Question 1

Is The Call of the Wild woke?

Accepted Answer

The Call of the Wild has a woke score of 41/100, which means it is mixed, with noticeable woke elements. The 2020 film race-lifts Perrault to Black actor Omar Sy and gender-flips François into female Indigenous actress Cara Gee as Françoise for the supporting sled-team roles. The core story stays a straightforward dog adventure about Buck’s survival, loyalty, and bond with Harrison Ford’s John Thornton in the Yukon Gold Rush with zero identity-driven arcs, activist dialogue, or modern social-justice lectures. It sanitizes the book’s racist tropes and violence for family viewing but inserts no reframed anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, or identity-politics messaging. The only woke element is the visible casting updates to minor canon characters.

Question 2

Is there DEI in The Call of the Wild?

Accepted Answer

The biggest factors in our score are Representation / casting choices, Legacy character or canon changes, Anti-woke backlash / 'too woke' complaints. Buck is a big-hearted dog whose blissful domestic life is turned upside down when he is suddenly uprooted from his California home and transplanted to the exotic wilds of the Yukon during the Gold Rush of the 1890s. As the newest rookie on a mail delivery dog sled team—and later its leader—Buck experiences the adventure of a lifetime, ultimately finding his true place in the world and becoming his own master.

The Call of the Wild

Factors & Ratings

Summary

Main Cast

Director & Crew