Wokeness

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I’ve tried.
Believe me, I’ve tried.
I just can’t do it.
Can’t do woke. It slips from my fingers.
I took P.G. Wodehouse as a model for my Toby books, the “mentally negligible” Bertie, as Jeeves calls him, telling the story of his brilliant valet. Wodehouse took the formula from Conan Doyle, Watson describing the exploits of a genius, and Conan Doyle took it from Poe, who invented so much, not least the detective story, his narrator awed by the ruthless logic of Le Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin.
(Indeed, so attached was Conan Doyle to his model that, in the first stories, he shop-lifted some of Poe’s phrases. Most embarrassing.)
Note that these heroes are aristocrats. Poor Toby sleeps with aristocrats, but his own aristocracy consists in his being above work, above money, and above effort.
So it’s an American formula, and as a North American I, in my modest way, claim it. Toby is a kept man of, shall we say average mentality, dominated by the superior intellect of a nine-year-old girl.
All right, so I’ve got myself a nice little set of books. In a good month they pay the rent. But then look what happens with the movies! Total unwokeness!
To whom do we sell these? In theory, we sell them to those giant markets that are fed up with the politically correct kaka we’ve been sending them—Latin Am, Mediterranean Europe, Mediterranean Arabia, Russia (Russia!), China (China!), Japan, Korea, Indonesia, India…the world! And when our own Nordic Puritans see all that money coming in…
But I theorize. None of my business. I too am above money.
As for wokeness, here is the Doctor on feminism.
And on Amazon Prime is a lesbian-pickpocket-chase comedy I made here in Athens. I hate to tell you why.
Please give us five stars so I can signal the waiter, who is watching topless women emerge from the sea, for more wine.
Completely yours,
Robert

Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His recent The Light Touch is on Amazon PrimeTubi and Scanbox, and his 7-minute comedy is an out-loud laugh. He is also a novelist, a playwright, a blogger, a YouTuber, a film reviewer, a literary critic, and a stand-up comic poet. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains, but an intellectual snob.

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