New docuseries takes aim at the 'Woke Reformation'

An upcoming docuseries hopes to burst the woke bubble billowing across Western culture.

"The Woke Reformation," first teased on "The Rubin Report" May 14, tracks the rise of a woke culture that has infiltrated everything from academia to global corporations like Coke, Starbucks and Nike.

Dave Rubin, a self-described "classical liberal," broke the news about the docuseries via his "Rubin Report" YouTube show and podcast.

"Woke Reformation" director Travis Brown also teamed with Rubin to share details about the project via Locals.com, Rubin's social media platform. The author of 2020's "Don't Burn This Book" created the cyber network to allow artists to speak their minds without fear of cancellation.

Brown, via the series' Locals.com page, called the woke movement "totalitarian" in nature. He said the show will detail the origins of the woke mindset "and how and why it needs to be dismantled." 

The first episode of the seven-part series will bow in June, with new installments released every other week, Brown said. He left open the possibility of more episodes after that, depending on funding.

Brown and Rubin, alongside series contributors, author Douglas Murray and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Portland State University Peter Boghossian, broke down "Reformation" on Rubin's video podcast. The director also shared his personal ties to the material.

The Portland-based filmmaker grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home and yearned to break free from its religious dogmas.

"I moved to Seattle and then Portland … I thought I'd agree more with these people, but I don't," Brown said. "There are similar dogmas and religious-like belief systems."

"I see people constantly being indoctrinated into this woke religion," he added. "I wanna help people understand this problem, in particular liberals and progressives."

Murray, the author of the 2019 book "The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity," says the woke movement established a foothold in the culture without much of a struggle.

"We're dealing with fundamentalists," Murray said of woke true believers. "The biggest growing sect of our time has been growing underneath us without being identified."

The woke ideology is "divisive" at its core, Boghossian argues in the film's incendiary trailer, which features violence and racially-charged rhetoric tied to identity politics and other woke subsets.

Modern documentaries rarely touch upon woke culture, let alone in a critical fashion. The late 2019 release "No Safe Spaces," co-starring Adam Carolla, Dennis Prager and Tim Allen, offered a notable exception.

That movie, which grossed nearly $1.3 million at U.S. box offices, got labeled as a conservative feature due to the presence of Prager, Rubin and other right-of-center personalities. That's despite the laser-like focus on free speech and appearances by liberal figures such as Van Jones and Cornel West.

Brown, who began working in the film industry in 2010, hopes his series avoids that fate.

"I want this series to appeal to everyone, he said. 

But he's realistic. "There's a certain sect that will be very angry with me for making this," he admitted. "Those people are unfortunately lost altogether."

The series, he said, hopes to illuminate the inconsistencies in the woke mindset and how it divides, not unites, us.

"People are using racism and sexism as political shields for political power and social clout," he added.

Murray noted recent developments suggest the Western world may be ready for a series like "The Woke Reformation." He recalled how French leaders like President Emmanuel Macron are standing up to the woke mindset.

"This isn't academia," he said. "It isn't thought. It isn't philosophy. It's dogmatic politics. It attempts to bully everyone by presenting itself as incredibly intelligent and intimidating people."

"The more people see other people not being intimidated by it, the more they won't be intimidated by it themselves," Murray told Rubin's audience.

Episodes of "The Woke Reformation" will be available first to paid subscribers at locals.com, followed by general release a week or so later via YouTube.