Yet Another Huge Sign That Woke Is on the Run

Stephen King didn’t become a best-selling author due to his skin color or religious identity.

He wrote books that his readers couldn’t put down. No excuses. No short cuts. Just pure talent.

Yet when King declared that art must be judged on its quality, not the backgrounds of its creators, he got into a world of trouble.

By trouble, we mean the woke mob attacked him for that stance. And, shockingly, he backpedaled.

 

King penned an op-ed apologizing for his opinion, essentially saying Identity Politics should matter when it comes to art. The Academy Awards, he argued, are rigged in favor of white people.

Stephen King slammed for ‘ignorant’ tweet about not considering ‘diversity’ when voting for the #Oscars https://t.co/3pYT77cGW1 pic.twitter.com/nELgMoFhO0

— Yahoo Entertainment (@YahooEnt) January 14, 2020

That was in 2020, the very peak of what Elon Musk dubbed the “woke mind virus.” The culture has started to heal since that time. Roast comedies are making a comeback. So are cancelled artists whose sins were either unproven in a court of law or just plain silly.

The woke wave is receding. Need more proof?

We got just that this week, courtesy of the Venice Film Festival. The annual gala notably has just one film directed by a woman, May El-Toukhy, in its key competition. Last year, six women vied for the festival’s top honor.

Cue the #VeniceSoMale hashtags, right?

Maybe not.

This story could change, but for now the festival director is defending the status quo. Why?

It’s all about the “Q” word – “quality.”

Venice Chief Alberto Barbera on Hollywood’s Festival Retreat, Gender Parity Backslide and the AI Question https://t.co/QLxQIdqb4u

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) July 23, 2026

Alberto Barbera is a film critic and the festival’s 2026 curator. He addressed the matter this week, refusing to bow to the weakening woke mob. Barbera said El-Toukhy’s “Woman Unknown” was the only female-directed film that was high enough quality to earn the group’s selection.

World of Reel has more, citing Variety:

He explained that the festival had hoped to include more women-directed films, but “fewer were submitted” this year—24% of submissions compared with 30% the previous year—and added, “Unfortunately, we also found them to be of lower quality, so we weren’t able to include more in competition.”

…the festival is “absolutely opposed to selecting films based on gender because we don’t believe it’s beneficial,” arguing that “it’s humiliating for women if they’re thought to have been chosen because they’re women rather than because they made a good film.”

Will Barbera backpedal? Perhaps.

The fact that he said what he said is a minor miracle. That’s not the script Hollywood artists are supposed to recite.

This isn’t an attack on female directors, of course. It’s all about quotas and how they demean both the art and the artist.

Barbera covered that, too, another thought we’re not supposed to share.