Movie review
February 19, 2020 · 100 min · PG
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
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.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Call of the Wild.
Woke representation / casting
Visible race lift and gender flip for supporting mail-runner characters Perrault and Françoise; audience-noticeable update from source material and period norms, though not leads.
Woke political dialogue
No activist-style or political dialogue present.
Identity-driven story themes
None; narrative engine is pure animal adventure and survival.
Western institutional / cultural critique
No modern activist framing of identity politics, capitalism, colonialism, or systemic oppression; historical setting only.
Woke character or canon changes
Direct race and gender alterations to Perrault and François/Françoise from Jack London’s novel.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Fringe online/forum grumbling only; no significant or mainstream backlash claiming excessive wokeness.
Creator track record context
No meaningful pattern of identity-driven or activist projects from Sanders or Green.
Production
