion restaurant. The menu in question sparks cries of cultural appropriation, leaving the Hill clan confused and upset.
The show finds a resolution, albeit one that illustrates the wobbly nature of woke criticism.
Has the pop culture dam finally broken on all things woke? The re-election of Donald Trump pushed the pendulum, hard, in that direction. We’re seeing the fruits of that shift now in pop culture.
More may follow.
And, if “SNL,” late-night TV and mainstream comedies continue to avoid these juicy targets, their cultural clout will diminish even further. Just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyc-were-with-colbert-rally-draws-tens-of-people-even-cops-go-home">ask Stephen Colbert how that works</a>.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-01-Aug-2025-11-14-AM-5738

Triggered Yet? Pop Culture’s Woke Takedown Has Begun

Triggered Yet? Pop Culture's Woke Takedown Has Begun

Books

COVID

Entertainment

Film

Film Reviews

Hollywood

Movies

Saturday Night Live

The new fall campaign for clothing retailer American Eagle Outfitters features simple, sexy shots of actress Sydney Sweeney, creating a lot of buzz online about the death of &#8220;woke&#8221; marketing.
The tagline &#8220;Sydney Sweeney has great jeans&#8221; has been added to shots and short video clips of the &#8220;White Lotus&#8221; actress wearing American Eagle jeans, racking up millions and millions of views online.
<div class="text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body__paragraph__2-BtD" data-testid="paragraph-0">The campaign, called &#8220;Sydney Sweeney Has Great (American Eagle) Jeans,&#8221; helped the company&#8217;s stock <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/great-jeans-sydney-sweeney-campaign-fuels-american-eagle-rally-2025-07-24/">surge</a>, last week.</div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Sydney Sweeney for American Eagle <a href="https://t.co/7RFIbKtcPq">pic.twitter.com/7RFIbKtcPq</a>
— Complex Style (@ComplexStyle) <a href="https://twitter.com/ComplexStyle/status/1948040202704105917?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
One clip includes Sweeney looking under the hood of a car, before the camera zooms-in on her jeans as she walks away.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Sydney sweeney for American Eagle. <a href="https://t.co/oOU8WMwJHA">pic.twitter.com/oOU8WMwJHA</a>
— Sydney Sweeney Daily (@sweeneydailyx) <a href="https://twitter.com/sweeneydailyx/status/1948032121429500221?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
Another shows the &#8220;Euphoria&#8221; actress looking at herself with a video camera while laying on the ground with a dog.
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While some commenters <a href="https://x.com/laylabyclapton/status/1948848493671403548">raged</a> that the ad campaign panders to the &#8220;male gaze&#8221; or is &#8220;alt-right coded,&#8221; others celebrated the marketing for avoiding &#8220;woke&#8221; elements.
&#8220;American Eagle ads, 2019 vs 2025. Woke is dead,&#8221; one X account highlighted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
American Eagle ads, 2019 vs 2025. Woke is dead. <a href="https://t.co/TGbP0B50ee">pic.twitter.com/TGbP0B50ee</a>
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1948383505974510061?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 24, 2025</a></blockquote>
&#8220;America is healing,&#8221; journalist Breanna Morello <a href="https://x.com/BreannaMorello/status/1948395048795623518">joked</a> about the campaign. Other comments read, &#8220;The woke mind virus is dying,&#8221; and &#8220;America is back.&#8221;
&#8220;So it turns out that the male gaze is actually good for business,&#8221; one person joked.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
So it turns out that the male gaze is actually good for business.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmericanEagle?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AmericanEagle</a> <a href="https://t.co/sezXFbE9TL">pic.twitter.com/sezXFbE9TL</a>
— No room for wokeness! (@Wokenessisevil) <a href="https://twitter.com/Wokenessisevil/status/1949107453448147409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
One X account noted, &#8220;We went from Lizzo Elle cover to Sydney Sweeney has great genes in three years.&#8221; 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
we went from Lizzo Elle cover to Sydney Sweeney has great genes in three years <a href="https://t.co/L485BakKG2">pic.twitter.com/L485BakKG2</a>
— ᐱ ᑎ ᑐ ᒋ ᕮ ᒍ (@Andr3jH) <a href="https://twitter.com/Andr3jH/status/1948856297782477021?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 25, 2025</a></blockquote>
A recent Nike ad, which celebrates traditional fatherhood, was also highlighted. &#8220;Are we back? I think we&#8217;re back,&#8221; the post is captioned.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Are we back? I think we&#8217;re back. <a href="https://t.co/HVvwwG6OV5">pic.twitter.com/HVvwwG6OV5</a>
— 👣ℙ𝕖𝕕𝕣𝕠&#8217;𝕤 𝕄𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕙𝕖🇺🇲 (@OfAthenry) <a href="https://twitter.com/OfAthenry/status/1948856286378131757?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 25, 2025</a></blockquote>
Some conservatives, however, said it was foolish for fellow conservatives to praise the ad, since, though it&#8217;s not woke, it&#8217;s also not &#8220;conservative&#8221; due to its sexual nature.
<div class="css-175oi2r r-xoduu5">Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woke-alert-microsoft-slammed-for-race-based-pay-equity-scheme?author=Spencer+Lindquist&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Woke+Alert%21+Microsoft+Slammed+For+Race-Based+‘Pay+Equity’+Scheme">Woke Alert! Microsoft Slammed For Race-Based ‘Pay Equity’ Scheme</a></div>

“Echo Valley” European Premiere – Arrivals

New Sexy Sydney Sweeney Ad Campaign Has Internet Celebrating The End Of ‘Woke’

advertising

Celebrities

Politics

Rachel Zegler taught them nothing. 
The star of the live-action “Snow White” reboot trashed the source material in comments that quickly went viral in 2023. Zegler followed that up by attacking MAGA nation months before the expensive film hit theaters, wishing Trump voters “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disneys-snow-white-actress-attacks-trump-voters-tells-people-to-leave-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener">never know peace</a>.”
More viral infamy. What happened next? “Snow White” flopped, hard, in its March theatrical debut. 
It was the clearest example of a star sabotaging their own film, a warning for other actors not do the same. They didn’t listen.
Celebrities don’t open up to Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and other Legacy Media outlets because they’re bored. It’s all part of the marketing machine meant to fill movie theater seats.
It’s why stars sing Karaoke in moving cars, gulp down hotter than hot wings and otherwise make themselves available to podcast interviewers weeks before their new film or TV show bows.
It’s Marketing 101. Yet stars use these moments to push their political agendas, lash out at conservatives and cause potential customers to avoid the nearest movie house.
You’d think one of Hollywood’s savviest storytellers might know the drill. Yet writer/director James Gunn ignored ZeglerGate in the days leading up to “Superman’s” release.
Gunn’s Man of Steel reboot is the key to DC Comics relaunching its superhero universe on the big screen. Gunn, who previously delivered three “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, was entrusted by Warner Bros. to revive Superman and kickstart who knows how many new superhero films.
<div id="attachment_946199" style="width: 742px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-946199" class="size-large wp-image-946199" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853-732x576.jpg" alt="HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - JULY 07: Peter Safran, Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Brosnahan, David Corenswet and James Gunn, Co-Chairman &amp; CEO, DC Studios arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Warner Bros. &quot;Superman&quot; at TCL Chinese Theatre on July 07, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)" width="732" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853-732x576.jpg 732w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853-300x236.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853-768x605.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224028853.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 732px) 100vw, 732px" />Steve Granitz/FilmMagic</div>
The movie’s marketing campaign stayed upbeat and positive for month after month. No one on Team Superman brought up political or culture war issues. It was all about the iconic character – an overgrown Boy Scout who came to Earth to protect it.
And then, mere days before the film’s July 11 debut, <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/james-gunn-interview-superman-film-2025-david-corenswet-dhb3bw3rp">Gunn got political</a> during a Times of London interview. And nasty.
<blockquote>I mean, Superman is the story of America … An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.” I ask if he has considered how differently the film might play in say, blue state New York — aka Metropolis — and Kansas, where Kent grew up? “Yes, it plays differently,” Gunn admits. “But it’s about human kindness and obviously there will be jerks out there who are just not kind and will take it as offensive just because it is about kindness. But screw them.</blockquote>
The ”Them” in that sentence may have been eager to see Gunn’s take on Superman. Not anymore.
Brother Sean Gunn, who has a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in the film, <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/news/james-gunn-superman-immigrant-backlash-response-1236449068/">doubled down</a> on his older brother’s rhetoric on the red carpet.
<blockquote>My reaction to [the backlash] is that it is exactly what the movie is about …  we support our people, you know? We love our immigrants. Yes, Superman is an immigrant, and yes, the people that we support in this country are immigrants and if you don’t like that, you’re not American. People who say no to immigrants are against the American way.</blockquote>
It’s worth noting Gunn’s “Superman” is neither political nor woke. So this was a case of Gunn pushing his personal politics into the public arena, knowing how social and new media outlets would process it.
And, evidently, not caring what impact it might have.
“Superman” may end up being too big to fail. It’s a beloved character who unites generations of movie goers, and the double barrel Gunn comments might not be enough to hurt its box office standing.
Or it could be enough of a wedge to stop the film from making all the money to spark a fresh wave of superhero films.
Why risk it?
It isn’t just Gunn ignoring the lesson Zegler learned the hard way. Omnipresent actor Pedro Pascal stars in the second-biggest film of the summer. He’s Reed Richards in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” the reboot of a reboot of the Marvel Comics super family.
<div id="attachment_946201" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-946201" class="size-large wp-image-946201" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805-864x576.jpg" alt="BERLIN, GERMANY - JULY 08: Pedro Pascal attends the &quot;The Fantastic Four: First Steps&quot; blue carpet fan event at Das Center on July 08, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Gerald Matzka/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2224148805.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Gerald Matzka/Getty Images</div>
He’s spent the last few weeks attacking J.K. Rowling for defending women from trans female athletes. Bullies, Pascal said, make him sick. And he considers the “Harry Potter” author to be just that.
He also used a red carpet appearance <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/07/09/pedro-pascal-uses-fantastic-four-premiere-to-lecture-about-protecting-trans-people-in-a-world-they-never-asked-to-be-brought-into/">to push for trans rights</a>. He has a trans sibling and routinely speaks out on the issue.
<blockquote>It’s important to protect people, especially those simply asking for the right to exist in bodies that belong to them and in the world that they never asked to be brought into … It’s a very, very small, vulnerable, inspiring, courageous and brave community that fills me with a lot of inspiration. Therefore, it’s very important to protect that. They would do that for us.</blockquote>
Oh, and “The Fantastic Four” opens July 25.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. Actor Christian Bale <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O6Kqy3JGnY">called Moses a “terrorist”</a> during the runup to the release of “Exodus: Gods and Kings.” That 2014 film bombed.
The list of stars getting aggressively political while promoting their movies, in general, is too long to include here. It’s standard procedure in Hollywood, but the Zegler fallout suggested stars might understand their corrosive takes will hurt their bottom lines at some point. Plus, the industry is buckling under seismic tech advancements, from A.I. threats to streaming platforms struggling to make ends meet.
They don’t seem to care.
Artists can say whatever they want, whenever they want. That’s the beauty of the First Amendment. They shouldn’t be punished for holding a specific point of view.
That said, an actor’s job is to promote their work to ensure they get even more work down the short road. Insulting potential audience members and stoking Culture War fires for no reason is incredibly short-sighted.
There are countless ways consumers can spend their leisure time today, from video games to doom-scrolling on social media. We need an excuse, preferably a big one, to shlep to a theater and pay the exorbitant fees for tickets and popcorn.
Artists like Gunn, Zegler and Pascal often make it easy for us. Nah … I’ll Netflix and chill instead.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

“Superman” World Tour – Manila

The Rachel Zegler Effect: How Hollywood Continues To Lose Audiences With Just A Few Comments

James Gunn

Leftists

Superman

Home Depot, Netflix, and Delta Airlines are just some of the companies being warned to cut ties with a left-wing program that pushes companies to cover sex change procedures for employees, a letter from a former attorney general obtained by The Daily Wire reveals.
The <a href="https://1792exchange.com/">1792 Exchange</a>, which fights the diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda in corporate America, is urging 92 companies to end their participation in the Corporate Equality Index, a rubric used by the far-left Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to grade companies’ adherence to left-wing gender ideology.
The Corporate Equality Index, the 1792 Exchange says, “functions as a social credit scoring system, promoting partisan initiatives that impede sound corporate governance” and even “pressures companies to adopt unlawful policies that only sow division.”
“You should cease participation in this index immediately,” the letter charges.
The 1792 Exchange is run by former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who told The Daily Wire that some companies simply don’t understand just how radical the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index really is.
“Unfortunately, many companies have no idea what they’re actually signing up for when they participate in the HRC’s survey. This should be a wake-up call,” Cameron told The Daily Wire. “As we move forward with America’s renewal, 1792 Exchange urges every responsible HR leader to reconsider their involvement with HRC and refocus on merit, excellence, and integrity in the workplace.”
Other notable companies that received the letter include Costco, Cracker Barrel, Lowe&#8217;s, Albertson’s, Autozone, and Rite Aid.
In order to receive a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-left-wing-activists-are-trying-to-save-corporate-wokeness">perfect score</a> on the Corporate Equality Index, companies in previous years had to offer healthcare coverage for so-called “medically necessary” transgender hormone replacement therapy, sex change operations, and puberty blockers for youth, while also establishing supplier diversity pipelines focused on LGBTQ+ suppliers.
Several companies, including Walmart, McDonald’s, and Tractor Supply, have <a href="https://1792exchange.com/dei-tracker/">ended their participation</a> in the Corporate Equality Index in recent years. Ford Motor Company similarly backed out of the left-wing organization’s scoring system, <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1828820035118518737">announcing in a memo</a> last year that it would “stop participating in external culture surveys such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.”
Now, Cameron is calling on the 92 corporations addressed in his letter to follow suit.
“As you prepare for the upcoming 2026 CEI survey, I encourage you to carefully consider the risks and consequences of continued participation,” Cameron writes before offering them assistance in decoupling from the far-left organization. “We are here to support you&#8230;your team of experienced professionals offers confidential, pro bono assistance to help you align your company’s policies with both business success and legal prudence.”
“Let’s ensure that workplaces remain welcoming, productive, and focused on excellence,” Cameron’s letter concludes. “Withdrawing participation in the CEI represents a responsible step in this direction.”

Home Depot

EXCLUSIVE: Home Depot, Netflix Hit Over Involvement In LGBT ‘Social Credit’ System

Corporations

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

LGBT

Netflix

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith, who is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/espn-host-stephen-smith-consider-run-president" target="_blank" rel="noopener">considering</a> a run for the presidency in 2028, said on Sunday that he believes the Democratic Party needs to be &#8220;purged&#8221; of its far-left tendencies before he would associate with it as a candidate.
CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper asked Smith on this Sunday&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/04/politics/video/sotu-jake-tapper-interviews-stphen-a-smith-on-potential-presidentila-bid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">episode</a> of &#8220;State of the Union&#8221; whether he would run for the White House as a Democrat.
&#8220;You know what? I&#8217;m an independent. I&#8217;m a registered independent. I would lean — who leans left. I&#8217;m fiscally conservative when it comes to my money. I&#8217;m socially liberal. I&#8217;m liberal when it comes to social issues pretty much across the board. I believe in living and let living,&#8221; Smith said.
&#8220;So I&#8217;m a moderate,&#8221; he went on. &#8220;And I would say, if I had to run, it would be as a Democrat, but I&#8217;m not happy with the Democratic Party. So the Democratic Party, as presently constructed, it would pretty much need to be purged in order for me to assume that I would want to be associated with them and I would garner their support, because I don&#8217;t like the way they have gone about doing a lot of things for a very, very long period of time.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/stephenasmith?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@stephenasmith</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jaketapper</a> on potential 2028 bid: “I would say, if I had to run, it would be as a Democrat, but I&#8217;m not happy with the Democratic Party. So the Democratic Party, as presently constructed, it would pretty much need to be purged in order for me to assume that I… <a href="https://t.co/vgYrvfV2cH">pic.twitter.com/vgYrvfV2cH</a>
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNNSOTU/status/1919041686136561801?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 4, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Smith added: &#8220;And I think that I don&#8217;t view Donald Trump as winning the election. I view the Democrats as losing the election, as absolutely, positively blowing it with some of their actions. And that&#8217;s why I think that, again, if somebody was to associate me with that, the party, as presently constructed, where it leans so extremely left, or at least has spent the vast majority of time doing that, oh, that is not something that I would vibe with at all. I would definitely be looking to be a game changer in that regard.&#8221;
When pressed by Tapper, Smith said that he would not name anyone he thinks should be &#8220;purged,&#8221; but the media personality did take aim at the &#8220;extreme left&#8221; of the party.
&#8220;We know how they go about operating. We know what we lean towards when it came to open borders. We know that the spending was excessive, even though it&#8217;s excessive on the Republican side as well. I think a $37 trillion budget, when Republicans try to act like it&#8217;s just the Democrats, that&#8217;s not true. But the Democrats certainly shouldn&#8217;t be absolved from blame in that regard,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;Certainly, with identity politics, woke culture, cancel culture, I thought that that was something that ravaged our nation psychologically, because you had people literally scared they were going to lose their jobs if they pronounced the wrong pronoun, for crying out loud,&#8221; Smith continued. &#8220;It got that bad.&#8221;
Smith said he believes the focus on &#8220;the individual&#8221; rather than &#8220;actual policies&#8221; is one reason why Trump won a second term.
&#8220;I&#8217;m talking about what they preached and what they talked to the American people about more so than what they&#8217;re doing. The kind of messages that they were disseminating was incredibly uncomfortable to listen to and to hear,&#8221; Smith said.
&#8220;And I thought that it wasn&#8217;t emblematic of what most Americans are thinking about. They&#8217;re trying to pay their mortgages, rent, buy food and groceries, pay gas and deal with the prices, the cost of living. And they want safety in the streets. That&#8217;s primarily what most American citizens are about, trying to live in peace and harmony,&#8221; he added.  &#8220;And that&#8217;s not something that I think either side has promoted along the way. And that&#8217;s why I think the state of the nation is what it is at this particular moment in time.&#8221;

Stephen A. Smith

Stephen A. Smith Refuses To Associate With ‘Extreme Left’ Of Democratic Party

Cancel Culture

Democratic Party

Democrats

Identity Politics

U.S.

WASHINGTON—The Department of Transportation is terminating $54 million worth of recently-discovered &#8220;woke university grants,&#8221; The Daily Wire has learned, arguing that the grants advanced radical agendas that ran counter to the department&#8217;s mission.
Seven schools received grants which Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told The Daily Wire were advancing a &#8220;radical DEI and green agenda&#8221; that is wasteful and counter to the Trump administration&#8217;s priorities.
The University of California, Davis&#8217;s National Center for Sustainable Transportation was receiving $12 million for “accelerating equitable decarbonization” research, according to the department, while City College of New York&#8217;s Center for Social and Economic Mobility for People and Communities through Transportation was receiving about $9 million for research into “equitable transportation for the disadvantaged workforce.&#8221;
“The previous administration turned the Department of Transportation into the Department of Woke,&#8221; Duffy told The Daily Wire Friday afternoon. &#8220;I’ve focused the Department on what matters; safety, making travel great again, and building big, beautiful infrastructure projects.&#8221;
The department&#8217;s discovery is yet another instance of massive amounts of American taxpayer dollars going to the ideological pet projects of the past administration. In the Transportation Department&#8217;s case, officials looked under the hood and were horrified to find that many of the grants weren&#8217;t even aligned with transportation at all.
&#8220;The American people have zero interest in millions of their tax dollars funding research on the intersection of gender non-conforming people and infrastructure inequality or whether road improvement projects are racist,&#8221; Duffy added. &#8220;It’s time to inject a dose of reality back into our higher education system, and that starts with ending these wasteful and divisive grants.&#8221;
Other recipients of grants that have now been terminated included the University of Southern California Pacific Southwest Region, New York University, San Jose State University, University of New Orleans, and Johns Hopkins University, The Daily Wire can first report.
<div id="attachment_915229" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-transportation-department-learns-its-funding-54-million-in-woke-grants-and-ends-them/transportation-secretary-sean-duffy-announces-plan-to-boost-air-traffic-controller-workforce-2" rel="attachment wp-att-915229"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-915229" class="wp-image-915229 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2212921634.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)</div>
The University of Southern California&#8217;s Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center received about $9 million for research on how “the transportation system creates and perpetuates inequities,&#8221; the Transportation Department said, and New York University&#8217;s Connected Communities for Smart Mobility Toward Accessible and Resilient Transportation for Equitably Reducing Congestion was receiving $6 million for research into “e-bikes to low-income travelers in transit deserts.&#8221;
Under the former grants, San Jose State University&#8217;s Mineta Consortium for Emerging, Efficient, and Safe Transportation was also receiving about $6 million for research on “intermodal inequities, particularly how improvements to auto travel can benefit higher income, often white drivers, while depressing transit ridership potential and depriving it of revenues necessary to provide comprehensive services to lower income, often BIPOC people and research into using crowdsourcing and collaborative planning to address safety concerns of women and gender non-conforming people using public transportation,&#8221; the Transportation Department told The Daily Wire.
The University of New Orleans&#8217; Center for Transit Oriented Communities was receiving $6 million for &#8220;equitable transit-oriented communities [and] how neighborhood stabilization efforts support environmental justice” research, and Johns Hopkins University&#8217;s Center for Smart Transportation was receiving $6 million for climate change focused research on “hyperlocal pollution exposure inequalities in New York City, promoting EV usage for low-income gig workers, long distance ride sharing, gentrification.&#8221;
The Trump administration has been vocal about ending these types of grants and wasteful spending, tasking the Department of Government Efficiency with ending wasteful spending. DOGE has cut almost $200 billion from government spending since Trump took office, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4j33klz33o">Elon Musk shared in a recent interview</a>.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Announces Plan To Boost Air Traffic Controller Workforce

EXCLUSIVE: Transportation Department Learns It’s Funding $54 Million In Woke Grants — And Ends Them

Department of Transportation

Sean Duffy

There have been a lot of changes in the second Trump administration, as we all know. But there was one change from the very beginning that hasn&#8217;t gotten nearly as much attention as it should. It&#8217;s when Trump stood up during his inauguration speech and invoked the idea of Manifest Destiny, which is of course deeply rooted in the idea of American exceptionalism.
For the first time in many generations, a U.S. president felt no shame in proclaiming that America is the greatest nation on the planet. And crucially, Donald Trump didn&#8217;t make this proclamation as a platitude. He wasn&#8217;t seeking to get a quick sound bite out of it, by reminding people of history class when they heard terms like &#8220;Manifest Destiny&#8221; and American exceptionalism. Instead, Trump meant it, in a practical sense. We&#8217;re the best nation, he said. And therefore we can do what we want. We can impose tariffs and force everyone to the negotiating table. We can deport criminals and ignore corrupt judges who tell us otherwise. In a matter of weeks, we can eliminate bureaucracy, talk about acquiring Greenland, and become energy independent — which is no small thing when the entire continent of Europe teeters on the verge of a blackout.  We can do all of these things because, in very real terms, we are unique. Period. We have a fighting spirit that no other nation on the planet can match.
If you attended college in the last 50 years, you&#8217;ve probably been conditioned not to say things like this. You&#8217;re told it&#8217;s gaudy, or a relic of colonialism or something like that. But it happens to be true. And every day, we&#8217;re reminded it&#8217;s true. We can see, right out in the open, that other nations are inferior to our own. Look closely enough, and you&#8217;ll see that they&#8217;ll admit it. They are preoccupied with their own destruction.
Let&#8217;s start with the UK, which is allegedly one of our closest allies. A couple of weeks ago, you might remember, we <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg3G_P1jO_c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">talked about</a> the Netflix show &#8220;Adolescence,&#8221; and how it&#8217;s essentially taken over the entire country. 
&#8220;Adolescence&#8221; is a mini-series in which a white 13-year-old boy named Jamie stabs a girl to death after the girl rejects his advances. The &#8220;hook,&#8221; if you can call it that, is that the show blames online culture for the killer&#8217;s actions, at least to some extent. The victim had bullied the 13-year-old boy on Instagram, for example. He had been called an &#8220;incel&#8221; and so on. The point of the show is that &#8220;male rage&#8221; is fueled by online misogyny and bullying, and that children are liable to become murderers at any moment, even if they live in a loving, stable two-parent household. That&#8217;s the message the showrunners wanted to convey, even though it flies in the face of common sense and every data point we have. Beyond that, there wasn&#8217;t anything very interesting about the show. The cameraman is doing more interesting things than any of the actors, since everything is supposedly shot in one take.
So it was reasonable to assume that, after the initial hype died down over this mini-series, that the UK would move on pretty quickly. That&#8217;s the normal trajectory that shows like this tend to follow. And indeed, that&#8217;s what many in my audience said would happen. I received dozens of comments on my last monologue on &#8220;Adolescence&#8221;, where several people who live in Britain explained that, actually, the show isn&#8217;t that popular over there to begin with. Additionally, as we discussed, there was an infamous interview broadcast on the BBC, where the anchors grill a conservative politician about the fact that she hasn&#8217;t seen the show. They were stunned, for the entire interview, that she hadn&#8217;t watched it. And no matter how much the politician tried to explain to these anchors that the show isn&#8217;t real, they kept doubling down. When we played that footage two weeks ago, it seemed like it was safe to assume that the obsession over this show had officially jumped the shark. It seemed too absurd to continue. Everyone, even fans of the show, would certainly walk away slowly and find something else to fixate on.
But that hasn&#8217;t happened in the UK. Instead, &#8220;Adolescence&#8221; isn&#8217;t simply dominating political discussions anymore. Now the show is being used to justify new legislation that would dramatically curtail free speech rights in the country — almost as if that was the point of the show all along. In fact, the show&#8217;s creators just testified in parliament to demand this new legislation. Yes, the government held an entire hearing on a fictional television show, in which the show&#8217;s writer testified as an expert before the government&#8217;s &#8220;Women and Equalities Committee.&#8221; That is the very dire and hopeless state of the so-called United Kingdom at the moment.
We&#8217;ll start at the beginning of the hearing, when a member of parliament named Sarah Owen begins questioning Jack Thorne, who&#8217;s the creator and executive producer of &#8220;Adolescence.&#8221; And this member of parliament is very interested in knowing more about Jamie, and why he snapped and decided to kill a girl. But there&#8217;s a bit of a snag, because the politician clearly doesn&#8217;t understand what the creator of the show was getting at, which leads to this mildly amusing exchange. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Discussing fake character" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SlPhT8p7xqU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
There&#8217;s a couple of layers of embarrassment here. First of all, of course, they&#8217;re talking about a fake person as if he&#8217;s real. He&#8217;s saying it would take him &#8220;nine years&#8221; to unpack the brain of a fictional character named Jamie, who, because he doesn&#8217;t actually exist, does not therefore have a brain, or a history, or emotions. And for her part, the politician — who apparently chairs this committee in parliament — keeps pressing for more information about this fictional individual. She&#8217;s really determined to understand what makes him tick, even though he doesn&#8217;t exist. This went on for something like two hours, by the way. The hearing was full of moments like this.
As it went on, it became clear that Jack Thorne is especially concerned about &#8220;conspiracy theories,&#8221; as he calls them. And at one point in the hearing, Thorne elaborated on the term &#8220;conspiracy theories.&#8221; It turns out that — stop me if you&#8217;ve heard this one before — a conspiracy theory is something that&#8217;s completely true, but highly inconvenient for the political Left. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 conspiracy" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_pNtI0EQBpg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
That&#8217;s his response, when he&#8217;s asked about the race-swap in &#8220;Adolescence.&#8221; He&#8217;s asked about a conservative politician who pointed out that, unlike what you see on Netflix, white kids from stable households are not stabbing many people in the UK. That&#8217;s the truth. It&#8217;s kids from broken homes, along with jihadists, who are doing most of the damage. And in response to that point, which is obviously true, Thorne states that the conservative politician must be &#8220;consuming&#8221; the wrong content online. The implication, of course, is that anyone who tells the truth about knife crime in the UK — and violent crime in general — should be censored. You&#8217;re required to think that it&#8217;s young white kids from loving two-parent households that are knifing everyone, and you&#8217;re supposed to ignore the literal jihadist with an Al Qaeda training manual in his backpack who murders young girls at a dance studio.
Again, this is the state of the UK — a country that we once had a lot in common with. But this is what they&#8217;re reduced to. I want to show one more clip from this hearing, because it just kept getting more and more comical as it went on. Eventually Jack Thorne left, and he was replaced by a bunch of self-described &#8220;experts&#8221; and government officials who — supposedly — would provide some hard evidence in support of more online censorship. 
But then, a funny thing happened. 
When they were asked for evidence that misogyny is on the rise in the UK, they didn&#8217;t have any data. They couldn&#8217;t point to any objective, verifiable information about all the young white men who are going out and killing women because of Andrew Tate or whatever. Instead — and I&#8217;m not making this up — the experts turned around and cited the show &#8220;Adolescence,&#8221; and the testimony from Jack Thorne. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="004 Experts cite show" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8KCdtC9tgIU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
So they don&#8217;t have any data, actually. They just have the show &#8220;Adolescence,&#8221; and the testimony from its &#8220;executive producer.&#8221; According to the government expert, that qualifies as &#8220;evidence&#8221; in the UK. Time to pass a law eliminating free speech on the internet, I guess. But the point here is not to mock the UK, as entertaining as that would be. The point is that this kind of embarrassing spectacle is not very surprising for them. There aren’t very many people left in that country to speak out against it. There isn’t much of a &#8220;right wing&#8221; in the UK, or almost anywhere else in the western world outside of the United States.
And if you don&#8217;t believe that, look at the election that just <a href="https://barsoom.substack.com/p/post-mortem-for-the-canadian-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener">took place</a> in Canada. After ten years of destroying Canada&#8217;s economy and opening the borders to hordes of foreign nationals, the Liberal Party was just re-elected. Voters once again handed the Liberal Party control of government, even after the Liberals froze the bank accounts of peaceful protesters, arrested journalists in the street, trampled old ladies with horses, disarmed the entire population, and effectively banned independent journalists from posting their content on social media platforms. Canadians saw the government declare martial law over a bunch of truckers who didn&#8217;t want to be compelled to take an experimental shot, and they said, &#8220;we want more of that.&#8221; And also, of course, they want more taxes so that they can stop the weather from changing.
I&#8217;m not going to pretend to be an expert on the ins-and-outs of Canadian politics. If you&#8217;re interested in a more granular breakdown, there&#8217;s a Substack <a href="https://barsoom.substack.com/p/post-mortem-for-the-canadian-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> from someone named John Carter that goes into some detail about what happened in this week&#8217;s election. Here&#8217;s how it begins.
<blockquote>Have you ever noticed how election results are regularly broken down geographically, as well by the demographic categories of age, sex, and – depending on the country – race, yet we almost never see the results separated into taxpayer vs tax-eater status? &#8230; It is absolutely no surprise that Ottawa voted solidly for the Liberal Party of Canada, whose base consists of three primary groups: migrants, public sector workers, and baby boomers, all of whom are regime client groups, and all of whom are tightly packed into the nation’s capital. Perhaps it’s that it’s tax season and I’m in a grumpy mood because I just got the bad news, but I can’t help but wonder about how electoral politics would change if only taxpayers were allowed to vote.</blockquote>
That&#8217;s a useful framework to look at what just happened in Canada, especially as you hear a lot of people blaming Donald Trump and tariffs and so on. In Canada, very few young people can afford homes. There aren&#8217;t many good jobs. The only really viable aspects of Canadian society are the public sector — which is sustained through taxes and borrowed money — and retirees. The public-sector employees are the ones who celebrated when truckers were beaten by the police in Ottawa a few years ago. They resent the working-class. Their only interest is seeing their pensions vest. Meanwhile, older Canadians have made their money, and they don&#8217;t seem to care about what happens to their country going forward.
Take a look at this chart, which is making the rounds:
<div id="attachment_914325" style="width: 692px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-914325" class="wp-image-914325 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048-682x576.webp" alt="Abacus Data. Substack, John Carter." width="682" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048-682x576.webp 682w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048-300x254.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048-768x649.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/e5df823e-f7b0-4335-ad69-cdc16a1a914e_1240x1048.webp 1240w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px" />Abacus Data. Substack, John Carter.</div>
It shows the &#8220;most important factors&#8221; in people&#8217;s votes, broken out by age. It&#8217;s from Abacus Data, which is a Canadian polling firm. Notice that, for most young people under the age of 44, &#8220;reducing the cost of living&#8221; is the top issue. But for Canadians over the age of 60, the top issue was &#8220;dealing with Donald Trump.&#8221;
In other words, Canadian seniors are not even pretending to be interested in the internal affairs of their own country. They&#8217;re not concerned about the fact that young people are overdosing at increasing rates, or that many of them are well into their 30s, sharing tiny apartments with roommates just to make ends meet. What they care about, instead, is &#8220;dealing with Donald Trump&#8221; — an elected official from a different country, who hasn&#8217;t caused a single ounce of the misery that Canada has been enduring for the past decade.
In this country, by contrast, older voters were mostly <a href="https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-2024/election-analysis-older-voters.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concerned</a> about the economy in the last election. In Michigan, for example, the AARP found that &#8220;24 percent of older voters cited the economy and jobs, and another 24 percent cited inflation, as top concerns.&#8221; So nearly half of these voters are interested in things that every American should be interested in — which is creating a stable and functioning economy so that people can buy homes and raise children.
But in Canada, as in the UK, the priorities are different. That&#8217;s why these countries are spending their time talking about Netflix shows, and electing globalists who promise to send mean tweets to Donald Trump or whatever.
It&#8217;s a sobering realization, but it&#8217;s true: These countries, which are supposed to be great allies who we have a lot in common with, do not have a functioning conservative movement at all. One that respects the sanctity of life from the moment of conception, one that values the importance of economic growth for everyone, and one that understands the distinction between fiction and reality. With every election that takes place in Canada, and every humiliating hearing on &#8220;Adolescence&#8221; that the UK is subjected to, the truth becomes clearer by the day. It&#8217;s time to admit it, because it&#8217;s unavoidable at this point: The future of conservatism, and thus of Western civilization, is in our hands — and our hands alone.

“Adolescence” Special Screening – Arrivals

UK Parliament Hosts Incredibly Embarrassing Hearing Over Netflix Show ‘Adolescence’

England

Great Britain

Matt Walsh

Migrants

Opinion

Stabbing

Teenagers

It’s not an exaggeration to say that conservative shareholder engagement is changing the corporate game. For years, Left-wing activists controlled the agendas at our largest companies, using not only their leverage as stockholders but their perpetual devotion to activism to get in the ear of America’s boards and directors. The result? Leftward drift in virtually every major company. But now conservative shareholders, from ordinary investors to major conservative nonprofits, are stepping into the game — and their engagements are bearing major fruit. The latest proof? IBM.
IBM’s track record on corporate bias and activism is notorious. The company was a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers that worked to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-daily-wire-addresses-the-ad-industry-following-the-fall-of-garm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">keep ad revenue away</a> from conservative news sites like the Daily Wire to free speech-centric platforms like X. And that’s before all the DEI concerns surfaced. After IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was caught on a <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1734374423124176944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1734374423124176944%7Ctwgr%5E42e55266e59ec08d85550be6ab044097866bd072%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdallasexpress.com%2Fbusiness-markets%2Fceo-of-tech-corp-ibm-enshrines-dei-hiring%2F">hot mic</a> discussing how the company uses quotas of ‘underrepresented’ minorities in determining their executive pay — in Krishna’s words, execs have “got to move both [race and gender] forward by a percentage point” in order to get a higher bonus. That means DEI. That means quotas. Following these snafus, the reputational, ethical, and (in the case of the Missouri AG who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/missouri-attorney-general-sues-tech-giant-ibm-alleging-discrimination-against-whites-asians-men" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> IBM) legal scrutiny was swift in coming.
IBM’s motto since its early years has been “THINK,” referring to the innovative spirit with which the company solves problems. Yet when it came to political bias, that motto was missing in action — and shareholders took notice. In January, the firm I work for, Bowyer Research, began <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-expands-efforts-hold-corporate-america-accountable-end-its-discriminatory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">work</a> with the Heritage Foundation to hold IBM accountable for the DEI quotas that Krishna described. The argument? Simple — use of non-meritocratic quotas based on race and gender aren’t just bad for reputation, but illegal on their face and bad for business. Shareholders, from major nonprofits to ordinary mom-and-pop investors, shouldn’t have their business returns impacted by IBM’s belief in identity politics.
As the shareholder engagement heated up on the internal front, pressure from <a href="https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5515346/the-ibm-red-hat-leaks-what-weve-learned-so-far" target="_blank" rel="noopener">journalists</a> and <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1910425361034383545" target="_blank" rel="noopener">influencers</a> like Robby Starbuck increased on the external front. That pressure built and built — and the release began earlier this month, when IBM announced the end of many of its DEI initiatives and related goals, including the elimination of its diversity council, the phaseout of its supplier diversity initiatives, and no longer participating in surveys put out by radical corporate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">activist groups</a> like the Human Rights Campaign, which pressures companies to cover puberty blocker access for employees’ children in the name of “health care access.”
That would have been news enough — until several days ago, when IBM also <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-secures-commitment-viewpoint-neutrality-ibm-encourages-company" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> to include viewpoint neutrality as part of its advertising policy in response to Heritage’s shareholder engagement. That means that biased, activist-driven, political censorship that ad cartels like GARM perpetuate is now explicitly banned under IBM corporate policy. IBM listened to its shareholders, its employees, and its customers — and the result is another company willing to make commitments to political neutrality. This is what happens when authentic shareholder advocacy, championing political neutrality, merges with external pressure to drop corporate bias: change happens, and happens in the form of concrete policy commitments, not just boilerplate PR statements. It’s a praiseworthy step.
But is the scrutiny over? Absolutely not. IBM needs to demonstrate that they’re committed to actually staying the course on being politically-neutral and quota-free. Outstanding questions remain. During our engagement on behalf of Heritage, the company <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/corpfin/no-action/14a-8/heritageibm3325-14a8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notably claimed</a> to the SEC that they couldn’t give a definition of DEI as grounds to ignore shareholder concerns — so how did they go from not knowing what DEI is to getting rid of it? (You can probably guess how.) The company holds its annual meeting of shareholders today, and if they’re savvy will make a point of focusing their messaging on business, not activism.
Achieving the commitment to neutrality at IBM was the result of a myriad of groups, from shareholders like Heritage to <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/sec-sides-with-adf-denies-absurd-attempt-from-govt-contractor-ibm-to-hide-from-shareholders-on-dei-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal giants</a> like Alliance Defending Freedom to the courageous IBM employees willing to speak out about the bias behind the scenes. And it’s going to take all of those groups to be vigilant now — not paying attention to our boardrooms is what got us into the woke mess in the first place.
This is the next phase of rooting out bias and wokeness from corporate America — watching tirelessly to see whether companies that commit to ditching DEI are actually willing to put their messaging and money where their mouths are. Smart companies will be willing to commit to change. Foolish ones will hope to either avoid scrutiny altogether or reintroduce the same tired DEI policies under the guise of <a href="https://www.shrm.org/executive-network/insights/time-to-add-b-for-belonging-to-workplace-dei-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">phrases</a> like “belonging.” It’s our job, as shareholders, as customers, and as Americans, to keep up the pressure for accountability with the leverage that we’ve been given. And above all, to make the case for what truly makes every company successful: the courage to resist activism and the fortitude to focus on business.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Traders On The Floor Of The New York Stock Exchange As Fed Chair Powell Holds New Conference

IBM Rolls Back DEI, Commits To Political Neutrality

Business

Diversity

Dow Jones

GARM

Heritage Foundation

Human Rights Campaign

Robby Starbuck

Stock Market

Wall Street

You may have noticed that most of the headlines right now revolve around President Trump and the Republicans. It&#8217;s almost as though the Democrats don&#8217;t exist.
That’s because they don&#8217;t. They have almost lost the will to resist, as you have Bernie Sanders and AOC taking private jets to large venues.
Democrats are struggling for what their message ought to be, so they have unleashed a new term.
It is “Dark Woke,” which is going to go about as well as “Dark Brandon” did.
Just a few years ago, at a NASCAR race, people started chanting “F*** Joe Biden” and a woman who was covering that race then suggested the crowd was actually chanting, “Let&#8217;s go, Brandon!”
Republicans started using the slogan “Let&#8217;s go Brandon” to imply “F*** Joe Biden.” And then the Biden administration, trying to seize the language back, put out memes of old Joe Biden with laser eyes calling him “Dark Brandon.” Or they put up memes of him with his sunglasses, grinning, and they called it “dark.”
It didn&#8217;t go well because he then physically died in the middle of the race and dropped out. In fact, it went very poorly.
So now they&#8217;re trying “dark” again. They think that just by adding the word “dark” to things, that makes it cool.
Dumb.
They&#8217;re obviously trying to copy the Elon Musk memery of “Dark MAGA.” And so now they have “dark woke.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2184-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/style/dark-woke-democrats-jasmine-crockett-trump.html">According</a> to The New York Times, “There was a time last summer when the Democratic Party was cool.”
That was a really, really short period of time. (There was a point in time when I was significantly closer to weighing 150 pounds. It was a moment, and then it went away.)
The Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/style/dark-woke-democrats-jasmine-crockett-trump.html">continued</a>:
<blockquote>Kamala Harris had just stepped in as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in the waning days of Brat summer. She went on the popular podcast “Call Her Daddy.” Tim Walz’s outdoorsy drip led to a Chappell Roan-inspired camo trucker hat. The mems were flowing, and the party’s mood was high.</blockquote>
You&#8217;ll recall that even by the end of Brat summer, it was pretty much over for Kamala Harris. The “Call Her Daddy” appearance was a giant failure and cost her a bunch of money.
Tim Walz was never a bro. Nobody ever saw Tim Walz as a bro, unless the bros were hanging out at a high school musical production using jazz hands.
But now, apparently, Democrats are in search of a new memery. The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/style/dark-woke-democrats-jasmine-crockett-trump.html">writes</a>:
<blockquote>As liberals try to get their groove back, some party insiders say Democratic politicians have been encouraged to embrace a new form of combative rhetoric aimed at winning back voters who have responded to President Trump’s no-holds-barred version of politics. It’s an attempt to step outside the bounds of the political correctness that Republicans have accused Democrats of establishing. And it requires being crass but discerning, rude but only to a point. Online, it has a name: “Dark woke.”
“Republicans have essentially put Democrats in a respectability prison,” said Bhavik Lathia, a communications consultant and former digital director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “There is an extreme imbalance in strategy that allows Republicans to say stuff that really grabs voters’ attention, where we’re stuck saying boring pablum. I see this as a strategic shift within Democratic messaging — I’m a big fan of ‘dark woke.’”</blockquote>
What exactly is “dark woke?”
The Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/style/dark-woke-democrats-jasmine-crockett-trump.html">again</a>:
<blockquote>During a meeting of the House Oversight Committee last May, Representative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, found herself in a spat with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, after Ms. Greene made a jibe about “fake eyelashes” that the chair, Representative James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, declined to prosecute under the committee’s rules on decorum.
“Mr. Chair, a point of order,” Ms. Crockett said. “I’m just curious, just to better understand your ruling. If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach blonde bad built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”
Ms. Crockett’s moment became a meme. It was printed on T-shirts. It got her an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. And now, Democratic strategists say, it has become a perfect example of “dark woke.”</blockquote>
Democrats are very much in love with this sort of stuff.
And it ain’t gonna get them out of their morass.

Bernie Sanders And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hold “Fighting Oligarchy” Rally In L.A.

The ‘Dark Woke’ Rises — And Trips Over Itself

New York Times

Republicans

Controversy has reared its head again in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) in California. The district recently convened a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPu4CQ_rZk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">special board meeting</a> to deliberate on its Ethnic Studies curriculum and the potential renewal of a contract with Community Responsive Education (CRE). <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-a-new-ethnic-studies-curriculum-promotes-anti-semitism-in-california">As I reported last month,</a> the State of California previously rejected the draft Ethnic Studies curriculum co-authored by CRE founder and director Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, which was deemed to promote antisemitism and neo-Marxist ideology.
Though the district’s multi-stage contract with CRE was canceled in 2023 amidst the controversy, Tintiangco-Cubales’s ideas live on. No wonder many are concerned that PVUSD is considering a renewed contract with CRE.
The meeting made it clear that PVUSD was fully aware of the nature of CRE’s philosophy when it was previously considered for the Ethnic Studies curriculum. Assistant Superintendent Claudia Monjaras argued in her presentation to the board that CRE did not develop the curriculum — that the district’s staff developed the curriculum with only support from CRE. Yet the reality is that the core ideas and philosophy of CRE remain central to the curriculum. 
Ms. Monjaras’s characterization of the curriculum as being primarily a product of her team is akin to an individual arguing in traffic court that an external influence, namely alcohol, had little bearing on their reckless driving. Similarly, the philosophical underpinnings of CRE are deeply interwoven into the curriculum and cannot be dismissed as incidental or superficial contributions.
The special <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/pvusd/Board.nsf/files/DEXVZ7831F15/$file/Special%20Board%20Mtg%20Packet.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">board meeting packet</a> and <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/pvusd/Board.nsf/files/DEXW2N835755/$file/3.28%20ES%20Special%20Study%20Session%20(1).pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PowerPoint presentation</a> referenced at the meeting makes the goal of Ethnic Studies clear: “The vision of Ethnic Studies in Pajaro Valley Unified School District is to provide rich learning that centers experiences, stories, and knowledge of Ethnic Studies groups while also shaping a lens to understand and critique dominant power structures, ultimately to eliminate racism and intersectional forms of oppression. Ethnic Studies will provide a culturally and community-responsive education values the F.I.E.L.D.S in and of Pajaro Valley.” This may be laudable in certain contexts, but I fail to see how these lofty aims relate to the mission of any school district.
Throughout the meeting, CRE supporters among both staff and public commenters repeatedly used terms such as “solidarity,” “oppression,” “systems of power,” “dominant narratives,” “intersectionality,” “lived experience,” “white supremacy,” and “critical consciousness” — all of which are hallmark concepts of neo-Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT). It is concerning that these loaded ideological terms are being introduced surreptitiously without clear acknowledgment of the underlying philosophy and its appropriateness for K-12 education.
The adoption of such ideology promotes a backward-looking worldview, which both lacks a constructive vision of the future and fails to recognize that significant social progress has been made over the past several decades. Instead of fostering hope and optimism, this framework is mired in grievances that suggest a cultural regression of a century ago.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-907565 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pajaro-Valley-II.png" alt="" width="258" height="287" /></div>
In its “Ethnic Studies Framework &amp; Guiding” document (board meeting packet), PVUSD borrows the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_fist" target="_blank" rel="noopener">clenched black power fist</a> rising out of a book with a pencil in hand as its logo. This clenched fist has most recently been associated with the <a href="https://www.capitalfm.com/news/black-lives-matter/blm-black-power-fist-symbol-meaning-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Black Lives Matter (BLM)</a> movement in 2020 and also closely associated with the struggle for Black civil rights. However, the <a href="https://www.rd.com/article/history-behind-the-clenched-first-and-the-symbol-for-black-power/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">clenched symbol</a> also has historical significance in 19th century Europe, where it represented revolutionary courage against European monarchies. The symbol ties in perfectly with neo-Marxist thought of revolution to overthrow what are perceived to be dominant power structures of oppression in current day America.
The state of California <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB101" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mandates</a> only a single semester-long course of Ethnic Studies for students to earn a high school diploma, whose current model curriculum could have adequately served as the foundation for PVUSD’s ethnic studies efforts. While the mandate is reasonable, PVUSD’s approach of embedding Ethnic Studies seen through a CRT lens into a multi-year endeavor in English courses crosses into the territory of indoctrination rather than education. Investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a curriculum tied to CRE and neo-Marxist ideology, which had been rejected by the state because of its controversial nature, represents both a financial and educational misstep.
Given PVUSD’s current English and math achievement challenges, prioritizing Ethnic Studies to this degree is misaligned with the district’s most pressing needs. During the 2023-2024 school year, only <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/pvusd/Board.nsf/files/DDK29600FC8D/$file/2024_SARC%20Pajaro_Valley_High_School_20250123.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25%</a> of students met or exceeded state standards in English, while only 18% achieved the same in mathematics. The funds already spent — and those proposed on Ethnic Studies — would have been better utilized to enhance student academic performance. The purpose of K-12 education is to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to thrive as contributing members of society, not to cultivate the next generation of social activists. Teaching social activism should never take precedence over academic achievement.
California school districts must learn from PVUSD’s missteps and focus on their fundamental mission: educating students. The integration of divisive ideologies into the curriculum undermines this mission, shifting the focus away from preparing students for productive futures. The PVUSD board should reject controversial influences and return to the state-provided model as a guide that emphasizes balanced, inclusive education.
Ethnic Studies should aim to educate students about diverse histories and cultures in a way that fosters unity and forward-looking ideals, rather than perpetuating divisive rhetoric and outdated grievances. The focus must remain on education, not indoctrination, ensuring that students gain both historical awareness and the tools to envision a brighter, more connected future.
* * *
Walter Myers III is a Senior Fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and an adjunct faculty member at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Graduation day

‘Systems Of Power’: CA Ethnic Studies Program Continues To Radicalize Students

'Systems Of Power': CA Ethnic Studies Program Continues To Radicalize Students

Anti-Racism

California

Education

Ethnic Studies

Intersectionality

Marxism

Oppression

School Boards

White Supremacy

If there’s one thing that puts me in a worse mood than politics, it’s Hollywood, which never fails to disappoint in its stupidity and its arrogance.
I watched the new preview for “Superman” from director James Gunn. As you may know, I’m not a huge James Gunn fan. His work on &#8220;Guardians of the Galaxy” is fine, when he engages in ridiculous, gonzo humor. But elsewhere?
Back in the day, Gunn’s old jokey and ugly tweets were resurfaced. Based on those old tweets, he was actually fired by Marvel. I publicly supported the idea that he should be rehired because people shouldn&#8217;t be canceled based on jokes they made back when Twitter was a jokier platform.
But now he&#8217;s directing the new “Superman” movie and the preview sucks. It&#8217;s bad. It’s terrible.
In the preview, Superman is wounded and lying on the snow, then whistles for Krypto, the Superdog, who arrives and then proceeds to beat the living hell out of him for over a minute. He&#8217;s screaming in pain as Krypto jumps on him and continues to fight him.
I don&#8217;t see the purpose of this; it’s not dramatic. It&#8217;s just silly and ridiculous.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2173-fallout-stock-market-drops-trump-pushes-on-member-exclusive?row=2&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Finally, Krypto figures out that he needs to take Superman back to the Fortress of Solitude. Every James Gunn joke is a Monty Python gag that lasts three times too long. So now Krypto is dragging Superman&#8217;s prone body through the snow back toward the Fortress of Solitude, which arises from the Arctic. And it&#8217;s a cool-looking Fortress of Solitude.
But don&#8217;t worry, it gets worse.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Superman | Sneak Peek" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xFU8U4UVUBs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Once Superman is brought inside, a team of robots, presumably of Kryptonian origin, starts to handle him and then they have one of the most nonsensical exchanges in any James Gunn movie. They say robots have no feelings, and then the female robot starts giggling like a little girl.
The entire attitude is wrong. The gold standard for a “Superman” movie remains the original “Superman” from 1978, by far the best “Superman” movie. It was significantly better than “Man of Steel” because it understood in the first half that there&#8217;s a solemnity to Superman, that he is supposed to be the embodiment of America, and then the second half of the movie shifted into a more comic-book, humorous mode. The color palette was very rich and very bright.
In “Man of Steel,” they basically desaturated the entire film so the entire color palette was grayscale and kind of ugly and dark and the entire character of Superman was much darker.
The attitude of the preview is totally wrong. It&#8217;s just “Guardians of the Galaxy” in a Superman suit, and it ticks me off, it really does. As a lifelong fan of the Superman brand, it&#8217;s not that hard to get Superman right. He&#8217;s supposed to be the embodiment of everything cool and heroic about America. And of course, he&#8217;s supposed to be charming as well. That&#8217;s the whole shtick.
So you don&#8217;t need full-scale James Gunn. He makes Superman the same as Chris Pratt&#8217;s character in “Guardians of the Galaxy” and all the jokes are the same as the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies. It&#8217;s silly and stupid and bad. Two thumbs down.
Then I discovered that for Greta Gerwig&#8217;s Netflix adaptation of “The Magician&#8217;s Nephew” — the first book in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series — the person who they are thinking about casting as the voice for the lion Aslan — who is obviously a metaphor for Jesus — is Meryl Streep.
This makes no sense at all on a character level. On a metaphorical level, it&#8217;s one of the dumbest things you could possibly do. If you want to alienate the entire C.S. Lewis audience, this is exactly what you should do. Meanwhile, Charli XCX is apparently in talks for the role of the White Witch.
Why are they doing this??
Just adapt the story straight. It&#8217;s not that difficult. It’s a great book. Adapt it straight.
This is the same as that ridiculous suggestion a while back that Cynthia Erivo was going to be cast in “Jesus Christ Superstar” as Jesus.
Stop with this stuff. Stop it. Just stop. It&#8217;s stupid and it&#8217;s insulting and it&#8217;s gross and you would never do this with any other religion. You wouldn&#8217;t.
It&#8217;s ridiculous and annoying and demonstrative of how Hollywood spits on people who don&#8217;t believe the things they believe, and then takes classic intellectual property from those spaces and uses it against them.

CinemaCon 2025 – Warner Bros. Pictures Presentation – Inside

Superman, Jesus, And Hollywood Stupidity

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