Bad Apples
movie·15·Sep 10, 2026·
Bad Apples scores a low 2/10 on wokeness by focusing purely on a teacher's ethical dilemma, a disruptive student's removal, and UK education system failures, with zero identity politics or social justice framing.
The film centers on primary school teacher Maria (Saoirse Ronan) who kidnaps her violent, foul-mouthed student Danny (newcomer Eddie Waller) after repeated disruptions, only for the class to improve dramatically in his absence, forcing questions about complicity in others' suffering and failures of the underfunded UK education system including Ofsted inspections and bureaucracy.
This premise draws directly from the moral dilemma in the source novel De Oönskade, adapted by director Jonatan Etzler (a former teacher) and screenwriter Jess O'Kane (also a former teacher) to emphasize personal teaching experiences, dark humor, and ethical trade-offs rather than any identity-based framing. Casting includes Jacob Anderson as fellow teacher Sam and Rakie Ayola as principal Sylvia alongside a range of supporting performers with names reflecting contemporary UK demographics, but these are incidental new characters in a realistic Somerset setting with no established-character changes or DEI mandates.
Creator statements repeatedly highlight the story's focus on how systems handle those who 'can't fit into society' and audience discomfort with moral ambiguity, with no references to social justice activism, critiques of traditional norms, or identity politics. Reception has been largely positive for its satire on education without notable backlash tied to progressive messaging.
Methodology: Each score synthesizes audience discourse, critic and aggregator reception, and press coverage — weighed against the work itself, not any single source.
See how this title scores across all 5 woke subcategories with detailed explanations.
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We've run a full content analysis on Bad Apples and scored it 2/10 on the woke scale. Read our detailed breakdown above to see exactly what we found.
Our analysis checks for themes like identity politics, race-swapping, gender ideology, environmental activism, anti-religious messaging, and other progressive agenda elements. The score breakdown above shows which specific categories were flagged and how heavily they factor into Bad Apples's overall score.
Wokeometer focuses on ideological content rather than traditional ratings (violence, language, etc.). Bad Apples is rated 15. For a full picture, combine our woke analysis with the age ratingto decide if it's right for your family.
We evaluate media across multiple ideological categories on a 0–10 scale. Scores of 0–3 mean story-first, 4–6 have moderate elements, and 7–10 flag heavily agenda-driven content. Learn more about our methodology →
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