Even marine life isn’t safe from the anti-woke crowd. Take Sophia, a 60-year-old killer whale who recently went viral thanks to a new National Geographic docuseries.
A snippet from the series shows Sophia on the hunt for some fearsome prey: a great white shark. With deadly aim and powerful force, she annihilates the shark with one bite and drags it into the depths. “A matriarch will always feed the family,” reads the end of the video.
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You might think the comments on a video like that would be in awe of nature’s power, or praising Sophia for showing the ocean who’s boss. Those comments did exist, but among them were conservatives complaining about National Geographic’s apparent wokeness.
“Now what? After ruining Hollywood, the woke are coming at NGC?” reads one comment. “Could it be that … Nat Geo is woke too?” asks another.
The clip is part of a new National Geographic documentary series called Queens, which focuses on the fiercest females in nature. It’s narrated by another queen, Angela Bassett. “The strongest females fight for the survival of their families,” she says in the trailer, which is set, naturally, to “You Should See Me In A Crown” by Billie Eilish. “We don’t call her mother nature for nothing.”
The series, by all accounts, looks both educational and entertaining. What, then, is conservatives’ issue with the video? Is it the fact that a female orca took down an animal as fierce as a great white? Is it the title of the documentary, or the fact that Bassett is narrating it? Or is it some combination of it all (read: racism and misogyny) that conservatives can only sum up as unbearably woke?
Comedian Vinny Thomas lamented the negative commenters on social media. On X, formerly Twitter, he shared the video and its comment section, writing, “We have allowed the unsmart to grow too numerous. Too numerous and too proud.”
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“Imagine seeing a natural phenomenon that virtually every human in the world could only dream of seeing even just a few decades ago — and your response is to feel emasculated,” he continued.
Imagine seeing a natural phenomenon that virtually every human in the world could only dream of seeing even just a few decades ago—and your response is to feel emasculated.
— Vinny Thomas (@vinn_ayy) March 4, 2024
Thomas recognized that Sophia’s not too different from the queens of the human race — like Reba McEntire, for example. She’s just working to support her children, dammit!
SHE’S A SINGLE WHALE WHO’S GOT TWO JOBS WHO LOVES HER CALVES AND NEVER STOPS WITH GENTLE FINS AND THE TEETH OF A FIGHTERRR
— Vinny Thomas (@vinn_ayy) March 4, 2024
When those same conservatives found Thomas’ post and said their issue was with the marketing, not the content, he clapped back with common sense.
“It’s a documentary series about matriarchs and female coalitions within social groups. Obviously they’re going to call it ‘Queens’ or ‘Sisterhoods’ something,” he explained. “You are not a serious person. Not serious, and not well.”
He even entertained their line of thinking, wondering how the series could have been marketed differently: “If it was about the leader of an ant colony (i.e. the queen), what should they call it? Ant Boss?,” he posited. “I beseech you seek help.”
The clip has since been pulled from National Geographic’s TikTok, and on Instagram, the post’s comments have been limited and the anti-woke vitriol removed.
Queens is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
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