Hollywood is deep in a strange period of cultural flux, one in which #MeToo is viewed with increased suspicion, wokeness has become a punchline, and race, gender identity and complex geopolitics are routinely monetised in the service of corporate content strategy. Representation matters – especially when there's profit to be made.
Early on in Warner Bros' new superhero movie Black Adam, a teenager in the fictional but unmistakably Middle Eastern city of Kahndaq confronts a white soldier from an occupying army. "You're just a neo-imperialist enforcer," he seethes, with all the conviction of a screenplay siphoned from a few hours spent on social media.
