Anti-woke stormtroopers are gunning for Superman. The world's gone mad

The Herald Scotland

15-07-2025

If you tootle over to the Reddit website, where folk ask questions about every subject under the sun, you'll find a page called "What's the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen described as 'woke'?"
It's one long point-and-laugh at the puce-faced puffins who evacuate into their underpants over anything which doesn't accord with their 1950s Pathé News version of reality.
Here are some examples: the novel Frankenstein was called woke by the tabloids because the monster is portrayed as a "misunderstood victim"'. Spoiler alert: the monster is misunderstood. That's Mary Shelley's point.
Or there's the poster for the film of the computer game Legend of Zelda. It's woke as it features a girl. Spoiler alert: Zelda is a girl.
Then there's Rage Against the Machine. Their lyrics are woke, apparently. Spoiler alert: it's Rage Against the Machine.
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There's the Welsh person who was called woke for speaking Welsh … in Wales.
The computer game Far Cry 6 is woke as it features Hispanic women. Have you guessed yet that it's set on a Caribbean island…?
A documentary about Tyrannosaurus Rex was woke as the dinosaurs didn't kill enough.
Lego is woke. Afros – woke. Allotments – woke. Jam-making – woke. Disney – woke. I mean, it's Disney, what do they want from the people who brought us Bambi and Dumbo? The movies of Leni Riefenstahl?
On it goes. A stream of absolute, sweaty-eyed, frothy-lipped absurdity.
Being anti-woke has become a joke. Look, there's been plenty of absolute blazing stupidity from the so-called world of woke.
We saw over-reach and insanity at the height of MeToo and Black Lives Matter. We've seen bad behaviour, including threats, from trans rights campaigners. The left in general has undoubtedly engaged in silencing and cancel culture.
But holy moly, the right-wing over-reaches daily. Misogyny and racism drip from the anti-woke mob. The bullying and abuse from the anti-trans brigade is simply mass dehumanisation. The right is currently – not in general but as a matter of policy – engaged in wholesale silencing and cancel culture.
For pity's sake, someone was charged under terrorism laws in Glasgow this weekend for wearing a t-shirt reading "Palestine Action". I repeat: for wearing a t-shirt.
The latest anti-woke crusade encapsulates the pitiful madness of the right perfectly. Superman has gone woke, seemingly. Cue right-wing commentators hurling themselves from skyscrapers.
It began when Dean Cain, who played Superman on telly in the 1990s, thought he'd seek some relevance. Trump-supporting Cain didn't like an interview given by James Gunn, the director of the new Superman movie.
Gunn said that Superman 'is the story of America'. It features an 'immigrant', and is about 'basic human kindness … something we have lost'.
Cain wailed: 'How woke is Hollywood going to make this character?' Well, sorry Dean, but Superman is an immigrant. Here's a clue: he's a refugee from planet Krypton.
The opening pages of the first Superman comic in 1938 describes the hero thus: 'Superman! Champion of the Oppressed, the physical marvel who has sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!'
Some may call this woke, others may just call it "Superman being Superman" or "acting nice, like your mum told you".
Cain was on a roll, though, envisioning vistas of woke horror opening up before his eyes. 'How much is Disney going to change their Snow White?' he lamented.
Mate, Snow White hangs around with seven dwarves, I don't think they could make her more woke if they tried.
The anti-woke mob holler go woke and go broke. When I hear that I picture a bull defecating in a field, because the reverse is true.
Who single-handedly trashed every brand he owned with his obsessive, endless, 3am anti-woke squawking? Elon "Hammer of the Woke Mind Virus" Musk.
The anti-woke cult is just an update on the witch-hunt. Devotionals sound like Senator McCarthy at the height of his paranoid unravelling over communists in America.
Instead of Reds under the Bed, anti-woke stormtroopers see the woke creeping from every cranny in culture. They've lost their very tiny, very over-heated minds.
It would be funny if so many people in power didn't tag along behind as they think that's how to win approval from the English tabloids.
One recently ran an article about how sandwiches were woke. GenZ is apparently 'waging war on our sandwiches', and 'ditching English classics like ham and mustard in favour of fancy woke fillings'.
Yes, readers, fancy woke fillings! Is this why my grandfather fought the Nazis, so we could eat falafel!?
A quick perusal of the British media of late will show you that the new Pope is woke; architecture is woke; new banknotes are woke; as are Jaguar cars.
The woke are everywhere. Can't you feel their eyes boring into you? Don't you hear them whispering about you?
They're plotting to ban patriotic fish and chips, they're going to make our children read The Colour Purple everyday. Soon we'll be forced to dye our hair pink and listen to Kneecap.
Elon Hammer of the Woke Mind Virus Musk. (Image: PA)
The next James Bond will be trans! Doctor Who will be disabled! Won't someone think of the children!
The anti-woke league manages to be both sad, embarrassing and nasty simultaneously. It's a clubhouse for people who hate kindness.
To the anti-woke, anything which doesn't conform to their rigid, tyrannical and petty worldview must be smashed. Such narcissism is breath-taking.
By all means defend old-fashioned, conservative values. But have some proportion and perspective, lest you fall victim to the law of diminishing returns.
If you scream about woke bogeymen every five minutes, eventually folk just switch off. Who wants to listen to the same repetitive drivel about ideological phantoms from minds both fevered and dull?
When we see the symptoms of the anti-woke mind virus today, the rest of us just snigger. You're not a culture warrior, you're a joke.
Neil Mackay is The Herald's Writer at Large. He's a multi-award-winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics