Alternative Media Training: Culture Wars and the Persecution of Wokeness

Freedom of expression is often misused as a pretext to attack cultural spaces that aim to expand social rights and create forms of resistance against the abuses of capital.

"Woke" is a concept that brings together an awareness of injustice and a desire to expand the rights of groups that have been traditionally marginalized and oppressed. It also seeks to place pressing crises—such as global warming and the broader climate crisis—at the center of public debate.

The growing visibility and popularity of woke resistance on social media, as well as through cultural expressions like films and art, has provoked strong opposition from far-right and heteropatriarchal groups. These groups—often represented by white men—aggressively resist attempts to genuinely integrate feminist ideas into dominant cultural narratives. They also seek to erase from the collective imagination non-binary people, same-sex couples, and family structures that do not conform to the traditional heterosexual model.

Mainstream entertainment has engaged with "woke" themes in an opportunistic way, recognizing that such content is increasingly in demand. However, this opportunism is quickly revealed when productions alter or remove progressive elements in response to pressure from powerful anti-woke forces demanding their elimination from public narratives.

This trend is especially visible in mainstream public spaces, as opposed to academic circles, where anti-woke trolls invest far less energy. These groups are acutely aware that films, series, and other popular media have the power to shift social norms and generate widespread empathy—for example, with the lived realities of trans people. A case in point is the film 20,000 Especies de Abejas (watch trailer).

The main criticism from anti-woke voices is that the inclusion of diversity in cultural spaces is forced. They tend to label anything that isn’t heteropatriarchal and heterosexual as inauthentic, aiming to preserve the dominance of white heterosexual men in storytelling—or, alternatively, the inclusion of hypersexualized women.

In recent years, corporations have engaged in tokenization: the superficial adoption of woke values without challenging the underlying structures that make wokeness necessary in the first place. This has led to widespread greenwashing and pinkwashing, where campaigns serve primarily as public relations strategies rather than genuine efforts to turn companies into spaces of resistance against anti-woke backlash.

This highlights the importance of actively occupying cultural spaces—and being sharply critical not only of those who cling to an unjust status quo to protect their privileges and soothe their insecurities, but also of those who engage in superficial, performative gestures of inclusion. These opportunistic actors check diversity boxes while remaining silent—and non-confrontational—in the face of reactionary politics, genocide, ecocide, and the systematic abuse of racialized, sexualized, and other marginalized groups who are treated as inferior or framed as threats to the violent logic of capitalism.

Readings

• CANCELA, E., FUENTES, A. (2025, 20 de enero). Capitalismo desenmascarado. La batalla cultural en la era de los tecno-bros. Zona de Estrategia. https://zonaestrategia.net/capitalismo-desenmascarado-la-batalla-cultural-en-la-era-de-los-tecno-bros/

• ZURRO, J. (2023, 18 de julio). Las mentiras contra el cine español entran en la campaña electoral. Eldiario.es. https://www.eldiario.es/cultura/cine/mentiras-cine-espanol-entran-campana-electoral_1_10387313.html