“Peak Woke”

What is going on in The People’s Republic of Minnesota? The Democrat establishment in the Gopher State is nothing like it was back in the Reagan years, with ex-vice president Walter Mondale or Gov. Rudy Perpich. The insurrectionist echoes of their language about immigration-enforcement cops is eyebrow-raising in the same week the elitist media somberly mourned the attack on police at the January 6 riot.

Donald Trump’s issuing of over 200 executive orders back in January 2025, which banished DEI policies and recognised officially that there are only two genders, prompted an avalanche of assertions that woke is finally over. This auspicious start to Trump’s second term set the mood for much of the conversation on both sides of the Atlantic, with British writer Andrew Doyle publishing his book, The End of Woke, in May.

Ratings on the latest episode of Netflix’s Stranger Things took a downturn this week after the character Will Byers came out gay to his friends in a dramatic reveal.

Released on Christmas, the Season 5 Vol. 2 episode of the hit sci-fi show has been getting review bombed on various platforms, per Variety.

“The recent episodes have dragged the season’s fan-driven Rotten Tomatoes score from the 70s down to 56 percent, a stark decline from the show’s previous seasons,” noted the outlet. “For reference, the Season 4 Popcornmeter sits at 89 percent, Season 3 at 86 percent, Season 2 at 90 percent and Season 1 at 96 percent.”

Netflix has ruined many good programs with unwanted awkward woke eruptions.

I haven’t watched Stranger Things, this probably means never but  I feel sorry for the many fans who were let down.

West Side Story should only be watched by children over 12 because it features “transphobia”, a regulator has ruled.

Sexism, racism, violence and sexual threat are other issues that have led to the classic 1961 film musical being changed from PG to 12 by the British Board of Film Certification (BBFC).

Films are regularly reviewed to ensure that their certificates are appropriate for the current audience. The home entertainment rating of West Side Story was changed to reflect that the language and attitudes of the 1960s are less acceptable in the modern world.

That “regulator” should be beaten with sticks.

A former university football player who sexually assaulted two women has been sentenced to just two years in prison because he is black and was feeling intense pressure around the time of the attacks, the judge said.

Omogbolahan Jegede, 25, had choked one of the women almost into unconsciousness.

TRIGGER words, chocolate money and a winter fair fundraiser, it’s been a busy few weeks at Rayner’s Lane Comprehensive, the school that’s always on the front foot.

We start this end of term newsletter with a special message from the Headmaster.

According to multiple media reports this week, a teacher was sacked from working at a London primary school in early 2024 after making allegedly hurtful comments about Islam. The teacher, who does not wish to be named, was not only sacked but also blacklisted from working with children, after the local authority claimed that he posed a substantive risk to children, causing them ’emotional harm’.

Woke white women have been melting down over Pantone revealing its annual Color of the Year is a shade of white — with some raging that the choice is tone-deaf and is proof that the “whitewashing of America has gone too far.”

The company announced last week that its color choice for 2026 was “Cloud Dancer” — a bland off-white shade that Pantone insisted served as a symbol of calm in a hectic society.

From Hollywood to the newsroom, the hegemony of the ‘progressives’ is finally faltering.

The purchase of Paramount and CBS by David Ellison – scion of Larry Ellison, the world’s third-richest man, with a $250 billion tech fortune – marks a shift away from one-party domination of the media and culture. It follows Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now X, and the Trumpian capture of Washington DC’s Kennedy Center.

Where diversity data collection goes, quotas often follow. That’s why it’s concerning that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ordered Netflix, Amazon and every other major online streamer to collect diversity data as a condition of operating here.

At the very end of the telecom regulator’s new policy on Canadian content is buried a new requirement for broadcasters to keep diversity statistics on key creative personnel, namely whether they are “racialized people, people with disabilities, individuals who identify as 2SLGBTQI+ and women.” This was released earlier in November. It doesn’t seem radical because the CRTC has been incrementally formalizing diversity requirements for so many years.

When BLM and Big Tranny were at their scammiest peak many streaming series were injected with nonsensical Black or Tranny story lines.

The end result? People stopped watching.

Cancon is typically bad. Racialized Cancon is worse.

h/t MP

When Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer were recently asked to name their favourite scene in their Spielbergian series, they rewound to the very first episode, when the Hawkins kids get to grips with the pen-and-paper fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). “The kids playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement…” Matt reminisced with Variety. “That’s the first time we had them in a room, in a set, performing a scene from the show with cameras running.”

Although the Duffers’ affection for D&D is genuine – talking to The Telegraph in 2016, they cited their teenage nerddom as an inspiration for the series – there are question marks over whether D&D players feel the same way about Stranger Things.

I have never played but do admire the game’s enduring popularity.