There is no doubt that our world is full of media/news/corporate wokeness insanity. You can read about it here and view it on our YouTube channels more or less daily, and a lot of the non-left media highlight it regularly, too.
Dark Universe portal concept art for Epic Universe
There is also no doubt that certain companies and most notably and proudly The Walt Disney Company are at the forefront of pushing agendas into their movies, TV shows, theme parks etc. etc. It isn’t good, it isn’t commercially viable, and it is increasingly clear that some companies are getting the message and toning down or removing the DEI disasters.
BUT…there is something happening that we need to address and be aware of because a whole lot of us are taking “a pox on all their houses” attitude and sometimes seeing this wokeness nonsense everywhere, including places where it actually doesn’t exist. Every time we jump too soon or speak too casually and point at something that is NOT truly that wokeness and condemn people for it, we commit the error of “crying wolf” and reduce our own credibility, and one recent instance of this is why I put virtual pen to cyber paper here today.
In all of the enormous reaction to the huge roll-out of publicity and detail for Universal’s new “Epic Universe” park that opens next year, it seems some who feel dedicated to fighting the good fight felt they had to decry one part of that presentation with a “there they go again!” condemnation of what they sloppily labeled “gender-swapping” by the company. I’m here to assert that it is NOT that and that calling it makes us look foolish.
Of the various themed and IP-based areas of the park, the one that is perhaps the MOST “home-grown” and that certainly has the longest history with Universal is their portion dedicated to the classic Universal monster movie characters which they’ve named, taking a discarded franchise idea’s title and renewing it here, “Dark Universe.” It features such classic creatures as the Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, and of course Frankenstein’s monster and their company of associated beings and people. But ONE character has drawn the attacks and claims of “gender-swapping” that are, frankly, unfounded and the result of sloppy reporting.
Epic Universe concept art for Frankenstein’s Monster, Victoria Frankenstein, Dracula
You see, the “back story” and premise of this land is that the old-world village where the original Victor Frankenstein first did his experiments in life-after-death-on-earth that were the substance of classic author Mary Shelly’s novel has, in our modern age, become a tawdry tourist attraction town drawing visitors that are, in the eyes of some natives, denigrating the history and defaming the legend of the illustrious-if-misguided scientist, and his DESCENDENT, great granddaughter or more removed, whose name happens to be Victoria Frankenstein, has decided to renew his dark science and show the tourists some real horror indeed.
THAT is the premise. THAT is the reason she’s a she and not a he. And that makes SENSE and is NOT a “gender swap” with the original Dr. F. It makes STORY sense, it isn’t “woke,” and saying so is DUMB. In fact, if you are an honest person without a race/gender/minority/victim group axe to grind, why COULDN’T a woman make just as much scientific progress OR mayhem as a man?
Wolfman concept art for Epic Universe
IF anything, the part of all this I have an objection to is that the DRACULA character as seen in the concept art seems to be wearing an outfit that is a bad mix of something from a Michael Jackson video and an off-brand X-Men suit, and why they felt the traditional tuxedo with tails Bela Lugosi/Christopher Lee costume wouldn’t work is utterly beyond me, but hey, that’s just them creating and happily the “crime” of “costume-swapping” hasn’t become part of the wokeness lexicon…yet.
ANYHOW my reason for writing this was to inform you in case you see this stuff and before you utter it yourself that this is NOT the wokeness plague nor “gender-swapping” but merely storytelling. Whether it succeeds or fails as such we shall see soon when the massive attraction opens with the park in 2025.
Dracula concept art for Epic Universe
The moral of THIS story, friends, is that there’s enough nonsense out there begging to be pointed at and bathed in the light of truth without finding it where it isn’t, so let’s just be cool and careful before we cast unwarranted aspersions (especially if, as in this case, they seem to come from a desire to find something or anything negative even in good news like the upcoming debut of this amazing-looking entertainment.) Victor or Victoria, I’m sure we can all agree that a great new theme park with innovative and creative crowd-pleasing abundance is, well, a victory for fans and folks like us.
