Marvel’s Kryptonite = Gavin Newsom and wokeness

The news that Marvel Entertainment is cutting 8% of its workforce is the latest warning siren in Hollywood.

After all, if superheroes can’t keep their jobs, how will ordinary people?

It’s a serious problem in an industry where “below-the-line” workers — the crew, office staff, caterers, drivers — are the backbone of the local economy.

California’s high costs, taxes and regulations have driven studios to leave — just like other businesses are doing. Hollywood unions, too, have played a negative role through strikes that convinced studios to invest abroad, or to try artificial intelligence, rather than investing in local labor.

Though Gavin Newsom counts Hollywood donors as the cornerstone of his political base, the decline of Hollywood during his two terms as governor will be part of his enduring legacy. 

Of course, there are other reasons for Marvel’s layoffs, which are happening in New York as well as in Burbank.

Every superhero has a weakness. Marvel, once a superhero of the box office, created its own kryptonite: namely, wokeness.

It’s true that Marvel, like Hollywood studios in general, has been hit by the shift toward streaming, and the advent of social media.

The company, whose audience was built by franchises like Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Avengers, hasn’t had a major hit since “Deadpool & Wolverine” in 2024. 

But the broader problem at Marvel — and at Disney, which owns it — is that too many movies have gone “woke,” with two-dimensional characters that are little more than stand-ins for group stereotypes, and plot lines that obey ideological dogma rather than basic dramatic principles.

Wokeness is box-office poison because it prizes victims above heroes. The only winners in a woke universe are those who suffer enough to deserve retribution — not those who overcome obstacles and take their fate in their own hands.

Good news, though: According to fans on social media, Disney has resumed greeting “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” at its theme parks.

The company in 2021 had replaced the time-honored gendered welcome with what it called more inclusive phrasing, such as “dreamers of all ages,” “one and all,” and “hello friends.”

And one of Marvel’s biggest successes, “Black Panther,” was actually an anti-woke movie, one whose appeal went beyond the novelty of a black cast and a fictional African setting.

The story is about a hereditary monarch who fights a revolutionary rival who ants to overthrow the existing social order. The hero abdicates his throne and his supernatural powers, earning the right to rule on his own merit.

It doesn’t get more conservative than that. The stuff of box-office legends.

Hollywood’s recovery begins by rejecting wokeness and creating films that appeal to ordinary people.

And the state’s high-tax, heavy-regulation, big-union business climate simply has to change for Hollywood to recover.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters