Da 5 Bloods

All principal veteran roles cast with black actors to portray an African American squad; this fits the story premise and historical reality of black soldiers in Vietnam with no mismatch, unearned dominance, or audience-visible forced diversity signaling.

Recurring explicit dialogue on racism in the U.S. military, the hypocrisy of black soldiers fighting for a country that denies them rights, MLK's assassination, and modern political divides including Trump support; these beats directly advance activist framing.

The core story engine is black male identity, brotherhood under oppression, shared racial trauma, and historical reclamation; character arcs and conflicts are structured around processing American racism and solidarity rather than neutral war adventure.

U.S. military and society are portrayed as systemically racist and hypocritical toward black citizens, with history whitewashed; the narrative reframes the war through a present-day racial justice lens that ties past events to 2020 identity politics and BLM.

Minimal backlash treating the film as pushing woke or activist content; mainstream and social media response was largely positive or focused on timeliness, with only scattered artistic complaints about heavy-handedness rather than widespread "too woke" or propaganda accusations.

Spike Lee's decades-long pattern of race-centric, activist-framed projects (including recent Oscar-winning work on racism) directly aligns with this film's explicit identity emphasis and public marketing.