Movie review
November 13, 2023 · 95 min · PG
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
The movie opens with a song that wastes time explaining why the kingdom is super diverse and how wonderful that is. Asha is a sharp-witted girlboss who rebels against the male king controlling everyone’s wishes and rallies her friends to take them back. The story hammers personal agency, resisting authority, and chasing your own dreams the whole way through with recurring empowerment beats centered on the female lead. No heavy modern lectures on race or systemic oppression, but the identity signaling and girl-power engine are clearly visible and recurring.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Wish.
Woke representation / casting
Visible emphasis through opening diversity-celebrating song, intentional multi-ethnic group scenes, and producer statements; fits fictional trading-port premise but signaling is audience-noticeable and not purely incidental.
Woke political dialogue
Light empowerment messaging and anti-authority lines about keeping your dreams; no explicit modern political slogans or activist rhetoric.
Identity-driven story themes
Strong independent female protagonist drives the rebellion and agency plot; recurring girl-power elements but themes remain universal rather than race/gender-identity specific (no queer focus).
Western institutional / cultural critique
Fantasy critique of a sorcerer-king hoarding wishes and turning tyrannical; purely setting-appropriate anti-tyranny with no modern activist reframing of patriarchy, capitalism, or identity politics.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant (fully original story with no pre-existing characters or source material altered).
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Some targeted social-media and conservative backlash on diversity song and girl-power elements as woke/DEI; not fringe but also not the primary or overwhelming controversy (quality issues dominated discourse).
Creator track record context
Jennifer Lee and key team members have consistent history with empowerment-focused and representation-heavy Disney projects like Frozen and Raya; supports moderate context here.
Production
