You’re right about woke movies… and also wrong
A new video from me, under The Film Data Scientist banner, examining the claim that "Go woke, go broke" applies to movies.
Well, that didn’t last long! Despite extensive testing before release, YouTube decided the stats were just too damn sexy for you to see. The video was removed, so I shall have to blur out more and re-upload it another week.
Fortunately, I have another ready to go. Here is another new Film Data Scientist episode, this time looking at the claims made for and against woke movies.
If the video has made you want to explore the topic a little deeper, here are some past research pieces I’ve conducted:
Is ‘Go Woke, Go Broke’ true for movies?
My analysis of 10,000+ films and millions of audience reviews to test whether “woke” themes actually hurt box office performance. I break down where the slogan holds up, where it doesn’t, and how genre, budget and execution shape the outcome.Measuring if movies are too woke
A full methodological breakdown of how I quantified “woke-adjacent” themes in film reviews, built thematic-similarity models, and tracked changes in cultural discourse around movies over time.
I’ll be uploading new video essays every couple of weeks throughout 2026 (if YouTube will let me), so make sure you’re subscribed on YouTube to get notified when another drops (also, subscribing will really help me out with the Algorithm Gods, so it would mean a lot to me - thank you!).
Here is the previous video:
And to help explain the channel, I also created a short channel trailer: