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Babylon
Movie

Babylon

2022 • Comedy, Drama

Woke Score
8
out of 10

Plot

A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

Overall Series Review

Babylon is an epic, frenetic, and over-the-top depiction of early Hollywood’s transition from the silent era to 'talkies,' tracing the rise and dramatic fall of multiple characters caught in the industry's unbridled decadence and chaos. The film relentlessly portrays this foundational American institution as a place of moral depravity, exploitation, and fleeting fame. Key characters include a wildly ambitious aspiring starlet, a veteran movie idol, a determined Mexican-American studio assistant, a Black jazz trumpeter, and a Chinese-American lesbian performer. The narrative is defined by extreme hedonism and a hyper-focus on sex, drugs, and the corrosive nature of ambition. It explicitly shows the industry's racism and homophobia as a systemic barrier, particularly for non-white and queer characters, yet it also presents this depraved, chaotic setting as the essential birthplace of a great new art form, which creates a highly mixed cultural message.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics7/10

The movie centers on characters defined by their race and ethnicity, depicting the racial hierarchy and systemic oppression of early Hollywood. The Black jazz trumpeter is forced to wear blackface to satisfy studio demands, showing a direct vilification of 'whiteness' as the oppressive, exploitative power structure. The Mexican-American protagonist succeeds largely by shedding his true identity and passing as a Spaniard. Success is achieved through capitulation to the system's racial strictures, not purely on merit.

Oikophobia9/10

The film’s central conceit is that early Hollywood, a significant American cultural and civilizational engine, is a 'Babylon,' defined by unbridled decadence, depravity, excess, and chaos. This frames a major Western cultural institution as fundamentally corrupt from its inception. The spectacle focuses on the debauchery of the ancestors (Hollywood founders) rather than respecting their sacrifices. The industry is shown as a savage, soul-crushing entity, hostile to the individuals within it.

Feminism5/10

The main female lead, Nellie LaRoy, is presented as a 'wild-child' who breaks class and gender norms to achieve stardom. While she is not a 'Mary Sue' as her career dramatically collapses, her rise to fame is fueled by a raw, uninhibited ambition and a rejection of traditional feminine restraint. The focus is entirely on a career of chaotic self-fulfillment.

LGBTQ+8/10

Alternative sexualities are a visible part of the narrative and are not merely in the background. Lady Fay Zhu is explicitly a lesbian character. She is shown singing a number with overtly queer lyrics about her 'girlfriend's pussy,' centering alternative sexuality in the narrative’s depiction of Hollywood’s excess. A relationship between her and the main female lead is also suggested.

Anti-Theism9/10

The title 'Babylon' itself is a direct biblical reference for a place of sin, moral chaos, and godlessness. The narrative immerses the viewer in a world of pervasive hedonism, strong and crude sexual content, and drug use, framing it as an era of 'unbridled decadence and depravity.' The story operates entirely on a foundation of subjective, transactional morality and ambition, demonstrating a complete spiritual vacuum and a wholesale embrace of moral relativism where transcendent morality is absent.