New Film Review Site Wants to Be the Conservative Rotten Tomatoes
By Michael Lovito, December 11, 2023
The holidays are here, and so is the holiday movie season, when dozens of new releases flood theaters and television. Throughout 2023, TheRighting has published stories about conservative shopping apps, children’s books, and streaming services designed to provide like-minded Americans with ideologically pure alternatives to mainstream brands. But what happens at times like this, when right-leaning folks might want to sample popular culture in a safe, conservative-approved way?
Enter Worth It or Woke, a website that hopes to become the conservative answer to Rotten Tomatoes. Founded by conservative film enthusiast James Carrick, Worth It or Woke doesn’t just review movies – it also calculates a “woke quotient” that lets potential viewers know if a given film pushes “ultra-radical progressivism” on its audience.
Despite launching less than twelve months ago, Worth It or Woke has already attracted attention from outlets both friendly and skeptical, helping the site emerge as a potentially influential voice in an entertainment market that’s begun to fragment along ideological lines.
Predictably Progressive
Carrick, who studied theater and had considered becoming an actor, told TheRighting that he decided to start Worth It or Woke when he realized he hardly ever went to the movies anymore. It wasn’t just the cost of taking his seven kids to the theater that was keeping him away from the silver screen. It was the content of the films themselves.
“The character arcs, the growth, became predictable in an ultra-progressive way,” Carrick said. “It was obvious that if the lead was a female, or it was a reboot or a sequel to an existing property and suddenly there was a female sidekick, that the totality of her character growth would be that she would already be incredibly awesome and fully realized, and what she had to do was accept how awesome she really was, so that she can become even more awesome.”
What’s more, said Carrick, critics began to overvalue this kind of representation, giving movies positive reviews based on their depictions of female and non-white characters, not the quality of the film itself.
The Wokeness Score
Seeking a counterbalance, Carrick and his brother Michael founded Worth It or Woke to provide what they believe is a more honest form of film criticism meant to help conservatives spend their money in a way consistent with their values. Carrick and the site’s other reviewers itemize the woke elements of a given film to calculate its wokeness score (0% means a film is completely woke, 100% means it’s completely woke free). The score makes up one-fifth of the film’s overall rating, which also takes into account plot, cinematography, direction, and performances.
Media Buzz
Launched in February 2023, Worth It or Woke has already attracted a considerable amount of attention for a website whose founder admits it’s still just a side project (Carrick has a day job as a corporate events game show host). In May, Rolling Stone published a critical profile of the site, which Carrick said helped boost readership (according to him, the site receives between 100,000 and 200,000 views a month) and led to an appearance on Fox News’ “Faulkner Focus.” The end result, he said, is a cash-flow positive business that’s largely ad supported, but also features paid subscriptions.
No Girl Bosses Allowed
Ask Carrick to describe what makes a film “woke” and he’ll keep it vague, referencing movies in which he feels “ideology takes precedent over narrative.” But a deep dive into his reviews reveals some patterns. Any film with a character that could broadly be described as a “girl boss,” especially if they’re contrasted with a bumbling male character, is woke. So too are films that prioritize “DEI” by featuring and celebrating a racially diverse cast of characters. Criticisms of religion and capitalism also get a film dinged, as does the presence of LGBTQ characters. In fact, when I asked Carrick why he thought Hollywood went woke, he blamed the trans rights movement in particular for encouraging filmmakers to “push an agenda rather than just tell entertaining and engrossing stories.”
According to Rebecca Hains, a professor at Salem State University who studies children’s media, Carrick and his fellow conservatives are correct that pop culture is changing. But it has less to do with the companies who make entertainment products and more to do with the audiences they cater to.
“Ultimately, the changes we see on screen with the diversification of lead characters is driven by changes in the audience in the U.S.,” Hains said, noting that companies like Disney are simply adjusting to the demographic realities of a country where less than half of children identify as white. “They’re trying to appeal to as broad an audience as possible so that more people will go to the movie theater and buy the products associated with their movies.”
He Can’t Please Everybody
It’s worth noting that Carrick’s anti-woke crusade is not all consuming. While National Review critic Armond White excoriated Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which is based on the true story of the Osage murders, as an “instance of fatuous white guilt,” Carrick’s biggest problem with the film seems to be its three-hour run time. And some of his readers rebelled against him in the comments section of his review of “A Haunting in Venice.” He gave the film, in which Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh plays a fortune teller in 1940s Italy, a “non-woke” rating.
He might not be willing to write off an entire movie based on one casting decision, but he still views Worth It or Woke as an essential tool in the ongoing war between left and right. “The only way we’re going to change hearts and minds is through culture,” Carrick said.
Michael Lovito is a Brooklyn-based reporter and critic whose work has appeared in Salon, Brooklyn Magazine, Pavement Pieces, and The District. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the politics and pop culture website The Postrider. @MLovito
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Worth It or Woke doesn’t just review movies – it also calculates a “woke quotient” that lets potential viewers know if a given film pushes “ultra-radical progressivism” on its audience. (Image: Pixabay)
