Is there really a difference? I feel like if you don't know something, that kind of makes you stupid, right? If you don't know historical facts or mathematics—at least the harder stuff, like algebra or calculus—or if you don't know about advanced political topics, then you're kind of a stupid person, not just 'ignorant.'

That seems pretty impossible to me cause of how instantly recognizable he is to most of the world.

Just to give you some context: I'm Black, my family is Black, and my uncle was the pastor of a church. It was an evangelical Presbyterian church that was very racially diverse. We had White people, Black people, Asian people, interracial couples, and so on. So, on the surface, it seemed fairly liberal, right?

The church had a lot of Trump supporters, but it also had a lot of Black members, including my uncle, who hated Donald Trump and still do. They didn't like Trump, didn't like the Republican Party, and generally voted Democrat.

To be specific, our youth group was small—only eight teenagers, four of whom were brothers. We were all people of color. One of the church members, however, was a hardcore Republican and MAGA supporter. He invited me and some of the other kids to come paint his fence one day, but my aunt told my mom she didn't want me going over there because of his politics. There was even some friction within the church because some members supported Trump, while the anti-Trump members strongly disliked those who voted for him.

However, here's what confuses me: almost every single one of the anti-Trump members—outside of me and maybe two other people—was extremely homophobic and transphobic. They were also all strongly pro-life. They hated abortion and viewed it as "murder." One kid in the church literally said, "Gay people deserve to be hurt."

So they held very socially conservative views, yet they didn't support the Republican Party and hated Trump. Why is that? Why would someone hate MAGA while basically agreeing with many of the same social positions? Why would they call themselves liberals or Democrats? My uncle literally said he was a liberal who votes Democrat, yet he's extremely pro-life. How can that be?

I'll ask the same question about the other side. Look at Brad Polumbo—he's gay, supports LGBTQ+ rights, and has spoken out against racism and homophobia, yet he's still right-wing and supports the Republican Party. The same goes for Arielle Scarcella, who's a lesbian, and Blair White, who's a trans woman and probably the most famous example. I don't think Blair is necessarily transphobic, but she supports Trump and identifies as Republican.

So why does this happen? Why do some people identify with a political party even when they disagree with that party on major issues? And why do some people reject a party despite agreeing with many of its core positions?

You see this all the time on YouTube. One mom in Walmart was neglecting her son. They were in a freezer aisle, and the kid literally just had a diaper on, and that was it. When people called her out, the mom said, "Do you have a kid?" Then, recently, a mom was seen roughly slamming her baby into a stroller, hurting the kid. When someone called her out, the husband asked, "Do you have a kid?"

This is the most braindead argument I have ever heard in my life because what "Do you have a kid?" means is, "If you don't have a kid, then you don't have the right to speak on this situation," and that is beyond stupid. Just because you don't have experience in a certain subject doesn't mean you can't have opinions, and experience doesn't negate common damn sense and common baseline, bare-minimum morals.

Just because you don't have a kid doesn't mean people without kids can't say, "Hey, abusing your kid and neglecting them is wrong." That's common sense. It would be like someone severely abusing their girlfriend—like, horrible abuse—and then someone says, "Hey, that's wrong," and that person responds, "Are you in a relationship?" How dumb is that?

You could ask a 25-year-old virgin who's never been in a relationship before, and even they know—and they can say—"Hey, abusing your partner is wrong." A 5-year-old toddler knows abuse and treating people like shit is wrong, so that argument is so dumb.

And what makes it worse is that people who say this are trying to defend bad parenting or abusive parenting instead of calling out bad behavior. Again, if we are using this argument, then no one can have an opinion on anything. A man beats his wife? If you've never been married, you can't speak on it, then I guess you just have to stay quiet about it. You've never been to war? No? Then don't have an opinion on the Iran war. "Have you ever been a police officer?" No? Then don't speak on police brutality.

Like, really? People who use this argument should take their own advice and not give their opinion on any issue or world issue, then.

In order to watch a film, you have to actually pay attention.

Growing up is not realizing Squidward is relatable. As a child, you like SpongeBob and see Squidward and Mrs. Puff as "jerks." But growing up, I realized just how annoying and insufferable SpongeBob is, both as a character and as a "person." He's objectively insufferable and makes the lives of everyone around him miserable. Literally, the only reason Bikini Bottom keeps him around is because he's the only one who can make Krabby Patties, and that's it.

He constantly annoys Squidward and thinks Squidward is his "friend," despite Squidward constantly telling SpongeBob he doesn't like him and wanting SpongeBob to leave him alone. He's always going to Squidward's house to bother him, despite Squidward making it blatantly obvious that he doesn't like him. SpongeBob cannot take a hint. His laugh is annoying, and he's such a nuisance to be around that even the citizens of Bikini Bottom collectively hate him.

Bikini Bottom canonically has a population of 538 people, and literally everyone hates him. The town has a holiday where they celebrate not having SpongeBob around. When Mr. Krabs sold SpongeBob's soul for 67 cents to the Flying Dutchman, the Flying Dutchman brought SpongeBob back 30 seconds later because he's that annoying. The ghost even said being around SpongeBob is a "fate worse than death." When Mrs. Puff went to jail, she was happy to go to actual prison because it meant SpongeBob wasn't there.

In Season 5, Episode 18, when Patrick, Squidward, Sandy, and Mr. Krabs get mad at SpongeBob and call him "Idiot Boy," SpongeBob writes a note and leaves Bikini Bottom for good. As a kid, you might feel bad for him, but watching it as an adult, I don't. SpongeBob deserved to be called "Idiot Boy" because he was acting like an idiot. Throughout the episode, he made everyone's lives worse. He broke Gary's shell, knocked on Squidward's door despite Squidward telling him multiple times that he doesn't like him, and, no bullshit, the little idiot even said, "I know who will enjoy my company," referring to Squidward. Squidward rightly got pissed and told SpongeBob not to disturb his beauty rest. SpongeBob destroyed Patrick's cake, destroyed Sandy's robot, and destroyed Mr. Krabs' money.

Fuck SpongeBob. He made all of their lives worse in one episode.

The only reason Mr. Krabs wants him back is because SpongeBob can make Krabby Patties. Squidward was more than happy to have SpongeBob leave, but Mr. Krabs bribed him with a reward to help find him.

I will say, though, I didn't feel bad for them when they decided to go back and look for him. SpongeBob's dumbass finally took the hint and left. He realized he made everyone's life worse and that nobody liked him. He finally took the hint and left so he wouldn't bother anyone anymore. So what do the idiot characters do? They go find him and bring him home.

I lost all sympathy for Squidward and the rest of them after that.

I also think it's a good message, though, that if everyone hates you, it isn't necessarily everyone else who's the problem. It may just be you.

Bikini Bottom is justified in treating SpongeBob terribly, and this is why I never felt bad for SpongeBob when Squidward pranked him in Season 1. He deserved it. For about half of that episode, he was pranking people left and right, but when he got pranked, suddenly it hurt his feelings? Man, fuck this yellow sponge.

He's a menace to Bikini Bottom and Mermaid Man needs to beat his ass.

The "antiwoke" crowd on YouTube and X are not real film fans. Nerdrotic, Geeks and Gamers, Ryan Kinnel, Yellow Flash, Tyrone Magnus, Critical Drinker, and every other antiwoke content creator are not real movie fans, nor are they real fans of superhero stuff or comics. I say that because they don't know basic history of film, and they haven't read any comics at all.

First of all, they use the word "woke" wrong. "Woke" has an actual definition. Woke originated from African Americans to mean being aware of systematic racism, and then it grew to mean systemic injustice everywhere, like gender, class, LGBTQ+, etc. It doesn't mean, "This movie doesn't have a straight white male in it, so it's WOKE," or, "This character was race-swapped, WOKE." That's not what it means. It means being aware of systemic injustice. Just because you race-swap a character doesn't mean "aware of systemic injustice." Words have actual factual definitions, so they are using the word "woke" wrong, and that's a fact.

It would be the exact same equivalent for me to say, "A 50-year-old dating a 25-year-old is a pedophile." No, that's not what a pedophile is. That's not what that word means. Is it weird? Possibly. Creepy? Sure. But if they first met six months ago, then that's not "pedophilia." Words have fucking definitions. So, unless you are saying we can just take any word now and just change its definition, then let's stop teaching kids in school what definitions and words are, since we can just change their definitions and words have no real meaning now. If you are 43 dating a 25-year-old, I guess we can call him or her a "pedophile," since words have no meanings anymore.

But to my point about them not being real film fans: they aren't. And no, that's not me "gatekeeping." And if it is, oh well, I don't care. The antiwoke crowd is a reason why we (and by "we," I mean actual movie fans and every actual film critic) should gatekeep the fandom of films. I will explain why they aren't fans with a few reasons, though.

First of all, they don't know basic film history. If they did, then they'd realize calling modern Hollywood "woke" is stupid. First of all, film originated in France. Around 90% of screenplays were written by women during this time because art like this wasn't seen as paying the bills, so men didn't take those jobs. So who wrote screenplays? Women. Around 90% of screenplays were written by women. The first Hollywood star was an actress. Her name was Florence Lawrence. So, if you are a real film fan, for you to act like women have no place in Hollywood, despite the fact that the foundation of Hollywood had a lot of important jobs done by women, is stupid. And I can tell you they don't know this history. The first female director was also during the French silent film era.

The antiwoke people act like Hollywood only began casting non-white people in 2016, despite the fact that Hollywood cast non-white people since the 1910s–40s, and even to some degree before that.

So now this brings us to The Odyssey. If you hate a movie for no other reason than they cast two Black people and one trans person in a movie, and hate a movie even before it came out because of that, you are objectively not a real film fan. Real fans wait until a movie comes out and give an honest opinion—an actual honest opinion on the movie.

Since the movie is three hours long, which The Odyssey is, Elliot Page has five minutes of screen time, Lupita has three minutes of screen time, and Travis Scott has two minutes of screen time. So, altogether, that's ten minutes of screen time in a THREE-HOUR-LONG MOVIE. So, if you hate an entire movie because of three people who barely are in it, then you are not a film fan.

Also, this movie was never "historically accurate." There are no Greek people in this movie at all. And even by their own made-up, fake definition of "woke," there is nothing woke in this movie. Everything exists to serve the straight white male warrior and king. You would think this would be their fever dream of a movie.

And I know these people didn't even read The Odyssey because, if you read it, Ethiopians (i.e., Black people) are straight up mentioned in the book, literally in the first couple of pages. These people are not only factually and objectively stupid—like, the lowest IQ possible—but they aren't fans. They aren't fans of films. They aren't fans of comics. They don't know shit about what they are talking about.

If your argument is that a political agenda being ham-fisted into a story can make a movie bad because it's so on the nose, then I agree with you. But that goes for both movies with a left-leaning message and a right-leaning message. And as much as these people claim to hate politics in their movies, they praise a movie like Citizen Vigilante that ham-fists its anti-immigration message down your throat.

And as for race-swapping, look, if you are someone who says, "If you are going to adapt something, then it should be accurate to the original source material you are adapting," then that's a fair assessment. But to hate on an actor or an entire movie because they made a casting choice you don't agree with is stupid. Even real film fans who are conservatives can see through this bullshit and don't take them seriously.

I'm not even someone on the far left. I think leftists can be just as annoying and low IQ as some right-leaning people. But my God, as a film fan, these antiwoke people are insufferable. I really think actual film fans need to ignore them. Stop bringing Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic to interviews. They don't know anything about movies or comics.

It would be like me trying to interview an astrophysicist and then ending up interviewing some five-year-old toddler about it. It's the same thing. Neither of them know shit about what they are talking about. You know what? I take that back. A five-year-old toddler is more literate and probably has a higher IQ than these antiwoke people, who have an IQ below 0.