Whether he’s talking about Nazis or about Roseanne Barr, Tim Allen has been making a fool out of himself for years.
Too many people who were famous on television in the ’90s have spent the past decade alienating and horrifying former fans. Allen is among the most infamous.
This week, he took to Twitter to demand to know “who is the face of woke.” And he got even sillier.
It was, accidentally, the funniest that the alleged “comedian” has been in decades. But people are laughing at him, not with him.
For the sake of keeping things together, we will start with the quote before we break things down.
“Who is the face of woke,” the former actor asked.
He then suggested: “Do wokees have a club house in someone’s backyard or maybe a cute yet safe playpen somewhere?”
Like we said, that is a lot to process. But once you’re done laughing, let’s take a look at the replies.
One person quipped that “Every full moon at midnight, we meet at the Hollywood cemetery right by where they buried your career.”
Really hitting him where it hurts, we see.
Another more generally mused: “Why are Republicans so resistant to being decent?”
And yet another reply brought up Allen’s infamous cocaine arrest, dubbing him the “face of coke.”
Back in the ’70s, Tim Allen proved that not all snitches get stitches. Some go on to enjoy high-profile careers after collaborating with authorities to ruin other lives.
Okay, before we get into a breakdown of what exactly made Allen’s tweet so deeply absurd, we have to go with my favorite reply.
One tweet chose to interpret “wokees” as “Wookiees,” the fictional species from Star Wars. Many fans are familiar with characters like Chewbacca, Tarfful, and Gungi.
The reply acted as if Allen were sincerely asking questions about the Wookiee homeworld, Kashyyyk. Excellent humor.
(Personally, I would have used screenshots from the canon Jedi: Fallen Order, but everyone has their own taste)
So now that we’ve all had a good laugh at a fallen comedian’s expense, let’s get into the details.
Just what made his tweet so dang corny?
“Who is the face of woke,” Allen’s tweet began. There is, of course, no answer.
Woke is term with origins in AAVE, and refers to simply being conscious (as in awake) of systemic inequality in all of its complexity. This is particularly relevant to racism, but also applies to intersections of marginalization and oppression.
Simply put, being woke means being aware of both right and wrong and having to knowledge to understand people’s sometimes-invisible struggles, as well as the pernicious social forces behind them.
Is there a face of helping an elderly neighbor with her groceries? Is there a face of cheering up a friend?
Allen’s question betrays the type of thinking that many on the political right possess — the idea of obeisance to a leader.
Some Trump supporters expect President Biden’s voters to worship him, or to gnash their teeth at insults towards him. Similarly, Allen seems to imagine a Woke Thought Leader towards whom all decent people feel loyalty.
“Do wokees have a club house in someone’s backyard or maybe a cute yet safe playpen somewhere?” he asked.
This time, Allen was at least aware that he was making a joke. Just not a particularly good one.
Unfortunately, because political malefactors continue to try to coopt “woke” to mean something sinister, it’s hard to have an adult discussion. Perhaps the best response to someone using “woke” as a negative is to ask them what they think that it means. Or, better yet, simply block them. Excising bad people from your life is often a good idea.