Box Office
Flop · 0.0xBudget$60M
Worldwide Gross$5K
Damsel flips fairy tales into feminist "girl-boss" empowerment with DEI casting, sparking "woke trash" backlash and middling RT scores (56% critics/59% audience) despite massive Netflix views.
Damsel prominently features a feminist narrative that subverts the traditional damsel-in-distress fairy tale by centering a young woman, Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown), who must fight a dragon for survival after being betrayed by her royal in-laws, emphasizing themes of female self-reliance, independence, and 'female rage.' Brown, who also produced, has openly described the film's theme as feminism and positioned it as turning fairy tales 'upside down,' with director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo highlighting the flip of chivalry tropes.
This empowerment arc drives the entire plot, transitioning from victim to badass fighter, which some viewers found corny and abrupt. Casting includes notable diversity for a medieval fantasy setting, such as Angela Bassett as Elodie's stepmother (a prominent Black actress in a royal-like role) alongside other POC actors like Nicole Joseph and Patrice Naiambana, prompting scattered complaints of 'Netflix woke' forced inclusion to meet DEI checkboxes, though not a dominant backlash.
Reception is mixed (56% critics, 59% audience on Rotten Tomatoes), with some YouTube critics and forums labeling it 'woke feminist trash' or highlighting annoying girl-boss elements and illogical diversity, but it achieved massive Netflix viewership (top movie of 2024 first half, 35M+ views debut week), indicating the ideology didn't fully tank it. The progressive elements are noticeable and shape the core story and marketing without overwhelming into lectures on systemic issues or unjustified source alterations (original screenplay), but they contribute to criticisms of prioritizing message over coherent plotting.
We've run a full content analysis on Damsel and scored it 6/10 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 Damsel's overall score.
Wokeometer focuses on ideological content rather than traditional ratings (violence, language, etc.). Damsel is rated PG-13. 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 →
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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