{"id":1492990,"date":"2022-05-26T11:59:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T15:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1492990"},"modified":"2022-05-26T11:59:49","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T15:59:49","slug":"the-real-horror-of-dr-strange-2-is-how-it-opens-a-portal-to-the-universe-of-wokeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-real-horror-of-dr-strange-2-is-how-it-opens-a-portal-to-the-universe-of-wokeness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Horror Of \u2018Dr. Strange 2\u2019 Is How It Opens A Portal To The Universe Of Wokeness"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">36<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-real-horror-of-dr-strange-2-is-how-it-opens-a-portal-to-the-universe-of-wokeness%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1492990&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Screen-Shot-2022-05-26-at-10.38.41-AM.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Witchcraft, torture, dead bodies walking, demon possessions \u2014 all horror trademarks you do not expect to see while watching a Marvel film. The May blockbuster, \u201cDr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,\u201d discontinued Marvel\u2019s legacy of (decently) family-friendly entertainment in one rather grisly swoop. With this high-grossing sequel, Marvel traded a heroic superhero flick for a horror hybrid packaged in quality CGI but tacky morals and a woke aftertaste.<\/p>\n<p>In the three weeks since its release, the film has brought in over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/scottmendelson\/2022\/05\/22\/box-office-doctor-strange-2-passes-batman-tops-800-million-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-becomes-top-grossing-a24-movie\/?sh=52be17256151\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$800 million<\/a>\u00a0internationally, and that\u2019s excluding <a href=\"https:\/\/movieweb.com\/benedict-cumberbatch-banning-doctor-strange-sequel-lgbtq-content\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Saudi Arabia and Egypt<\/a>,\u00a0which banned the film for homosexual content, and China, which is still deliberating.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s wall-to-wall action from scene one. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has been having repeated nightmares about a girl he\u2019s never met. Imagine his surprise when, after the action takes a five-minute break for his former love\u2019s wedding, he finds a monster chasing the girl from his dream through the streets of New York.<\/p>\n<p>After a quick routine rescue, he discovers there is something evil hunting her for her superpower. The girl\u2019s name? America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). Her power? Jumping universes. Chavez tells Strange that every dream he has is reality in another universe. Earth is universe 616, she says. She\u2019s been to a lot of them.<\/p>\n<p>So Strange recruits the help of the most powerful being in his universe \u2014 Wanda, the Scarlet Witch \u2014 which turns out to be a mistake. Wanda lost everything when she had to destroy the wonderful illusion of life with her family in the show \u201cWandaVision.\u201d She has since discovered that the way to build back the reality she lost is to borrow some from the next universe over.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the movie consists of Strange protecting 15-year-old Chavez from Wanda\u2019s clutches, a maneuver he can only pull off by possessing a dead body and harnessing some damned souls. Damned souls is not what I wanted when I bought a ticket to see \u201cDr. Strange 2.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>The Horror<\/h2>\n<p>For being a big Marvel Cinematic Universe film, movies that usually succeed on character and plot, the story of \u201cDr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness\u201d is propped up with witchcraft, and the characters are a little too morally gray to sympathize with.<\/p>\n<p>It used to be that if you didn\u2019t want to watch demons, witches, and creepy possessed ladies in white with blood pouring down their faces, you could pretty much enjoy every other genre but horror. \u201cDr. Strange 2\u201d director Sam Raimi is trying to break some old trends.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/movies\/movie-features\/sam-raimi-multiverse-of-madness-doctor-strange-interview-spider-man-1344342\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">RollingStone<\/a>, Raimi said Marvel gave him complete liberty with the film, liberty the \u201cSpider Man\u201d and horror franchise \u201cThe Evil Dead\u201d director made use of in redirecting the film\u2019s genre away from its precursor.<\/p>\n<p>While you can\u2019t really separate magic from spirits, the first \u201cDr. Strange\u201d did it much to our satisfaction. We got an entertaining show with elemental magic and nothing creepy. There\u2019s a sense of magic connected to Eastern mysticism that\u2019s very different from the stereotypical American horror film of demon possessions.<\/p>\n<p>Raimi changed all that in the sequel, as Wanda possesses an innocent mom, torturing and murdering people in gruesome ways. \u201cDr. Strange 2\u201d gives us all the hallmarks of a stereotypical horror flick, but without the suspense that makes them great, and then leaps back into an incoherent fantasy. This witchcraft keeps the plot afloat, distracting from holes in the storyline. If you\u2019re going to take on a multiverse, you shouldn\u2019t use sorcery as a crutch to hide the parts that don\u2019t make sense. <\/p>\n<h2>But Wait, There\u2019s More<\/h2>\n<p>Furthermore, while trying to bridge multiple realities, \u201cDr. Strange 2\u201d forgets you have to keep your own confined. The green, mossy minotaur showing up on Earth is, therefore, aggravating. (Narnia called, they want their minotaur back.) Medieval archers smell strongly of \u201cThe Lord of the Rings,\u201d and shiny droids remind viewers all too much of \u201cStar Wars.\u201d The whiplash is not nostalgic, and while the CGI is generally stellar throughout the film, it fails to make the monster look like anything more than a slimy Mike Wazowski.<\/p>\n<p>In short, the film is a trifecta of graphic, creepy, and cheesy. If Marvel wanted to merge with the horror genre, it should have debuted a new series instead of messing with an old one. The jump is jarring.<\/p>\n<p>Worse yet is the message of the film delivered to us through the hypocritical hands of Strange as he stops at nothing to save the day. Wanda\u2019s insatiable self-deception becomes almost a relief in comparison to the sangfroid of Strange, who breaks no sweat at crossing the very same line that makes Wanda the bad guy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou break the rules and you\u2019re the hero,\u201d Wanda says. \u201cI break the rules and I\u2019m the enemy. Hardly seems fair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On its face, the film doesn\u2019t seem that woke, and to its credit, it\u2019s not a feminist propaganda piece. There\u2019s just one brief flashback to Chavez\u2019s lesbian \u201cmoms,\u201d but nothing more \u2014 we think.<\/p>\n<p>But America Chavez is not a Stan Lee creation. She\u2019s a lesbian character from Joe Casey and Nick Dragotta\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/23060363\/doctor-strange-2-america-chavez-in-marvel-comics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2011 comic \u201cVengeance #1.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>And all of a sudden, we realize what door Marvel just opened. The sexuality of Marvel\u2019s newest female superhero now has protection in any future production from one of the biggest of the Marvel franchise: \u201cDr. Strange.\u201d Any pushback to an overtly lesbian character can now be fought with the assertion that she\u2019s already in \u201cDr. Strange 2,\u201d and she\u2019s lesbian in the comics.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s now $800 million backing Marvel directors\u2019 decisions about how much of Chavez\u2019s sexuality to reveal in future productions. Tsk, tsk, Marvel. That\u2019s not what I wanted out of my 12 bucks. <\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Beth Whitehead is an intern at The Federalist and a journalism major at Patrick Henry College where she fondly excuses the excess amount of coffee she drinks as an occupational hazard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Witchcraft, torture, dead bodies walking, demon possessions \u2014 all horror trademarks you do not expect to see while watching a Marvel film. The May blockbuster, \u201cDr. Strange in the Multiverse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1492990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/845"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1492990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1492990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1492990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1492990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}